Lifecycles

Starting later

For anyone who never had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or who is finding their way back to Jewish practice as an adult. There is nothing to make up for, and there is a great deal available.

You already are one

This is the part worth reading first, because a lot of people carry the opposite belief for decades.

A Jewish boy becomes bar mitzvah at thirteen and a Jewish girl becomes bat mitzvah at twelve, counted on the Hebrew calendar. It happens on the birthday. It requires no ceremony, no synagogue, no tutor, no party and no parental involvement of any kind. A child in a country where Judaism was illegal became bar mitzvah on schedule. A child whose family had drifted away entirely became bar mitzvah on schedule. So did you.

There is therefore no missing status, nothing that lapsed, and no deficit to be made up. What you may not have had is the moment — the aliyah, the room, the people, the being marked. That is a real thing to have missed, and it is one of the few things in life that can simply be had later, in full, at any age.

Why people arrive at this page

Some of the routes, none of which require an explanation:

You grew up in the Soviet Union, or your parents did, and this was not available. There was no bar mitzvah to have. A large part of this community is in exactly that position, and if it is easier to start in Russian, there is a whole programme in Russian — classes, dinners, a library — on this page.

Your family was Jewish but not observant, and it never came up. This is the most common story in the South Bay by a wide margin.

You are one Jewish parent’s child and the Jewish half of the family was the quiet one.

A parent died and you found yourself in a synagogue every morning saying Kaddish, and discovered you wanted more of it than the eleven months. This happens constantly, and it is one of the commonest doors back in there is. See the year of mourning.

You have children and they have started asking questions you cannot answer.

Something happened — an illness, a move, a birthday with a zero in it — and you found yourself wanting to know what you are part of.

No one of these is a better reason than another, and none of them will be interrogated. The Jewish view of this is unambiguous: what matters is the mitzvah you do now, and the past is not a debt collector.

What an adult Bar Mitzvah looks like

There is no fixed form, which is a feature. Some of the shapes people choose:

• An aliyah. Called to the Torah by your Hebrew name, two blessings either side of the reading, ninety seconds. The blessings can be learned by ear in a few sessions if Hebrew reading is not there yet, and nobody in the room will know or care that it was.
• Reading the portion yourself, if you want the larger version. Several months of work.
• Tefillin, for the first time, that morning — or on any ordinary Tuesday, with no ceremony at all. See the tefillin page; it takes about four minutes and you can do it today.
• A d’var Torah: something you learned, prepared and said out loud to people who came to hear it.
• A kiddush, so that the community eats in honour of it and hears your name. Sponsoring one is the usual way.
• A Hebrew name, if you never had one or have lost track of it. Straightforward to arrange and quietly significant.
• Nothing public at all. Some people want the aliyah with no announcement, no photographs and no fuss, and that is an entirely legitimate way to do it.

For a woman, the day is built from the mitzvot themselves rather than at the Torah: candle lighting, a d’var Torah, a siyum on something completed, a gathering. Many women choose a Hebrew birthday, or the yahrzeit of a grandmother they are named after, and make something of it.

Where to start if you are not ready to decide

Nothing on this list commits you to the one after it.

• Come to a Shabbat morning service and sit at the back. Nobody will approach you unless you want to be approached. What to expect is written out, including the bits that are awkward the first time.
• Eat a Friday night dinner at someone’s table. Say so here and you will be placed with a family. This is the single fastest way to find out whether any of it is for you.
• Learn to read Hebrew. Adults do this successfully at every age. It is a skill, not a talent, and the letters are twenty-two.
• Take one class, or learn one-to-one with somebody once a week — see learning. A weekly chavruta is the most common way an adult here actually rebuilds a Jewish life, and it looks like nothing at all from the outside.
• Put up a mezuzah. One mitzvah, done, complete in itself. See building a Jewish home.

On not feeling behind

The single most common thing adults say on the phone is a version of “I should know this already.” You should not. Nobody is born knowing it, most of the people sitting confidently in shul learned it as adults too, and the ones who learned it as children have forgotten most of it and are following along in the English.

The Chassidic instinct here is worth borrowing whole: a mitzvah is complete in itself. It is not a payment against arrears and it does not need the ones around it to count. One candle lit on one Friday is a whole thing. A single morning of tefillin is a whole thing. There is no ledger, and if there were, nobody here would be reading it.

Whatever your family did or did not do, whatever you did or did not do, you are as Jewish today as anyone else who walks in that door, and there is no probationary period. Call 408-910-2034 whenever you like.

Questions people ask

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