My Barmitzva sucked. Seriously. I was 13 and I was about to become a man, and yet, I was lacking all the things that in my mind at the time made someone a man.
For one thing, I had like a total of 4 friends show up to my party. These days I turn on MTV and see some “My Sweet Bat-Mitzva” reality show where some rich, spoiled brat of a girl gets to invite 800 friends to the Beverly Hills Hotel and giving out Porches as table gifts. I had 4.
Don’t get me wrong, my party was packed and off the hook. I had my family, grandparents, my cousins and my sister even went on to invite her friends…all 50 of them. That’s right! My sister had more friends at MY party than I did. I was 13, they were all 18. There was a brief moment where I felt very cool. Only now I realize, I was a charity case for the local high schoolers who needed a place to drink their Pabst Blue and Saint Idez on a Saturday afternoon.
My Barmitva sucked for a lot of reasons. The party was one thing. Then there was the whole money thing. For those not familiar with Barmitzvas, it is customery in Jewish tradition to give the kid who is becoming a man, some money! First of all, may I add that this sounds like the most un-jewish thing to do? Since when are we givers of money? By tradition, you give a check for 18 dollars. "18" represents “Life” or “Lechaeem”. So a check for 18 dollars is customery. That is some of the cheapest tradition I ever heard of. First of all, a check for 18? Could they not round it up to a 20? Secondly, I ended up with like 100 checks all made out to 18 dollars. You know how much math goes into that at age 13?
The worst part of my Barmitzva, was the studying. You see, the only people who take the reading portion of the Barmitzva is the Rabbi. In a Barmitzva, the 13 year old who is stepping up to be a man, must wake up early to attend Temple (if I am supposed to become a man, can’t I be man enough to choose to sleep in?). Basically, you study months in advance for this event with a Rabbi. I don’t think the guy who was teaching me was a full-on, hardcore Rabbi. He was the “I only do this cause chicks dig guys with beards” kind of Rabbi.
I say that the studying was the worst because it involved me learning how to sing with a post-puberty voice that has just learned how to crack. I sounded like Barry White on helium. Learning how to read the “Torah” with that voice was like asking me to sing a Mariah Carey song underwater. It was exhausting, it was frustrating and at the end of the day, I knew I sounded like crap and was too embarrassed to even attempt to do it correctly. But the Rabbi insisted that I learn it because “God” wants to hear me sing it correctly. It would please him. That stuck with me. Pleasing God really comes down to singing in tune?
Tomorrow is Passover dinner. I will not be attending temple or even attempt to read the book during dinner. Over the years, I have disconnected from tradition and began to form my own. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is the lack of attendance at my party (I sang that song the best I could and God still didn’t have 800 people at my party). Regardless of the reasons, I will not be going all out this year with celebration of the Passover.
Yesterday I started talking to a co-worker about Rabbis in New York and the U.S. and I learned that parts of New York have “Shabas Elevators”. I am not sure if these exist in the rest of the country but the concept made me curious. For those not familiar, Shabas is the day of rest (Saturday) and for the real hardcore people (Rabbi and his family of minions) means no use of electricity, no watching TV, no playing xbox360, and no driving…..except... apperently a Rabbi can be in an elevator as long as someone else pushes the button.
I was thinking about this for a bit. The Rabbi can NOT sit in the passanger side of a car as long as someone else is driving (heck, most of them refuse to take a Taxi here in NYC to temple on Saturday) but yet, if after temple he feels like he needs to make a quick stop at Macy’s Men’s Department on the 4th floor, he can get into the elevator as long as someone else pushes the button.
I even learned that some apartment buildings have this “Shabas Elevators” which actually get programmed to just stop on every floor, so a Rabbi can come in and wait until he is delivered to his floor. Just like Take-Out delivery!
This whole concept sounds suspicious to me. Is God forgiving if you ride an elevator but not a car? Is it because it is moving vertically? Was there something in the Bible that said “You will not gain entrance to God’s party if you move horizontally on Shabas!” and some Rabbi said “They didn’t say anything about vertically!”
Seriously people! This is why I hated my Barmitzva. Silly rules that can be bended. What’s the point? You either follow or you don’t. No reason to swim in the center.
This Passover, I will be celebrating with my wife over a nice dinner and some heavy cleaning. The best part, I can sit in comfort and know that God will not be mad at me this Saturday, because I, live in a "walkup"!
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