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At
the age of 13,
every Jewish child takes his/her place in the Jewish community,
accepting his/her own responsibility for obeying God's commandments.
This rite of passage is marked with a beautiful ceremony called
Bar or Bat Mitzvah (son or daughter of the commandment). At
Temple Beth Am, our Bar/Bat Mitzvah program is a comprehensive study
of Hebrew prayers, chanting and reading from Torah and Haftarah.
All of our B'nai
Mitzvah (children
of the commandment) take place during a Saturday morning
Shabbat service in the sanctuary. Some are singles, some are doubles
(depending on the size of the class),
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all students, regardless of gender, have the same basic requirements.
They lead a portion of the morning service, they chant the Torah blessings
and chant a portion from the Torah (the
scrolls in the ark which contain the Five Books of Moses),
and they chant the Haftarah blessings and a Haftarah portion (a
section from the Prophets). |
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The
Bar/Bat Mitzvah preparation
actually begins when your son/daughter is in the 3rd grade. During
weekday Hebrew School,
Cantor Schechtman and Rabbi Pollack lead weekday tefillah (prayer
services) where students practice reading and chanting many of the
prayers they will lead during Shabbat morning worship. Additionally,
they spend some of their Sunday music time learning to chant the
blessings for the Torah and Haftarah.
Students meet
on Monday afternoons with Cantor Schechtman, Rabbi Pollack and a
couple of student aides in small groups (10 or less) as part of
a rotation in their 7th grade curriculum. During these sessions,
students practice the prayers of the service, as well as the verses
of Torah and Haftarah that they have been assigned. Each students receives MP3 files of all the prayers, which are easily
downloadable on to their own iPods or MP3 players for easy practice.
Rabbi Pollack
will also meet individually with each student to prepare a devar
Torah, a short essay on the Torah portion during which the student
explores the parasha and then relates it to his/her own
life. The devar is then read during the Bar/Bat Mitzvah
service.
Our
goal is to have every student ascend the bima with confidence and
with the satisfaction of having risen to the challenge as he/she
takes his/her place in the Jewish community.
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week of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah
itself, there will be a rehearsal in the sanctuary for the entire
family. On the Friday evening before the Bar/Bat Mitzvah, the Bar/Bat
Mitzvah child is called to the bimah (raised platform in the sanctuary)
to lead the Kiddush (blessing over the wine)
for the congregation. In addition, the mother (or another relative)
of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah lights the Shabbat candles in the sanctuary
and recites the blessing over them. |
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The
Saturday morning service, which is open to the entire congregation,
begins at 10:30am and is filled with
much anticipation, beauty and a wealth of emotions.
Family
and friends come from near and far to witness this rite of passage
for our young people, and the excitement of the occasion is sometimes
overwhelming.
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We,
at Temple Beth Am, strive
to maintain the religious significance and dignity of the occasion
by keeping the focus on the service and translating that reverence
into acts of lovingkindness.
While we encourage
families to celebrate in whatever manner suits their personalities
and their lifestyles, we remind them, too, that the importance of
this rite of passage lies in the words, music and meaning of the
Shabbat morning service.
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"...It
is not enough to teach our children how to make a blessing. We must
also teach them how to be a blessing. They need to know God,
not just from the prayer book, but from life, to see God in acts
of kindness and in pursuit of peace. As their teachers and parents,
we want them to bring God into the world by being fair, honorable,
considerate. As they develop physically and mentally, we need to
help them develop spiritually and to exercise their soul. Bar and
bat mitzvah is too often a time for unwrapping presents when it
should be a time for unwrapping the gifts of the spirit which created
the art and literature, the heroic deeds and moral teachings of
our people."
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-
Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso-
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