1.
The morning after the bar mitzvah, I solemnly went to my computer, opened a new Word file, and saved it under the name "Bar Mitzvah Nathaniel - Summary." This is a sacred custom that I strictly observe after every celebration or event.
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On my computer, in an organized folder, you can find a summary of the eldest's Bar Mitzvah, a summary of the Bat Mitzvah a year later, summaries of the Sheba blessings we conducted, summaries of the endings of the tractate, and a series of smaller and smaller events.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type of person to use Excel and reports. So why is it that here, precisely after such an exciting family event, I'm setting up an independent investigation committee this morning to present its conclusions on the sequence of events?
The answer is simple and practical, and at the same time exciting: I am already in the next joy. With God's help and with God's grace, we have another Bar Mitzvah in a year, eight months, and a week. There is an exact deadline. So why in the month of Av 5883 should we start everything from scratch and not learn a little from the experience of the past, that is, the present? What can we do, sometimes these annoying sweet-tempered types are right.
Then I thought to myself that it would be a bit selfish of me to keep the summary report for a year, eight months, and a week. After all, there are people who have a good and successful Bar Mitzvah much earlier, so why not share with them my conclusions, which were written at the beginning of chapters, but it is possible and appropriate to expand them for the benefit of the public who are practicing barmitzvahs?
2.
So shall we begin? The first issue at a celebration, at any celebration, is the issue of the invitees. And that's quite an issue. Who is invited? Who is not invited? This issue has more of an impact on the character of the celebration than any color of napkins. And it's also a very sensitive issue. I must say, honestly, that I haven't yet arrived at the exact formula. In the days before the celebration, I always oscillate between "Who will be offended because they're not invited?" and "Who won't understand why they're actually invited?" And sometimes the difference between the first list, of those who are afraid of offending them, and the second list, of those who are afraid of offending them, is as thin as a hair.
I could write an entire column just about this dilemma. I think it's so sensitive and complicated because it's based on a very charged historical story for us. After all, our Temple was destroyed because of such matters of invitation and non-invitation to joy.
But the bottom line is that it's important to remember: everyone invited has a price. And not just the price of the dish. If you were noble-minded and invited someone who is not actually connected to the event, just to avoid offending them - their presence and the treatment you will have to give them during the celebration, may come at the expense of the appropriate treatment for someone who is very connected to the celebration. And how does that work, at least for me? Naturally, I treat my close friends who are really connected to the celebration much less, because I feel natural with them, so let them get along. Instead, I invest time and energy in the more distant circles.
The Corona forced us to do very small events. The Corona taught us how much the events we did before it were too big. I hope that after it we will know how to find the balance for the exact number of participants in our joy.
3.
I know that perhaps to those who haven't done a Simcha, these lines seem a little strange. What are you doing? Say a nice Mazal Tov to everyone and stop philosophizing. But that's not true. Our time at a Simcha is very limited. We wait for the event for months, dedicate hours to preparing for it, and in the end it's an evening of plus or minus four hours. From eight in the evening to midnight. And in the midst of all this, there's also the ceremony itself, which takes quite a bit of time: at a wedding, it's the chuppah, of course, at a bar mitzvah, it's the sermon by the bar mitzvah groom. Add in the matter of photography and you're left with something like three hours.
What did Amos Guetta, my wife's funny uncle, say to me at the entrance to the hall?
""Friends, you now have three hours to treat 300 people who took the trouble to come to your party. That means less than a minute per guest. It's not an easy task, I know. So here, let's close with you finishing with me in just ten seconds! You can check my V, and you even have some left over... Come on, go and keep working, congratulations.".
I laughed out loud at the precise joke, but really? I also had a small twinge in my heart. Because I would have loved to experience the Bar Mitzvah for a little more than ten seconds with dear uncles. Certainly with an uncle like Amos, who came especially for the event from Rome.
4.
Let's continue. I believe that before long, the following tip will be unnecessary. And perhaps there are those for whom it is already self-evident: Do you have a family celebration coming up? A wedding, bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, circumcision? Even grandma's birthday? Close with a magnet photographer. This is a must. After all, at most celebrations, you invest quite a bit of money in a souvenir from the event. There is no more charming and life-long souvenir (especially if you hired a good photographer who prints on quality material) than a photo that is later hung on all the participants' refrigerators and reminds them of the event long after it has passed.
I still live through Matan and Tamar's wedding (who are already parents to a child), Roni's bat mitzvah (which I didn't even attend, but my wife brought magnets for the most part), and of course Moshe's halakhah (he's about to be a bar mitzvah, and if there aren't magnets there, he'll forever remain a three-year-old on our refrigerator door).
5.
And speaking of refrigerators: As you know, invitations are no longer printed these days, certainly not for bar mitzvahs. Everything goes through WhatsApp. It's amazing, because a total of four years have passed since our last bar mitzvah, but in this regard the world has really changed. I remember myself spending time looking up addresses of distant relatives who have moved, meticulously writing zip codes on envelopes, going to the printing house to choose paper for invitations. All of that simply disappeared from the world. You send hundreds of invitations with the push of a button (it's only important to make sure that the invitation actually reached its destination and was read).
And yet I went to the printing house to print about twenty invitations. Why? Because with all due respect to WhatsApp, I wanted to bring joy into everyday life at home. Both in our home and in the home of the grandparents on both sides. An invitation is not just an invitation. When it comes to people who are truly connected to joy, it is recommended not to be satisfied with just putting the date in the calendar, but also to give physical paper that can be hung on the refrigerator, bumped into (next to the magnets) when we lie down and when we wake up – in the morning when we take out milk for the children’s cereal, and at night when we quietly steal ice cream from the freezer – and rejoice.
6.
And speaking of joy, what is the first mitzvah that a Bar Mitzvah boy fulfills upon reaching the mitzvot? After all, in one moment the little boy becomes an adult who is obligated by 613 mitzvot (unless you follow MK Yulia Malinovsky's Book of Mitzvot), what is the first of them? The evening prayer after the stars have risen and the Bar Mitzvah day has been sanctified? The blessing of the one who brings out the challah at the festive meal?
The Hatam Sofer writes: "The first mitzvah that a boy fulfills immediately upon entering the fourteenth year of his life, when the stars appear: He is happy and joyful that he is worthy of receiving the yoke of the commandment of the Lord his God. And the joy of a mitzvah is a positive mitzvah from the Torah - to perform it with joy and a good heart above all else.".
How lovely. To rejoice. To rejoice in the mitzvot. This is the first mitzvah in life.
7.
Okay, let's get back to the technicalities. Please, I beg you, save on everything: food, design, clothes. Who said that the success of the party is a function of financial investment? But you must invest in one thing: amplification.
Why is this important, you ask? It's all a bar mitzvah with a keyboard and a few sermons. Who cares about the sound? This is not a thirst festival here.
I'll tell you who cares - everyone present in the hall. Not everyone will know how to tell you and themselves that there is a problem with the sound. But if throughout the evening, during the speeches and music, the speaker will be annoying with all kinds of annoying beeps because you relied on the amplification that you were told was in the synagogue hall, then your event will be an event of annoying beeps. Even if it is very invested in other things. Amplification is actually like a smell. It is something that overlaps with everything. So don't overlap with it.
And remember what I'm telling you: That synagogue hall's amplification? You can't trust it. Never. There's always some kind of problem with it or it's not at a level that's appropriate for your event. And I say that broadly about all the halls of all the synagogues in the country, even if it now exposes me to a class action lawsuit by the collectors.
8.
And one last thing (for this column. I would be happy if you could send me tips from your experience with various celebrations for the benefit of the public to the email listed here. There is no wiser person than the one who has a celebration): You have to remember that the bar mitzvah doesn't actually end with the party itself. Well, everything just begins then, that's clear, all life ahead of it, all the mitzvot ahead of it. But I mean something else: that if you hold the bar mitzvah on the night of the date the child was born, that means you also have to remember the next day, because that's the date the child turned 13. And if every birthday is a time capable of prayer, of blessing, of making a good decision, then it goes without saying that this is the case on the most important birthday in a person's life, the day when he becomes a mitzvah and performs it.
So, on this important day, you can go to a festive prayer at the Western Wall (if you have the strength even though you went to bed very late), and you can turn what you are doing in the meantime into a festive prayer.
What do you do the day after the Bar Mitzvah? You open the gifts. And each gift comes with a note with a personal dedication. There are thoughtful and original dedications that people took the time to write at home, and there are those that were hastily scribbled in the hubbub of joy, at the envelope stand next to the safe. Both of these should be given to the Bar Mitzvah groom to read aloud – and everyone in the house should intentionally say Amen. In such a situation, on such a day, even the most clichéd blessing can become very moving. Not to mention the impression it will make in heaven. Don't take a scribbled blessing lightly in your eyes.
So good luck, and may we always meet only in joy. Say Amen!
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva''
