Personal Narrative: My Bar Mitzvah

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Under Jewish tradition, boys are given Bar Mitzvahs upon reaching the age of thirteen (the female variety is a Bat Mitzvah). Typically, Bar Mitzvahs are hosted in synagogues and require substantial interaction with a rabbi. For my Bar Mitzvah, however, my family found an alternate route. Instead of at our synagogue, my Bar Mitzvah would be at an excavated archaeological site in Israel. I quickly felt guilty for agreeing to this arrangement. I had long been dreading the arduous preparation that my synagogue required for Bar Mitzvahs, but now it seemed that extensive Talmudic study would not accompany my transition to adulthood. Most of the work associated with my Bar Mitzvah would consist of learning to read my parsha (a Torah portion, …show more content…

Upon arriving at the base of the plateau, my mother, who is a fan of hiking, ordered that we transport ourselves to the fortress by foot rather than avail ourselves of a cable car. As I trudged upwards, I watched my brothers and parents fall far behind me. Once I reached Masada, I took a seat on a rock near the mouth of the trail and turned to assimilate the surroundings of my elevated position. A vast, barren, variegated landscape greeted me; amid the desert lay the Dead Sea, which from my perspective was no more than an unobtrusive interlude to the general bleakness. I wondered what I had done to merit seeing such splendid scenery. When my family finally joined me—fifteen minutes after the Bar Mitzvah had been slated to begin—, I said, “Look! We should have taken the tram. Now we are late.” My investment in the upcoming event, however, was insufficient for our tardiness to produce any real distress in me. A rabbi met us at the site, and it was he who was responsible for the majority of the tasks that a Bar Mitzvah entails (a portion of which my Bar Mitzvah skipped); I saw his presiding role as a sign of my dereliction. We located the room that we had reserved among the ruin—a room with red, stone walls, small holes as windows, and a roof that shielded occupants from the sun. I positioned myself at the pulpit alongside the rabbi, and my parents and

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