bat mitzvah – From Under the Fig Tree

Sister Act

joselitApril 1, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

There’s been a flurry of interest of late in the bat mitzvah, a religious rite of passage that marks the Jewish girl’s coming of age. It takes the form of panel discussions about ritual practice and performances of actual bat mitzvah speeches as well as a national collection effort to gather bat mitzvah paraphernalia. Fascination with the bat mitzvah even culminates in a travelling exhibition, Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age, which was made possible by the National Museum of American Jewish History and Moving Traditions. Wherever you turn, the bat mitzvah is in the news.

Making its debut in New York in March 1922, the very first documented bat mitzvah was that of Judith Kaplan, the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, whose lively imagination and innovative spirit left a profound, and enduring, imprint on virtually every aspect of American Jewish life.

Today the bat mitzvah has become so integral a part of the American Jewish landscape that it’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t. But ninety years ago, Judith Kaplan’s coming of age ceremony was a modest and unassuming bit of business -- more of an intimate family affair than a provocative, far-reaching communal innovation.

As it gained momentum and increasingly caught on among American Jewish girls and their parents, this newfangled rite of passage -- a 20th century phenomenon, through and through -- occasioned more than its fair share of controversy, especially among traditionally-minded congregants who had not grown up with it. The bar mitzvah, after all, dates as far back as the 13th century. By comparison, the bat mitzvah is a Johnny-come-lately, a ritual without a pedigree. ...continue reading "Sister Act"

Rites of Passage

joselitNovember 27, 2011November 16, 2017Leave a comment

At first blush, most of us are probably inclined to liken religious ritual to an heirloom, something handed down to us from our parents and grandparents. We’re enjoined, sometimes explicitly and sometimes more tacitly, to take care of rituals, to ensure that they don’t vanish. When seen from that perspective, ours is the responsibility of stewards, curators and historians.

But now and again, we’re reminded of an alternative reality, one in which we’re not just caretakers but architects of ritual practice. And when that happens, we come to see that rituals themselves are anything but static.

Take, for instance, the steadily growing popularity of the bat mitzvah. An innovation of the 1920s, it took hold, little by little, within American Jewish circles, slowly gathering momentum and acceptance. By the 1980s, the bat mitzvah had become as entrenched and widespread an American Jewish phenomenon as its male counterpart, the bar mitzvah whose origins dated back to the 13th century. ...continue reading "Rites of Passage"

Our rituals, our selves

joselitAugust 31, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Shulkhn Arukh. Venice, 1565. Credit: Kestenbaum & Company Auctioneers, New York. Link.

I sometimes wonder what the codifier of the Shulkhn Arukh (The Set Table), that 16th century compendium of traditional Jewish ritual practice, might make of American Jewry.

This, after all, is a community whose members have perfected ‘kosher-style cuisine,’ while ignoring the strictures of kashruth, and who’ve reduced the 25 hour Sabbath to a nocturnal experience: the Friday night “oneg” at synagogue.

And that’s just the half of it. Earlier in the 20th century, contemporary critics were so alarmed by the idiosyncratic nature of Jewish ritual behavior that they worried lest shared norms and practices disappear entirely. In the United States, it was said, every Jew carried his own Shulkhn Arukh.

Then again, this is also a community whose members have come up with a wide range of ritual innovations that enhance rather than minimize tradition. Having just attended the simchat bat of my grand niece, I would certainly add that ritual practice, which has become de rigueur in Orthodox as well as in Reform circles, to the list. Topping it would be the bat mitzvah, a ritual innovation of postwar America and now one so firmly rooted it’s hard to imagine Jewish life without it.

This ongoing tug of war (or maybe it’s just a tussle) between tradition and innovation keeps sociologists and sermonizers scratching their heads. It keeps the rest of us wondering, too.