Bat Mitzvah
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A bar mitzvah (masc.) or bat mitzvah (fem.)[a] is a coming-of-age ritual in Judaism. According to Jewish law, before children reach a certain age, the parents are responsible for their child's actions. Once Jewish children reach that age, they are said to \"become\" b'nai mitzvah, at which point they begin to be held accountable for their own actions. Traditionally, the father of a bar or bat mitzvah offers thanks to God that he is no longer punished for his child's sins.
In Orthodox communities, boys become bar mitzvah at 13 and girls become bat mitzvah at 12. In most Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative communities, the milestone is 13 regardless of gender.[2] After this point, children are also held responsible for knowing Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics, and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life to the same extent as adults. In some Jewish communities, men's and women's roles differ in certain respects. For example, in Orthodox Judaism, once a boy turns 13, it is permitted to count him for the purpose of determining whether there is a prayer quorum, and he may lead prayer and other religious services in the family and the community.[3]
Bar mitzvah is mentioned in the Mishnah[4] and the Talmud. Some classic sources identify the age at which children must begin to participate in the ritual of fasting on Yom Kippur as 13 for boys and 12 for girls. The age of b'nai mitzvah roughly coincides with the onset of puberty.[5] The bar/bat mitzvah ceremony is usually held on the first Shabbat after the birthday on which the child reaches the eligible age.
The modern method of celebrating becoming a bar mitzvah did not exist in the time of the Hebrew Bible, Mishnah, or Talmud. Early rabbinic sources specify 13 as the age at which a boy becomes a legal adult; however, the celebration of this occasion is not mentioned until the Middle Ages (from approximately 500 CE to 1500 CE; see Post-classical history).[citation needed]
The term \"bar mitzvah\" appears first in the Talmud, meaning \"one who is subject to the law\", though it does not refer to age.[14] The term \"bar mitzvah\", in reference to age, cannot be clearly traced earlier than the 14th century, the older rabbinical term being \"gadol\" (adult) or \"bar 'onshin\" (one legally responsible for own misdoings).[13]
Reaching the age of bar or bat mitzvah signifies becoming a full-fledged member of the Jewish community with the responsibilities that come with it. These include moral responsibility for one's own actions; eligibility to be called to read from the Torah and lead or participate in a minyan; the right to possess personal property and to legally marry on one's own according to Jewish law; the duty to follow the 613 laws of the Torah and keep the halakha; and the capacity to testify as a witness in a beth din (rabbinical court) case.
Many congregations require pre-bar mitzvah children to attend a minimum number of Shabbat prayer services at the synagogue, study at a Hebrew school, take on a charity or community service project and maintain membership in good standing with the synagogue. In addition to study and preparation offered through the synagogue and Hebrew schools, bar mitzvah tutors may be hired to prepare the child through the study of Hebrew, Torah cantillation and basic Jewish concepts.[citation needed]
According to Rabbi Mark Washofsky, \"The Reform Movement in North America has struggled over the bar/bat mitzvah. At one time, this ceremony was on the verge of extinction in Reform congregations. Most of them preferred to replace bar/bat mitzvah with confirmation, which they considered a more enlightened and appropriate ceremony for modern Jews. Yet the enduring popularity of bar/bat mitzvah prevailed and today, in our communities, bar/bat mitzvah is 'virtually universally observed' by Reform Jews.\"[19]
In 2012, concern about the high post-bar/bat mitzvah drop-out rate led the Union for Reform Judaism to launch the B'nai Mitzvah Revolution, an effort to shift Reform congregations away from \"the long-held assumption that religious school is about preparing kids for their bar/bat mitzvah\" and focus instead on teaching them how to become committed and involved members of the Jewish community.[20]
In most synagogues, a designated officiant, the ba'al korei, reads all of the Torah portions, and the people receiving each aliyah only say the blessings before and after their portion is read.[13][24] A bar mitzvah boy may learn to act as the ba'al korei, either for the entire service, for just his aliyah, or any range in-between.[22] He may also be ba'al korei for the haftorah portion if he receives the maftir, or may only be ba'al korei for the haftorah, without reading from the Torah at all.[22] Any of these undertakings involves a steep learning curve and much practice, possibly taking a year of study, and is an impressive accomplishment.[25]
The obligation to lay tefillin begins when a boy reaches bar mitzvah age. The common custom is for the bar mitzvah boy to begin putting on tefillin one to three months before his bar mitzvah. This way, by the time he is obligated in the commandment, he will already know how to fulfill it properly.[26]
In some times and places, local Jewish leaders have officially limited the size and elaborateness of mitzvahs.[27] For example, only ten men were permitted to attend the party in 1730 in Berlin, and the music was banned at these parties in 1767 in Prague.[27] These rules were usually meant to avoid offending non-Jewish neighbours, and to maintain the rule that it be a smaller celebration than a wedding.[27]
Bar and bat mitzvah parties among wealthy Jewish families in North America are often lavish affairs held at hotels and country clubs with hundreds of guests.[28][29][30] The trend has been mocked, most notably in the movie Keeping Up with the Steins. In the 1950s, Rabbi Harold Saperstein of New York described them as too often being \"more bar than mitzvah\".[27] Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says that over-the-top bar mitzvah parties were already common when he was growing up in Miami in the 1970s.[31]
In 1979, the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis addressed the Reform attitude toward bat/bar mitzvah: \"Every effort should be exerted to maintain the family festivities in the religious mood at the bar/bat mitzvah. Some of the efforts of early Reform in favor of confirmation [and] against bar mitzvah were prompted by the extravagant celebration of bar mitzvah, which had removed its primary religious significance. We vigorously oppose such excesses, as they destroy the meaning of bar/bat mitzvah.\"[20]
Today many non-Orthodox Jews celebrate a girl's bat mitzvah or a non-binary teen's simchat mitzvah in the same way as a boy's bar mitzvah. All Reform and Reconstructionist, and most Conservative synagogues have egalitarian participation, in which women read from the Torah and lead services. In Orthodox communities, a bat mitzvah is celebrated when a girl reaches the age of 12.
The majority of Orthodox and some Conservative Jews reject the idea that a woman can publicly read from the Torah or lead prayer services whenever there is a minyan (quorum of 10 males) available to do so. However, the public celebration of a girl becoming bat mitzvah in other ways has made strong inroads into Modern Orthodox Judaism and also into some elements of Haredi Judaism. In these congregations, women do not read from the Torah or lead prayer services, but they occasionally lecture on a Jewish topic to mark their coming of age, learn a book of Tanakh, recite verses from the Book of Esther or the Book of Psalms, or say prayers from the siddur. In some Modern Orthodox circles, bat mitzvah girls will read from the Torah and lead prayer services in a women's tefillah. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, a prominent Orthodox posek, described the bat mitzvah celebration as \"meaningless\", and of no greater halakhic significance than a birthday party. However, he reluctantly permitted it in homes, but not synagogues,[32][33] as the latter would be construed as imitating Reform and Conservative customs; in any case, they do not have the status of seudat mitzvah.[34] Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef holds that it is a seudat mitzvah.[35]
According to the archivist at the Great Synagogue in Rome, the custom of a young woman being called up in synagogue before the entire community dates back to the early years of the Roman Jewish community approximately 2,300 years ago. The community recognized her as \"being of age\" and acknowledged her in a public fashion. This would support more modern documents that record an Orthodox Jewish Italian rite for becoming bat mitzvah (which involved an \"entrance into the minyan\" ceremony, in which boys of thirteen and girls of twelve recited a blessing) since the mid-19th century.[37] There were also bat mitzvah rituals held in the 19th century in Iraq.[38] All this may have influenced the American rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, who held the first public celebration of a bat mitzvah in the United States, for his daughter Judith, on March 18, 1922, at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, his synagogue in New York City.[39][40] Judith Kaplan recited the preliminary blessing, read a portion of that week's Torah portion in Hebrew and English, and then intoned the closing blessing.[39][41] Mordecai Kaplan, an Orthodox rabbi who joined Conservative Judaism and then became the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, influenced Jews from all branches of non-Orthodox Judaism, through his position at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. At the time, most Orthodox rabbis strongly rejected the idea of a bat mitzvah ceremony.[42][43][33]
The kibbutz movement in Israel also encouraged the celebration of the bar mitzvah. All those coming of age in the community for that year would take on a project and research in a topic of Jewish or Zionist interest. Today many kibbutz children are opting for a more