TBE B’nai Mitzvah* Page
Dear Parent:
The occasion of your child becoming a B’nai Mitzvah is a very special time for you and your family. Mazal tov! We are grateful that you have chosen to celebrate this life passage as part of the Temple Beth El community, and we are excited to share in your simcha with you.
The Babylonian Talmud includes a beautiful prayer that signifies the moment:
May our children see their world fulfilled, trusting in generations past and yet to be, having hearts filled with intuition and words with insight, their eyes shining with the light of holy words and faces reflecting the brightness of the heavens.
The period of training and preparation leading to your child’s B’nai Mitzvah, in which the young adult will lead portions of the Shabbat service, read from the Torah and Haftarah, and provide an interpretation of the scriptures based on personal experience, should be treated as a catalyst in your child’s life — a time for grappling with ideas and identity, both Jewish and secular.
The attainment of this objective is possible only if your child is thoroughly prepared and personally motivated, and it requires the help of clergy, teachers and especially you, the parent.
The following resources have been put together to help you and your child navigate through this coming year of planning and preparation. Please contact Cantor Katie Kaplan throughout the process with any questions you have.
- B’nai Mitzvah Handbook. A comprehensive guide for parents about the TBE B’nai Mitzvah experience. including practical details in making your celebration joyful and uniquely yours.
- B’nai Mitzvah Prayers & Melodies. All the prayers and blessings B’nai Mitzvah students should learn to help lead the service on Friday night and Saturday morning.
- 2021 B’nai Mitzvah Shabbat Service Signup. Beginning one year in advance of the B’nai Mitzvah date, we expect students to attend two Shabbat services per month, and one must be on Shabbat morning.
- Blessings & Instructions for People Receiving Aliyahs. For those who need help learning how to read or chant the Torah blessings, as well as the choreography of the Aliyah ritual.
* In our effort at TBE to use gender-affirming, inclusive language, we have chosen to use the more neutral term, B’nai Mitzvah, as the ceremony name, rather than Bar or Bat Mitzvah. We realize that B’nai Mitzvah is the plural masculine form, but because in Hebrew mixed-gender groups default to male language, it is still somewhat ambiguous.
