NYP no. 5762.6

CCAR RESPONSA COMMITTEE

5762.6

Bar/Bat Mitzvah on a Festival

Sh’elah

A family in my congregation wishes to schedule a Bat Mitzvah service on either October 11 or October 18, 2003. Each of these dates is a Shabbat, and both coincide with a yom tov, a festival day: October 11 is the first day of Sukkot and October 18 is Shemini Atzeret. Is there any reason these services should not be scheduled on yom tov? (Rabbi Scott Gurdin, Newport News, VA)

T’shuvah.

1. The Observance of Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah “service” is the synagogue observance that marks a young person’s reaching the age of Jewish majority. The classical rabbinic literature does not mention such an observance, although the Sages do note that a father recites the blessing barukh shep’tarani m`onsho shel zeh (“Blessed be the One Who has exempted me from legal liability for this one’s actions”)[1] when his son reaches the age of thirteen.[2] Later sources record the custom for the young man to lead worship services or to deliver a sermon or lesson (d’rashah) at a festive meal (s`udat mitzvah) held in honor of the occasion.[3] The Bat Mitzvah “service” for young women is an innovation of twentieth-century liberal Judaism,[4] although a nineteenth-century Iraqi authority writes that it was customary in his community to arrange a s`udat mitzvah in celebration of a girl’s reaching the age of majority.[5] The central liturgical element of Bar/Bat Mitzvah is the calling of the young person to the Torah. Thus, Bar/Bat Mitzvah is observed during regularly-scheduled services at which the Torah is read.

2. A Ritual Prohibition? Given that we read from the Torah at festival shacharit (morning) services, is there any reason to prohibit Bar/Bat Mitzvah observance on those days? We might derive such a prohibition from the rule that one does not marry during chol hamo`ed.[6] The Talmud explains this rule on the grounds that “we do not mix our celebrations of joy” (ein m`arvin simchah b’simchah): as we are already commanded v’samachta b’chagekha, “you shall rejoice in your festival” (Deuteronomy 16:14), we should not allow the private wedding celebration to interfere with the public, communal celebration of the festival week.[7] Our Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration is, like the wedding, a private simchah or celebration, surrounded by parties and festivities (although on this, see below). We might therefore draw an analogy between the two celebrations: just as weddings are not held on days set aside for a different sort of rejoicing, it is similarly inappropriate to schedule Bar/Bat Mitzvah on a festival day.

We reject this argument, however, for several reasons. First, the principle “we do not mix our celebrations of joy” knows of numerous exceptions. We Reform Jews, for example, do schedule weddings during chol hamo`ed,[8] and even the traditional halakhah hedges that prohibition with various leniencies.[9] Second, the principle applies only to weddings. Festive meals for other religious occasions may be scheduled during chol hamo`ed, because “only the wedding feast is considered a ‘simchah’” for this purpose.[10] Third, it is our long-standing practice (minhag) to schedule other religious celebrations on yom tov. Many of our communities hold confirmation services on Shavuot[11] and consecration on Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah,[12] and the Central Conference of American Rabbis has declared that these services, rather than distracting from the holy day, actually serve to strengthen its significance in the minds of our people.[13] We might also mention in this connection the universal Jewish observance of Simchat Torah on the second festival day of Shemini Atzeret.[14] From its beginnings, this observance troubled the rabbis, because it involves certain kinds of simchah that have nothing to do with the original meaning of the festival and that seem to conflict with the standards of halakhah. These standards, though, have been relaxed in order to permit the “new,” innovative celebration.[15] In short, we Jews have long been in the habit of “mixing our celebrations,” of associating different kinds of joy with the simchah of yom tov.

Our central objection to this argument, though, is the analogy that lies at its foundation: the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is emphatically not to be compared to the wedding. The analogy does not work, first of all, because Jewish tradition reckons the wedding as a kind of “festival” for the bride and groom, lending that celebration an exalted ritual status that the Bar/Bat Mitzvah observance does not share.[16] We also reject the comparison on grounds of religious policy: the tendency for today’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration to resemble that of a wedding is one of the more regrettable features in contemporary Jewish life. Our concern is not simply with the inordinate extravagance and expense of the parties associated with some Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebrations, an emphasis upon the material side of the simchah that can crowd out its religious significance.[17] We are also disturbed that, in many of our congregations, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah observance has become a private celebration, much like the wedding, to the point that few if any worshipers other than the invited guests will attend the service. Reform Judaism, by contrast, teaches that Bar/Bat Mitzvah be observed as a public event. An observance that proclaims the child’s readiness to assume a full and active role in the religious life of the community ought to take place at a regularly-scheduled congregational service in the presence of the regular worshiping community.[18] We have therefore criticized the custom of scheduling Bar/Bat Mitzvah at the Shabbat minchah service (the inaccurately-named “Havdalah” Bar/Bat Mitzvah).[19] This service, especially if it is not a regularly-scheduled time of worship for the congregation, will likely turn into the sort of private celebration that we should avoid.[20]

Thus, because there is no ground on which to base a ritual prohibition, we conclude that Jewish tradition does not forbid the scheduling of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah observance at a festival service.

3. Festival Observance in Reform Judaism. Yet the absence of a formal halakhic prohibition does not necessarily imply that there is no objection to observing Bar/Bat Mitzvah on yom tov. The fact that our tradition does not explicitly forbid a practice does not by itself mean that we ought to adopt that practice. Before we draw such a conclusion in this case, we need to consider another factor: the quality of our festival observance.

The duty to rejoice on the festival is, as we have seen, a Toraitic mitzvah. The simchah of which this mitzvah speaks is not primarily an inner, emotional state. It is defined rather by a set of ritual duties and prohibitions[21] that focus our attention upon the meaning of the holiday in the history of Israel. Thus, Pesach is “the season of our liberation from bondage” (z‘man cheruteinu); Shavuot is “the season of the giving of the Torah” (z’man matan torateinu); and Sukkot-Shemini Atzeret, called simply “the season of our joy” (z’man simchateinu), is linked in our memory to our forty-year sojourn in the wilderness (Leviticus 23:42-43). The simchah of yom tov, in other words, is “ours,” a collective joy and not a personal one. The agenda of the day is a Jewish agenda, a celebration of God’s redemptive power in the national experience of our people. That collective Jewish agenda should dominate our celebration of the day; we should therefore avoid scheduling events that distract our attention from it. We have already made this point concerning Shabbat, which, we have written, “is not simply a day on which we do good deeds. It is shabbat kodesh, a holy day, a refuge from many of the activities associated with the weekday world of building and planting, sowing and reaping, getting and spending. We do not trespass upon Shabbat, even for the sake of mitzvot, unless those mitzvot must be performed on that very day.[22]” Such is our best understanding of how Shabbat ought to be observed. We would say the same about the observance of yom tov.

Let us not, therefore, be content to say merely that Jewish law does not prohibit the celebration of Bar/Bat Mitzvah on a festival day. We ought to aspire to a higher standard of practice and to a higher conception of our tradition than that. Let us instead ask ourselves a deeper, more complex question: is Bar/Bat Mitzvah truly compatible with our best understanding of the significance of yom tov and of how the festivals ought to be observed in our communities? Having posed this question, we acknowledge that it has no single, indisputably correct answer. One could argue that Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebrations, especially the extravagant celebrations that all too frequently occur in our congregations, cannot but distract our attention from the significance and theme of the holiday. Yet one could also argue that there is no necessary conflict between the observance of this important moment in the life of a young Jew and the observance of an important moment in the life of our people. Our own precedents point in both directions. Our teacher Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof permitted a congregation to schedule a Bar Mitzvah observance on Shemini Atzeret, even though it is a festival and even though it is customary to recite the memorial service (yizkor) on that day.[23] He clearly did not believe that the spirit of the observance violated the requirements of the yom tov. On the other hand, he ruled that Bar Mitzvah should not be scheduled on Yom Kippur, because the celebration “is in jarring disharmony with the spiritual affliction of” the Day of Atonement.[24] It seems to us that either of these decisions could have gone the other way. Rabbi Freehof could just as easily have said that the celebration of Bar/Bat Mitzvah “is in jarring disharmony” with the somber nature of yizkor.[25] He could also have ruled Bar/Bat Mitzvah especially appropriate on Yom Kippur, a day on which we rejoice in our spiritual purification and rededication to God’s service.[26] Our point is not to dissent from Rabbi Freehof but to observe that both of these rulings are based upon judgments concerning the nature of Bar/Bat Mitzvah and the nature of the specific holiday. Such judgments may not admit of an obvious answer. When we make them, we can often imagine good arguments in support of more than one conclusion. Yet make them we must, and we must make them on the basis of our best understanding of the nature of both observances, that of Bar/Bat Mitzvah and that of yom tov.

4. Conclusion. What judgments do we make in this case? The best solution, we think, is not to schedule Bar/Bat Mitzvah on yom tov. While it may not be prohibited “to mix our celebrations of joy,” we ought not to mix the very different messages that these celebrations teach. Though it should be observed as a public event, Bar/Bat Mitzvah is about a particular young person. It brings friends and family together to celebrate his or her “big day” and to rejoice in the simchah of this family. This personal and family simchah cannot help but be a major, indeed predominant theme of the day. Yom tov, meanwhile, is about all of us. It brings a community together[27] to celebrate a defining event in Jewish history and to rejoice in the simchah of the entire family of Israel. We would prefer that these messages be kept separate and distinct, to teach that just as there is a proper time to celebrate as a family unit, so too is there a proper time to join as one, to celebrate with the Jewish people as the Jewish people.

At the same time, we recognize that some congregations will find it difficult if not impossible to avoid scheduling Bar/Bat Mitzvah on yom tov, particularly (as in this she’elah) when the festival day coincides with Shabbat. Given that our tradition does not forbid the observance of Bar/Bat Mitzvah on yom tov, we would permit it, provided that the family understands that the predominant theme of the service is the festival and not their own celebration. Bar/Bat Mitzvah, we stress again, is a public event; the family does not “own” the synagogue service on any day, much less on yom tov. We should take care to emphasize the festival through the liturgy in the sanctuary and at the se`udat mitzvah and through the symbols associated with the day. On Sukkot, for example, the congregants can be encouraged to take the lulav and to visit the congregational sukkah.[28] In such ways we can see to it that the congregation experiences the service as a festival observance and not simply as the celebration of Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

NOTES

  1. Isserles cites this form of the b’rakhah, which omits shem and malkhut (i.e., the name of God and the mention of God’s sovereignty over the world) as the preferred wording (Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 225:2). This is ostensibly because the b’rakhah is not mentioned in the Talmud and therefore lacks the status of an “official” benediction (i.e., one ordained by the Sages). He notes, however, that other authorities hold that shem and malkhut should be mentioned in this b’rakhah. To these authorities we should add the Gaon of Vilna (Bi’ur Hagra to Orach Chayim 225:2). See Mishnah B’rurah, Orach Chayim 225, no. 8.
  2. Bereshit Rabah 63:10, s.v. v’yigdelu han`arim. That thirteen is the age at which a young man becomes responsible for fulfilling the mitzvot is expressed by the Mishnah in Avot 5:21. However, we should be careful before recognizing that age as the point of adulthood in all respects. See Yitzchak Gilat, P’rakim b’hishtalshelut hahalakhah (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan, 1992), 19-31, who argues that the earliest halakhic sources do not know of a fixed “age of majority.” Rather, the obligation to observe the mitzvot either depended upon the child’s physical ability to perform a particular required act or was determined by biological criteria (the onset of puberty). The tendency to view the age of thirteen as the transition point into adult status developed during the Amoraic period, but even then there were exceptions: according to some authorities, certain public functions, such as the eligibility to sit in judgment of capital cases or to sell one’s land, require that the individual in question be at least twenty years old.
  3. Magen Avraham (17th-century) to Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 225, no. 4; R. Shelomo Luria, Yam Shel Shelomo (16th-century), Bava Kama 7:37.
  4. The first such ceremony is thought to be that arranged by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan for his daughter Judith on March 18, 1922, at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York. See Mel Scult, Judaism Faces The Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Detroit: Wayne State U. Press, 1993), 301-302.
  5. R. Yosef Chayim b. Eliyahu of Baghdad, Ben Ish Chai, v. 1, Re’eh, par. 17.
  6. M. Mo`ed Katan 1:7. This rule is codified as halakhah in Yad, Ishut 10:14 and Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 546:1 and Even Ha`ezer 64:6.
  7. B. Mo`ed Katan 8b. It is important to note that this rule applies only to the intermediate days of Pesach and Sukkot and not to the festival day itself. Weddings are indeed prohibited on yom tov, but this is for the same reason that they are prohibited on Shabbat: the fear that one might have to write a marriage document on a day when writing is forbidden (M. Beitzah 5:2; B. Beitzah 37a; Yad, Shabbat 23:14). In addition, marriage is the formation of a contract and the creation of financial obligations, legal acts that do not take place on Shabbat or yom tov (Mishnah B’rurah, Orach Chayim 339, no. 22).
  8. R. Solomon B. Freehof, Reform Jewish Practice, 1:72-73; Questions and Reform Jewish Answers, no. 216.
  9. See Shulchan Arukh Orach Chayim 546:1-3. It is permitted to betroth (to arrange erusin, as opposed to nisu’in) during chol hamo`ed and to celebrate with “dancing and singing”; a man is permitted to remarry his divorcee on the intermediate days of a festival; and weddings may be held on the day before a festival (erev yom tov), even though the wedding feast will extend past sundown into yom tov itself.
  10. See Tosafot, Mo`ed Katan 8b, s.v. mipnei bitul; Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 546:4; Magen Avraham, Orach Chayim 546, no. 5; Turei Zahav ad loc., no. 4, Bi’ur HaGra to Orach Chayim 546:4; Mishnah B’rurah, Orach Chayim 546, no. 11; Arukh Hashulchan, Orach Chayim 546, par. 6.
  11. Gates of the Seasons, 77-78; Reform Jewish Practice, 1:25-26.
  12. Gates of the Seasons, 85; Reform Jewish Practice, 1:26-27.
  13. See the resolutions in: CCAR Yearbook (CCARY), 37 (1927), 209-210; CCARY 65 (1955), 114; and CCARY 67 (1957), 110.
  14. We Reform Jews, of course, who observe but one day of yom tov, observe Simchat Torah on what other Jews in the Diaspora reckon as the first festival day of Shemini Atzeret. See our responsum no. 5759.7.
  15. It is prohibited, for example, to dance on yom tov (M. Beitzah 5:2). Nonetheless, says Rav Hai Gaon, we are permitted to dance on Simchat Torah likh’vod torah, “for the honor of the Torah”; Otzar Hag’onim, Beitzah, no. 63 (pp. 28-29).
  16. See B. Ketubot 3b-4a; Yad, Avel 11:7-8; Shulchan Arukh Yore De`ah 342:1. Since the seven-day wedding feast is considered “as a festival” for the couple, they are forbidden public displays of mourning during that time. Should a relative die during the feast week, mourning is delayed until the conclusion of the feast, just as is the case when a relative dies during chol hamo`ed. Bar/Bat Mitzvah does not postpone mourning. R. Shelomo Luria (see note 3) does refer to the coming-of-age celebration as a “festival” (yama tava) for the young man. This, however, seems to be a homiletical point, connected to a statement of Rav Yosef in B. Bava Kama 87a and elsewhere. R. Luria (the Maharshal) does not suggest that Bar Mitzvah has a status akin to that of a wedding vis-a-vis the laws of mourning.
  17. Questions and Reform Jewish Answers (QRJA), no. 37; Divrei Benei Mitzvah (New York: CCAR, 1990), 3.
  18. Thus, we have insisted that other events that we mark at public worship services, such as baby-namings and blessings of couples about to be married, be allowed to take place at the Bar/Bat Mitzvah “service”; such events are not to be regarded as intrusions upon a private family celebration. See QRJA, no. 33.
  19. The Torah is read at the minchah service on Shabbat; the ritual of Havdalah occurs during the ma`ariv service on Saturday night.
  20. American Reform Responsa (ARR), no. 36; Responsa Committee, no. 5758.9, section II. Our responsa have noted that special circumstances may require that a Bar/Bat Mitzvah be scheduled outside the synagogue or at a private service. Still, we emphasize that these circumstances are special: they should not reflect the congregation’s regular practice.
  21. Among these are the festive meal; the recitation of Hallel and the blessing shehechiyanu; and the outward from the rituals of mourning. See Gates of the Seasons, 62-63; Gates of Mitzvah, 60; Rabbi’s Manual, 252.
  22. Responsa Committee, no. 5756.4. See also the following responsa: Teshuvot For The Nineties (TFN), no. 5755.12, pp. 165-168, no. 5753.22, pp. 169-170, and no. 5751.5, pp. 97-100; CARR, no. 176-177; Responsa Committee, no. 5757.7.
  23. Reform Responsa For Our Time (RRT), no. 3.
  24. Reform Responsa, no. 5. The quotation is at p. 40.
  25. A point that Freehof indeed allows for. See RRT, no. 3, at 18-19: “It is only in modern times, when the Bar Mitzvah celebrations have become so elaborate, that some might feel a contradiction between the Bar Mitzvah joy and the memorial Yizkor.” He goes on to note that a family that does feel that sort of contradiction is free to postpone the Bar Mitzvah observance to another date.
  26. See M. Yoma 8:9: “Rabbi Akiva said: Happy are you, Israel! Before Whom are you purified? And Who purifies you?” Similar considerations lead many halakhic authorities to permit weddings during the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: this period of solemnity may be an especially auspiciously good time for the couple to begin to build a Jewish home and family. See R. Ovadyah Yosef, Resp. Yechaveh Da`at 1:48, and R. David Zvi Hoffmann, Resp. Melamed Leho`il 3:1.
  27. It will be noted, no doubt, that the entire community does not attend our regular festival services but that it would be more likely to do so if Bar/Bat Mitzvah were scheduled on those days. One could argue, therefore, that Bar/Bat Mitzvah observance would enhance the experience of yom tov as a community event. The difficulty with this argument, of course, is that the larger crowd would not be attending the service in order to “experience” the festival. Indeed, the celebration of Bar/Bat Mitzvah would tend to overwhelm the very different atmosphere of the holiday observance.
  28. Traditional practice forbids the taking of the lulav on Shabbat, lest one be tempted to carry the lulav through a public thoroughfare and thereby violate the prohibition against carrying on Shabbat. This is the same reasoning that forbids the sounding of the shofar when the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat (BT Rosh Hashanah 29b). Reform Jewish practice permits both the sounding of the shofar and the taking of the lulav on Shabbat. See R. Solomon B. Freehof, Recent Reform Responsa, no. 6. For additional argumentation, see Mark Washofsky, Jewish Living (New York: UAHC Press, 2001), at 120 and 403

 

Please note that while the responsa shared here are part of the historical record, they do not necessarily reflect current CCAR policy or approach.

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