Chad Froomkin
February 14, 2000
ANTH 101 – Group #7
The Bat-Mitzvah I witnessed was on May 16, 1992, at Temple El-Emeth, which is a conservative temple in the Youngstown area. A Bat-Mitzvah is something very important and sacred to a young woman in the Jewish religion. It signifies the transformation from a girl to a woman. What the young woman has to do to become a bat-mitzvah is to lead a Saturday morning service. The most essential part of the service for the young woman is to do the Haftarah portion. This consists of reading directly from the Torah, saying the blessings before and after the Haftarah, an explanation of the Haftarah, and an address to the congregation by the bat-mitzvah. After that there is a response by the Rabbi and the blessing of the bat-mitzvah from the Rabbi.
Inside the synagogue a certain ambiance was delivered to anyone in it. It had a certain awe to it that is unexplainable. There are approximately two hundred cushioned chairs in the synagogue where the congregation sits, and in front of them were bins that held the prayer books. On the left wall were stain glass windows that were various colors and that had various images and Hebrew words on them. The bright sun on the outside made the windows appear aluminous. In the front of the synagogue was a raised stage that is called a bimah. There were two podiums on the bimah; one was located on the left end and the other on the right end. Behind each of the podiums were four exceptionally tall chairs. In the middle of the bimah was the arc, where the Torahs were stored. The Torah, also known as the Old Testament, contains the whole collection of Jewish writings on the Jewish Law. The arc was very tall and skinny and had twenty panels on it, ten on the right side and ten on the left side. On each of these panels were Hebrew words. To give a celebrated feel, there were flowers on each side of the arc. In the background of the altar was a large wooden structure that came to its highest point in the middle, sloped down to the sides and leveled off when it was behind each of the podiums.
We were through the middle of the service when the Haftarah began. The Rabbi told the congregation to open to page 117 in the prayer books and that is when Jenny, the bat-mitzvah, took over. Even though everyone in the congregation was following the service in the prayer books, Jenny was leading the service directly from the Torah. She stood at the podium to the left side of the stage and started scrolling through the Torah. She started with the blessing before the Haftarah. This was all in Hebrew, and even though I couldn’t translate it into English, I recognized the beauty of it immensely. When Jenny sang this portion it seemed as if it was flowing, and that every word had a certain pitch and volume that was designated to it to make it sound just right.
Next was the direct Haftarah reading. This was read directly from the Torah, and had the same flow as the blessings before the Haftarah did. Although it sounded just as beautiful as the blessing before the Haftarah there was a noticeable difference. The blessings before the Haftarah had a similarity about them, because the same blessings are said before every Haftarah. The Haftarah itself is different because it is said only by that bat-mitzvah. Jenny sang it and pronounced every word so precise and fluent that it seemed as if Hebrew was her primary language. Jenny was actually leading the whole service by herself, and it seemed like a part of the service she had been practicing for a while. It went on for about five minutes and through that whole time it kept its beauty and never lost that integrity it seemed to have.
The blessings after the Haftarah seemed to begin very noticeably, because the first words of this blessing started out the same exact way as the blessing before the Haftarah did. Jenny started the first words loud and bold, compared to the Haftarah, which was soft and gentle. This boldness of her voice made it seem like Jenny was very proud of her accomplishment of the Haftarah. She knew that she did it wonderfully and she was confident that it was a success.
After this, Jenny then had to do her speech. This is where she said what having a Bat-Mitzvah meant to her, and then thanked all of the people who helped her prepare for this special occasion including her family, friends, and members of the congregation. After she was finished with her speech the Rabbi led the service in a song that included the following words: “Simin Tov ol Mazel Tov ol Mazel Tov ol Simin Tov,” and so on. During this song the members of the congregation preceded to throw candy directly at Jenny. The Rabbi explained after that it was traditional to do this to any bat-mitzvah, because the throwing of the candy signifies that they be showered with sweets.
Finally, was the response and blessing by the Rabbi to Jenny. The Rabbi said how proud he was of Jenny and that he knew how hard she worked over the year in preparing for the day. He also said how much he appreciated her family and friends for supporting her. Then he did the Blessing of the bat-mitzvah. He put both his hands on the side of Jenny’s head and then proceeded to say three lines of Hebrew, each line followed by a Hebrew response by the congregation. He then translated the prayer in English: “May God bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his contingents to shine upon you and be gracious onto you. May the Lord turn his contingents upon you and bless you in peace.”
Paul Kutsche defines ritual as the “symbolic expression of the sentiments which are attached to a given situation.” The Haftarah symbolizes the most essential part of the Bat-Mitzvah (the situation). It symbolizes the hard work that the bat-mitzvah put toward her special day. It also gives the situation significance and symbolizes it as an accomplishment. Without this part of the service, the role of the bat-mitzvah does not seem as important.
The Haftarah is a big part of the Bat-Mitzvah and it strengthens the Bat-Mitzvah as a classification of a rite of passage. The rite of passage here is that of a girl becoming a woman. The function that it serves is that of stressing responsibility, because being a woman brings along certain baggage that a girl doesn’t have to deal with. The Haftarah was the big test to see if Jenny was prepared for these new responsibilities.
When I asked Jenny how she prepared for the Haftarah portion, she told me various techniques that were incredibly rigorous and time consuming. She told me she started preparing for this about nine months before her Bat-Mitzvah date. She had to go to the Rabbi once a week and in that half-hour meeting she would go over a small portion of the Haftarah, sometimes just a couple of words or sometimes a couple of lines. The Rabbi then would read a line from the Haftarah and record it on tape, stressing each syllable, pitch, and volume of each word. Then Jenny would go home and play the tape back numerous times until she learned that portion. Every week she went back, the Rabbi added more to that reading and Jenny would go back home and practice not only the added portion, but also the previous portion. Jenny told me that the Rabbi called this his “building block” method. This entailed a lot of hard work and dedication, two of the main characteristics that go along with having a responsibility.
When I asked her what came after her Bat-Mitzvah she hastily said, “nothing, I was done.” She said after eight years of going to Jewish Sunday School, and after five years of going to Hebrew school twice a week, her Bat-Mitzvah signified the end to her religious schooling. To her, the huge responsibility of learning her Haftarah and leading the Jewish service meant a beginning to the rest of her life’s responsibilities, whether it’s in school, in a job, in love or in anything else life had to offer her. Although this signified a rite of passage into her life, it put a closure on her eight years of religious schooling.
The Haftarah can be treated as a beginning for some and an end for others. The religious symbolism of a Bat-Mitzvah is that it is the start of recognizing Judaism as an imperative part of one’s life. The bat-mitzvah is supposed to go through three more years of Hebrew School, a Jewish conformation, and an expected involvement in the temple, whether it be participating in services, actually going to Saturday morning services, or helping the temple with fund raisers or activities that involve Judaism. However, Jenny took the other route. Jenny treated it like everything she has learned in Sunday and Hebrew School helped prepare her for her Haftarah as the final duty of her Judaic studies. She somewhat broke the mold when she signified this rite of passage, not as a continuation, but as a closure to a part of her life.