Bar/Bat Mitzvah

The initial impetus for adult bar/bat mitzvah came from men who, having missed the ceremony as adolescents, felt somehow incomplete as Jews.

Although the bar/bat mitzvah meal is traditionally a seudat mitzvah--a meal with sacred status--extravagance has been rife for hundreds of years.

Rabbinic restrictions on behavior in the synagogue reveal continuing tension between ordinary Jews' sense of being at home and at ease there, and the desire of rabbis to set it apart as a sacred place.

The struggle to find personal meaning in words of Torah and to share that message with the community is the essence of Jewish spiritual maturation.

The bar/bat mitzvah service now focuses on the child as individual, but the synagogue community should not suffer.

Could an aliyah be a way to honor the sacrifices of a non-Jewish mother who raises a Jewish child?

The women's prayer service is becoming the choice venue for a bat mitzvah in Orthodox synagogues that value egalitarianism and learning.

As girls have become the educational equals of boys in Orthodox Judaism, rabbis need to explore halakhah to create a normative bat mitzvah ceremony.

Originally bar mitzvah meant simply "coming of age." The ceremony developed much later.

For converted children, bar/bat mitzvah is a time for affirming their connections with Judaism.

Mitzvah projects are often part of the bar/bat mitzvah observance .

Divorced parents must rise above their own differences and make the day special for the child.