Scroll - Congregation Beth El

I vividly recall my bat mitzvah on March 27, 1981. Mydevoted parents beamed up at me as I recited my haftarahportion (most of which I still remember to this day). Myclose relatives from “the old country” had come from allover the U.S. to share in our simcha. I remember lookingdown from the bimah at the proud faces of my cherishedBubbe Lena Rosensky and her two sisters, Tanta Thelmaand Tanta Dorothy, who had flown in from Chattanooga,Tennessee, where they had settled after immigrating toAmerica from a small shtetl in Eastern Europe in 1926.(Their father, my great-grandfather, had left for America 10years earlier. At last, he had saved enough money to get themout, too.) At 13, I recognized that I would not have beenthere to celebrate that monumental occasion if my grandmaand two aunts had not risked their lives to leave Russia.As I looked out at the crowd, in an effort to calm myTheme: B’nai MitvahFirst Solo Saturday Bat MitzvahBy Joe YoungAt Beth El today, a bar or bat mitzvah or both may becelebrated at our Shabbat morning services; our expectationsand rituals do not differ because of the gender of theparticipants. Until about 30 years ago, however, Beth El’sb’not mitzvah were celebrated only on Friday nights. Thiscustom persisted, even after the congregation voted in 1973to institute total equality for men and women. Women werecounted for minyanim and honored with aliyot, permittedto read the Torah and haftarah and to lead services, but girlsstill had to celebrate their b’not mitzvah on Friday nights,reading the haftarah “for show,” since it wasn’t part of theservice.As it neared the time to schedule our daughter Michal’sSeptember 1978 bat mitzvah, Leila (my late first wife) and Ibegan to panic. A Friday night bat mitzvah for Michal wasunacceptable to us. Oddly, at that time, it was not unusualfor pre-bar or bat mitzvah children to read Torah on Shabbat,and Michal had already read before the entire congregation.Ironically, we were being faced with a situation inwhich it would have been possible for her to read Torah ona Shabbat morning both before and after her bat mitzvahbut not for her actual bat mitzvah.After some pressure from a number of concerned families—many,the parents of sons but not daughters—and ayear’s study, a motion was passed that allowed girls the op-The Ancestors Who Made It PossibleBy Sheryl Rosensky Millertion to schedule their b’not mitzvah on either a Friday nightor a Saturday morning. The change was to take effect forthe 1978-79 year, for which no b’nai mitzvah had yet beenscheduled. For the 1977-78 year, a girl would be allowedto change her ceremony to a Saturday morning if no barmitzvah was already scheduled for that date—no bar mitzvahcould be displaced. That motion allowed us to scheduleMichal’s bat mitzvah for September 1978. As luck wouldhave it, that made Michal’s the first solo Shabbat morningbat mitzvah ever held at Beth El.The Tallit Had to WaitYou might think that was the end of the matter, but it wasnot. Michal did not wear a tallit at her bat mitzvah; thathonor had to wait three years, until her younger sister Avigaylhad her bat mitzvah. Friday night bat mitzvah ceremoniesremained an option for a number of years. Today, I amcertain that any girl asked to have a bat mitzvah ceremonyon a Friday night would be flabbergasted.I don’t know if their Shabbat morning b’not mitzvahhad anything to do with it, but Michal and Avigayl haveremained committed Jews. Michal, a marketing executive,and her husband are active members of their local MassachusettsConservative congregation, and she still reads Torahand haftarah. Her four children attend the local SolomonSchechter School. Avigayl was the first woman brought upin the Beth El community to be ordained as a rabbi at theJewish Theological Seminary. She is now a Jewish educatorin Massachusetts. •nerves, I saw my smiling Grandpa Abe, who left Poland atage eight, but would never, ever talk about his arduous lifethere. He was next to my Bubbe Ruth Kirschenbaum whohad been like a second mother to me until she passed awayfour years ago. On that special day, my love for my relatives,who fled Europe to give future generations of our family abetter life, was overwhelming.None of my relatives from the “old country” are alive today,but my heart still fills with warmth, love, and gratitudeevery time I think of them and their fun Yiddish expressions,Yiddish songs, and inimitable accents that barely existanymore. When I recently shared my bat mitzvah album withmy daughters, Lindsey Ariella, named for Lena Rosensky, andAmanda Eliana, named after Abraham Kirschenbaum, all thememories came flooding back to me. On my bat mitzvah day,I recalled, doing my very best was the least I could do for mycherished relatives who had sacrificed so much to enable myfamily and me to live in America, where we could freely practiceJudaism without fear. •13