We went to a cousin's Bar Mitzvah on Saturday. A first for both myself and The Serene One. The Serene One's extended family is very flexible when it comes to religion. The uncle of the Bar Mitzvah or "son of the commandment" was heading to Catholic Mass the next day. They all get along fine, but there is always a certain amount of cluelessness in the family pew no matter what event we're at.
Luckily for us, there was a 47 page program available for us to follow during the two and a half hour event. Whew. It was in Hebrew, phonetic Hebrew and English. I loved the music and the cool chanting. The Serene One got to wear a yarmulke.
I didn't realize, but ceremony or no ceremony, party or no party, when a boy turns 13 he becomes an adult. We got him a cool card that said "Congratulations! You are now a man. But you still can't drive yourself home."
There were two funny parts of the service:
- Unintentional: The Bar Mitzvah was to read a section of the Torah aloud. After he carried it around the temple for everyone to touch, the rabbi took it and laid it on the altar. The rabbi peered very closely at the script and kept winding the scroll to the left. Then he wound it to the right. Then he called up an older man to help him. Apparently, the section that our Bar Mitzvah was going to read aloud is repeated several times in the Torah. He couldn't find the right one. After some further consultation and scratching of heads, the assistant came forward with his guitar and started us all singing a song. As we would say in the performing arts, "Stall them. We've got a costume change."
- Intentional: Near the end of the ceremony, the entire congregation was asked to help our Bar Mitzvah remember how sweet the moment was by pelting him with candy. A shower of Swedish Fish came down on him as he ducked behind the podium.
All in all, an interesting event. I did a lot of Google research and pumped my friend Little M for info. It's nice to participate in these kinds of things. At two and a half hours though, I'm glad the next one isn't for another four years!
2 comments:
at mass one day, they went to get the communion wafers, and there wasn't enough there. they started searching frantically, and the priest figured this out and turned to the cantor (the singer) and said, "um, sing something." she stared blankly for a moment, then started to strum her guitar, singing, "kumbayah, my lord... kumbayah." half the congregation was singing along confusedly and the other half couldn't stop laughing. it was good times. :)
The part about the Torah reminds me of:
My mouse does not have a scroll wheel ( my next mouse will). I think the "find on this page" feature under Edit is another useful one.
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