A Bat Mitzvah Blessing

Saturday proved to be a very wonderful blessing. I attended the Bat Mitzvah of a very special young lady and was given an aliyah during her candle lighting ceremony.

I feel I must first preface this with some background in order to better understand my epiphany.

Throughout my life I have always been drawn to religion. I am fascinated with all kinds, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Morman, Episcopal, and Wicca – just to name a few. I have studied the religion I was raised in and, for the most part, been an active member of my religious community. Please do not get the impression that I am a holy-roller. I feel that all religions have their own beauty to be honored and they form an integral part of families and society.

I had the good fortune of working for a Jewish Synagogue for two years. As I am not Jewish, and knew little of the traditions and faith, I learned a lot and grew to respect Judaism. The services are beautiful; the prayers are of peace and love, and wonderful unaltered traditions. Since then, I have attended quite a few Shabbat services, Bat/Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings – and loved them all.

However, this year when I was invited to this young lady’s Bat Mitzvah, I did not have the enthusiasm to attend as I normally would have had. A part of it was my circumstances at home. As I have begun to explain in my prior posting, my marriage was tested at great length this summer and was consuming much of my time and energy. Two dear friends are in the middle of divorcing their spouses and need support. My sister has been seriously evaluating her romantic relationship, and is now engaged with me as the matron of honor – need I say more about the emotional and time commitment here. My “big brother” just had his first child and gave my husband the honor of being a G-dfather. My grandfather & father celebrated milestone birthdays, 80 & 60 respectively. And these things are just the tip of the iceberg. So as you could imagine I have been emotionally taxed this summer.

Then on the other hand, and more than likely the part that weighed heaviest on my heart, was the connection that the young lady has to my job. A brief synopsis of my job – it is a performing arts school for children owned and run by a husband and wife. When I started over 8 years ago, I loved it. Then a new employee was re-hired after a 10 year non-amicable leave of absence. She and I are worse than oil and vinegar, we are like a highly volatile chemical that has been shaken vigorously and thrown into a fire. The owners are of no help, they do not even try to resolve the issue, they just chose to ignore it or privately placate both of us. This young lady happens to come to the performing arts school. She began before this other co-worker and her mother and I grew very close. As her talent grew, she was asked to begin working with this co-worker, and has now been one of her students for the past 3 years. The owners, this co-worker and others, a few other families that attend the school, and me were invited to the Bat Mitzvah. Now, I can barely stand this co-worker when I am getting paid to deal with her, nevertheless on my own time in a social atmosphere with the two-faced owners. So, I hesitated on attending.

I failed to submit my response, and when the young lady’s mom called to see if I was coming I brushed her off with some sorry excuse. The owners had not yet responded either, so I assumed that they wouldn’t be attending. I had heard from the parents that were invited that the co-worker and a few teachers had said they were going to attend. With this information I had decided that I was not going to attend. Two weeks before the Bat Mitzvah the young lady’s father had asked me in person about what my decision was. Now mind you, although I am not Jewish I am quite familiar with the little thing known as a Jewish guilt trip, it’s not too different from the ones my family is known for. The effort that he put forth in coming to me in person to find out my decision was the beginning of the guilt trip. I couldn’t say no, but I still didn’t want to say yes. Began to hear words from my family’s guilt trips; “how could you say no to a little girl?”, “he showed you the respect of coming in person”, “how can you look this man in the eyes and say no?”, and so on and so on and so on. Yes, this all happened in my wee-little brain in a matter of seconds – years of guilt trips can do that to a person. So I said that I would attend Shabbat service and the Kiddush, but due to an important engagement regarding my husband’s career I would not be able to attend the reception in the evening. Her father was said, but said he understood and kissed me goodbye. WHEW – that wasn’t so bad after all!

The next day I get a phone call from her mom. She was upset, not mad or angry, but confused and hurt. She said that her daughter had wanted to give me an aliyah at the candle lighting ceremony during the reception. Apparently, she had told me this several months ago, but I had forgotten. Now this was the cherry on top of the guilt trip. I was now left with no other option, I had to attend. I told her I needed to talk to my husband and explain the situation. Don’t get the wrong impression, my husband was invited, they were truly hoping he would attend, but he truly did have to participate in this career presentation. Once I began to explain everything to my husband, his first response was that I had to attend. He tried to get out of his career event, but it wasn’t possible. So the next day I told the mom I would go. This brings us to today’s events.

After hanging out late with the girls the night before, I woke up, took a shower and rushed to the Synagogue. You see the invitation said 9AM. I am usually “fashionably late”, however knowing I was going to a more conservative synagogue I wanted to be on time. I arrived a few minutes after 9, and there were few cars in the parking lot. As I entered the synagogue, I was greeted by the President, the Ritual Committee, and the Rabbi. Funny to say I was the first one there! This little Shikse was there before the girl making her Bat Mitzvah! The President showed me where I could get a siddur (prayer book), the Parshah & Prophets book (both required during the ceremony to follow along, unless you have your own as many do, but again I’m a shikse remember?), and a head covering (as is tradition for all married women entering the synagogue). Prayers began at 9:30AM with the service following at 10:00AM. Okay, enough of religion 101.

As service progressed, more people came. I found myself sitting behind a family from Israel, in front of the recently retired Chairman of the Ritual Committee, and next to a Reformed female Rabbi. Oy Vey! However, I did well following along and even received a few compliments from my neighbors. For this 40 year old synagogue it was the first time a woman had read from the Torah, this was a big honor to the young lady, her guests, and fellow synagogue members. And, I must say, she did beautiful! The tradition of passing the Torah from the eldest generation to her brought tears to my eyes. The enthusiasm in the chanting of the prayers, not only from the adults but from the children as well gave me goose bumps. They were praying from the heart. It was a wonderful experience. I felt like such an idiot for almost missing it. I realized that it is in the sharing of traditions so close to one’s soul that we learn to grow as humans, and love unconditionally.

I helped set up for the Kiddush – maybe a little of that guilt trip revisiting, you know trying to make up for being such a schmuck. Afterwards on my way home the importance of the day began to sink into my fat little head. This little girl has spent her entire religious life gearing up for this one brief moment. She learned another language with the help of her rabbi at home and her cantor who had to move back to Israel a few months ago when the bombing began. She had to connect with her Torah portion and Haftarah, I mean truly understand what the story was trying to teach and then summarize it to the attendees. She even developed her own Mitzvah based on her Torah portion. She is going to donate half of her Bat Mitzvah money to help children of Israel get glasses so they can see. Let me tell you this little girl, excuse me, young lady is extraordinary. I began to realize how much of an honor it was to be there, to witness the transformation of a little girl into a young lady.

Later that evening was the reception. Now for this, I was “fashionably late” – a half hour to be exact. I missed most of the cocktail hour, which was fine by me because I didn’t really feel comfortable socializing with parents from my job and I didn’t really know anyone else there. I was by no means expecting to be buddy buddy with the Bat Mitzvah or her parents as they had guests to attend to.

We entered the reception hall and the band was playing and children were dancing. The pink balloons that decorated the back mirrored wall spelled out her name. The centerpieces were silver and white balloons illuminated from the mirrored plate they were attached to. The young lady had changed into a princess pink party gown, and looked picture perfect. Everything was once again beautiful.

Once the guests were seated, the Torah shaped caked was rolled onto to the dance floor and a single candle behind it was lit. The lights got brighter and the Bat Mitzvah girl took the microphone, stepped up to the candle and the DJ began playing music. It was time for her to give 13 aliyahs, one for each year of her life. (Aliyah normally refers to the first time one reads from the Torah or is asked to give a blessing and therefore reserved for someone from the Jewish faith, however when done during the reception it is the host(s) way of acknowledging, honoring, and blessing those who have influenced his/her life regardless of their religious affiliation). I truly don’t recall in what order this happened, who came first, or anything like that, I just remember how I felt and how I feel it was an acknowledgement from G-d.

Before saying the honoree’s name(s), the young lady recited a brief rhyming poem describing why that person(s) is important to her. She began to speak of her involvement in the performing arts and how it has become such a large part of her life since she came to our school at age five. She then called out 3 names to come and light one of the thirteen candles. Only one of the honorees was in attendance, me. There were some gasps since 2 of them did not come, they said they were coming but for unknown reasons did not show. One of them happens to be related to the aforementioned difficult person I work with and dislike. Now after the shock of the no-show honorees, the people began to clap. The parents from my job began to cheer. The Rabbi stood up. Her parents smiled with tears in her mother’s eyes. I have never been so honored in all my life. Just for the simplicity of being there, supportive, respectful, and loving I was receiving this great honor. What made it all the more wonderful was that I was being acknowledged by virtual strangers for just being me! I could not believe it. This was all happening because of this extraordinary young lady. Me, little old me, had had such an impact on her and her family’s life that I was receiving this aliyah. And then to top it all off, after all my reservations about attending due to superficial reasons because I choose to do the right thing and attend, I left an impression on those at the reception.

Later I danced the hora with descendants of Holocaust survivors, two Rabbis, the retired Chairman of the Ritual Committee (he kind of adopted me for the day), the parents and children from my job, and the Bat Mitzvah and her parents. The Chairman told me my hora wasn’t too shabby for non-Jew. Then there was a photo montage of the young lady through the years with her family and friends. Once again I was honored to have my picture with her included in the montage. Once again there were cheers. And then I finally knew that this was one of those moments when G-d is present and letting his love be felt. It covered me like a warm blanket on a chilly fall night. I know this was her day, but I could not ignore my own feelings. If it wasn’t for her I never would have had this experience. I never would have felt His love like I did tonight.

I have been making a lot of changes in my life. I’ve been meditating and praying for guidance, for the grace to make the right choices. At times I thought I could see the path before me, but the wind would blow and I’d wait until the dust settled before I could continue. But this night was magical. It was an answer. A confirmation to me that I am on the right path and as long as I continue to love and act out of love everything will fall into place.

A sheynem dank young lady and family. There are not words that could even attempt to express my gratitude.