The bloody B'nai Mitzvah

Piggy

Unlicensed street skeptic
Piggy
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Well, I went to my first Bar/Bat Mitzvah (B'nai Mitzvah) yesterday, and as I mentioned on another thread, it was a wonderful little affair, not much different from a Christian confirmation service.

But one thing seemed... well, bizarre, really.

Each of the kids had to do a Torah reading, and they chose adjoining passages, Deuteronomy 16:18 through 20:20.

This was not what I was expecting.

Some selections from that section of the Torah:

"If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones."

"When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded...."

It seemed kind of odd for 13-year-olds to be reading those particular passages.

And much of the rest of the ceremony was all peace and love, about how loving kindness and the golden rule are all of the Torah and the rest is commentary, you know.

I didn't get a chance to ask the Bat Mitzvah's parents about this, whether it's a traditional reading or one chosen by the kids. I've emailed, waiting for a reply.

Anyone know about this?

Anyone else surprised by it?
 
Piggy said:
Well, I went to my first Bar/Bat Mitzvah (B'nai Mitzvah) yesterday, and as I mentioned on another thread, it was a wonderful little affair, not much different from a Christian confirmation service.

But one thing seemed... well, bizarre, really.

Each of the kids had to do a Torah reading, and they chose adjoining passages, Deuteronomy 16:18 through 20:20.
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There's a story told of a group of senior Rabbis becoming concerned at the number of nice young Jewish men and women being attracted to Buddhism and New Age pursuits. After some discussion they elected to resurrect and promote Kabbalah, figuring that if young Jews were going to pursue mystical nonsense it would be better that it was Jewish mystical nonsense.

Perhaps now they're trying to bring back some fundamentalism.

Nick
 
Nick227 said:
Perhaps now they're trying to bring back some fundamentalism.
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Nah. Reform congregation in an affluent suburb, female rabbi who talked about how it's up to today's leaders to decide what's right and you can't just go look it up and see how folks used to do things. Not fundie at all.
 
Welcome to the Religious Experience, Piggy!

In a world full of contradictory nonsense, one man dares to question the status quo, and lives to tell the tale...

(With apologies to the friends and family of Don LaFontaine.)
 
The Torah is divided up into poritons, and (usually) read from one end to the other, over the course of the year. The portion of the Torah assigned to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah person is (usually) a chunk of whatever portion was going to be read, that Saturday, anyway.
 
Wowbagger said:
The Torah is divided up into poritons, and (usually) read from one end to the other, over the course of the year. The portion of the Torah assigned to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah person is (usually) a chunk of whatever portion was going to be read, that Saturday, anyway.
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I just got a message from the Bat Mitzvah's mom, and that's what she said. They got the section of the Torah which fell on the week they were B'nai Mitvahed.

Taking that into consideration, I have even more admiration for those kids. It was a difficult passage to comment on under those circumstances.
 
Piggy said:
They got the section of the Torah which fell on the week they were B'nai Mitvahed.

Taking that into consideration, I have even more admiration for those kids. It was a difficult passage to comment on under those circumstances.
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They were supposed to COMMENT on it?! I had no idea that this ritual involved making the subject a "rabbi for a day"!
 
Delvo said:
They were supposed to COMMENT on it?! I had no idea that this ritual involved making the subject a "rabbi for a day"!
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Well no, it doesn't go that far. But they're supposed to demonstrate that they've at least thought about it, that they're not just chanting meaningless syllables in Hebrew.

Their comments were, of course, quite general and idealistic and naive, as you'd expect from 13 year olds. But they performed admirably, considering what they had to work with.
 
Others beat me to the explanation.

In my experience -- and I admit the torah portion assigned to the kids of my acquaintance was never such a knotty one -- the kids try to make the commentary pertinent to their own lives.

And in a sense, the youngsters are actually "rabbi for a day"; the rabbi is a teacher, and this ritual moves them into adulthood (which has a large teaching component associated with it), so they share the teaching responsibility for the day. Without a bar/bat mitzvah going on, the rabbi reads the torah portion, and comments on it, and that is exactly what they're doing.
 
Wowbagger said:
The Torah is divided up into poritons, and (usually) read from one end to the other, over the course of the year. The portion of the Torah assigned to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah person is (usually) a chunk of whatever portion was going to be read, that Saturday, anyway.
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Bingo. For my Bar Mitzvah I had to read 'Vayakel' - for all the stories in the Torah that involve violence, mystery, excitement, the creation of the universe, and so on, would you like to know what my portion was about?

It's a list.

A damn list.

One huge, stupendous list, where Moses brings all the Israelites together and tells them what they need to gather up and how to build something - I believe it was the tabernacle.

And then I had to give a speech about it all. A speech about a damn list. Lucky for me, I attended a reform Synagogue, so standup comedy was not only permitted, it was encouraged.
 
Mobyseven said:
Bingo. For my Bar Mitzvah I had to read 'Vayakel' - for all the stories in the Torah that involve violence, mystery, excitement, the creation of the universe, and so on, would you like to know what my portion was about?

It's a list.

A damn list.

One huge, stupendous list, where Moses brings all the Israelites together and tells them what they need to gather up and how to build something - I believe it was the tabernacle.

And then I had to give a speech about it all. A speech about a damn list. Lucky for me, I attended a reform Synagogue, so standup comedy was not only permitted, it was encouraged.
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So, perhaps something like the second passage from this post? Wow. Given the choice, I'd rather comment on the passage about putting all the men to the sword and taking all the women and children as loot.
 
Piggy said:
So, perhaps something like the second passage from this post? Wow. Given the choice, I'd rather comment on the passage about putting all the men to the sword and taking all the women and children as loot.
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It's this potion.

Though it does sound nice in Hebrew, with the tonal reading system. Unfortunately, the content basically boils down to: "Moses brought everyone together and said, do this list of stuff with these items. And then everyone did the list of stuff with the items. Specifically, this one guy did this part, and this other guy did this other part. And other people did stuff too. Did we mention the list yet?"
 
Mobyseven said:
Unfortunately, the content basically boils down to: "Moses brought everyone together and said, do this list of stuff with these items. And then everyone did the list of stuff with the items. Specifically, this one guy did this part, and this other guy did this other part. And other people did stuff too. Did we mention the list yet?"
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What is it with the Bible and repetition? I was also struck by this bit in the OP:

...and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.
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Got that? Not marshmallows.
 
Delvo said:
What does "b'nai" mean?
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I think it means, roughly "group" (or "community" or "congregation").

So more than one kid in the ceremony makes it a B'nai Mitzvah.
 
So, do parents ever schedule around the Torah selection?

I mean, if I had a Bat Mitzvah to schedule for my 13 year old daughter, I think I'd probably move it up a week or two if she was to have to comment on, say, all men having to be circumcised on the foreskin of their penis.
 
Piggy said:
So, do parents ever schedule around the Torah selection?

I mean, if I had a Bat Mitzvah to schedule for my 13 year old daughter, I think I'd probably move it up a week or two if she was to have to comment on, say, all men having to be circumcised on the foreskin of their penis.
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It's set depending the celebrant's birthday. No real choice...
 
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