HAVDALA BAR MITZVAH
QUESTION:
Has the CCAR taken a position regarding the increasing use of Havdala Bar Mitzvah services? Our board passed a resolution limiting these services to one per month. However, members are telling me that they are seeing these services elsewhere and are more and more anxious to see them here. My concerns are several:
1. They will come to threaten the centrality of the Saturday morning service.
2. They are contrary to the tradition in that (a) next week’s Torah portion is not read; (b) the time of the service is arbitrary, leading to a Havdala often earlier than the sunset.
There are probably Halachic issues to be raised as well. Is anybody working on this? (Transmitted through Rabbi Joseph B. Glaser, CCAR.)
ANSWER:
ABOUT A DECADE AGO, I was asked whether it was appropriate to have a Bar Mitzvah on a Sabbath afternoon. I answered at that time that it was quite appropriate, since a Bar Mitzvah must take place in connection with a Torah reading, and there is a regular Torah reading at the Sabbath afternoon service. Since that time I have not received a single inquiry about Bar Mitzvah services on Saturday afternoon, until this one; and judging from the text of this inquiry, Bar Mitzvahs in this community have been so frequently arranged for late Saturday afternoon that the congregation has felt compelled to take measures restricting them to one a month.
These late Bar Mitzvahs are arranged as follows: The boy is Bar Mitzvah at the Torah reading on Sabbath afternoon. Then, soon after, there follows a Hav-data service to mark the close of the Sabbath, and then there is the Bar Mitzvah dinner and dance, etc. The congregational complaints against these Bar Mitzvahs are indicated above in the question.
However, it is doubtful whether the congregation will succeed in holding down these Bar Mitzvahs to a small number (one a month or so) because evidently this Bar Mitzvah arrangement must fit the present social situation as well, if not better, than any other arrangement. First of all, the Bar Mitzvah party, dinner, dance, etc., is very important to the family. Otherwise they would not spend so much money on it, as has become the American custom. When the Bar Mitzvah is in the morning on Saturday, the luncheon that follows has to be orderly and sedate. Rock and roll bands and dancing are not appropriate on the Sabbath. That is why we also get inquiries as to whether a Bar Mitzvah can be held on Sunday. The real reason for these requests is that a dance and a party on Sunday would be free from Sabbath restrictions.
The best time for this sort of a party is always Satur day night. It can go on to a late hour because people will not need to go to work the next day. Then why can they not hold the Bar Mitzvah as is customary on Saturday morning and then hold the dinner and dance Saturday night? The objection is that people would have to come twice, and it is much more convenient and acceptable and desirable, from their point of view, if they can go to the Bar Mitzvah service and then, without too much of an interval, have the dinner and the dance. It is evident that this arrangement fits the social wishes of the people, and if it is otherwise acceptable, will undoubtedly increase, as can be seen from the fact that in this community the board of the congregation had to restrict their number. Since, then, we are dealing with a situation which may well spread over the country, it is well to go into the matter in detail from the point of view of the Halacha, congregational welfare, and the mood of the community.
As to the Halachic side of the question, it is obvious that since there is regular Torah reading at the Sabbath Mincha service (the first section of next week’s Sedra), Bar Mitzvah can well take place then. Of course, if the Mincha service is early, say at two-thirty or three on a summer Sabbath, the people would have to wait about five more hours before they could have their dinner and dance. Therefore it is clear that they would want to hold the Mincha service as late as possible, so that there would be only a brief interval between the service and the festivity. The question therefore is: How late may Mincha services be held?
The time of the Mincha service in the synagogue is connected with the Mincha service of the Temple in Jerusalem. The question is: What is the time limit before which the Mincha service could be held? The Mishnah gives two varying opinions. In M. Berachos 4: 1, the general rule is that the Mincha service may be held up to evening; but Rabbi Judah disagrees and says that it must be no later than “half the Mincha” (plag ha-Mincha), which is reckoned, in general, to be about an hour and a quarter before sunset.
The reason for the lack of exactitude as to which time Mincha is still permissible is due to the fact that the “hours” referred to in the Mishnah are different from our hours. Our hours are of uniform length, sixty minutes; their hours varied in length from winter to summer, according to the length of the day. The Mishnah divides the daylight period into twelve hours. Therefore these hours are larger in summer (being one-twelfth of the daylight period, which is longer). So when Mishnah and Talmud speak of the ninth hour of the day, it is virtually impossible to say which hour of our time that is. The ninth hour would mean the time when nine-twelfths of the daylight has passed. At all events, Rabbi Judah’s time limit of plag ha-Mincha is about an hour before sunset, at any season of the year.
As between these two opinions, the law is that either time is permissible. Since the general statement is that Mincha can be conducted “up to evening,” the custom has developed, certainly during weekdays, for people (especially working people who might come into the synagogue after the day’s work) to pray Mincha late, at dusk, and go immediately into the evening service, the maariv; in other words, to pray both services together.
Nevertheless, this practice varies for Sabbath and holidays because of the desire to “add from the profane to the holy,” in other words, to lengthen the Sabbath and the holiday by beginning it early and ending it late. However, even in the case of the Sabbath, under special circumstances, it is permitted to pray the Mincha service quite late and to close the Sabbath with the Havdala service somewhat earlier.
The chief source of this permission is the Talmud in Berachos 27b and the Tosfos (ad l o c) . The Talmud speaks of Rabbi Josiah, who would pray the weekday service (i.e., Maariv) while it was still Sabbath; to which the Tosfos comments that normally this should not be done; we should lengthen the sacred day, not shorten it. But in case of necessity, for the sake of a mitzvah, the Sabbath may be thus shortened. So it becomes the rule in the Shulchan Aruch, in the discussion of the Sabbath evening service {Orah Hayyim 293:2), that under special circumstances, he may pray the Sabbath closing prayer and make a Havdala at and after the plag ha-Mincha (i.e., before it is quite dusk), but that one should leave out the blessing over the kindling light (M’orey ho-esh) because it is still actually forbidden to light fire since the Sabbath is not really over.
This rather early Havdala is therefore permitted for the sake of a mitzvah. But is it really for the sake of a mitzvah that this early Havdala is being done by the families discussed in the question? Actually, it is done for the sake of a Bar Mitzvah dinner and dance. Can we actually say truthfully that this Bar Mitzvah party is a mitzvah?
The question of whether the party has any sacred nature at all is actually discussed by one of the greatest rabbinical authorities, Solomon Luria (Maharshal, 16th cent.). His discussion of the Bar Mitzvah party must have come at the time when the whole idea of such a party was new, because he refers to it as “the seudah which the Germans have.” His discussion is in his Yam Shel Shelomo to Babba Kama (chap. 7, par. 37), in which he discusses various feasts as to which may be considered religious feasts (seudas mitzvos). He includes a feast at the completion of the study of a Talmudic tractate (a siyyum), at a circumcision, and other such occasions. He denies that the party given at the dedication of a new house is to be considered a religious party because he says, frankly, that the people use that occasion to fill their gullets and to be hilarious. Then he mentions “the feast which the Ashkenazim give at Bar Mitzvahs” and he declares that to be a seudas mitzvah, or sacred occasion.
If, then, some words are spoken at the dinner table referring to the religious nature of the ceremony, this may be considered a seudas mitzvah, as Solomon Luria says, and for that purpose a late Mincha service and a somewhat earlier Havdala service (say at dusk, before the three stars appear) is permissible. So, in general, one may say that Mincha may be conducted quite late and then Havdala before the stars appear, all of this in accordance with the Halacha.
But why did the board of the congregation object so much to this arrangement that it passed a law restricting it to only one a month? Their objection is that it will weaken the Sabbath morning service. That is certainly true. The Sabbath morning services everywhere and in all types of synagogues are greatly strengthened by the Bar Mitzvah. If, therefore, the late afternoon Bar Mitzvahs increase, the Sabbath services will certainly lose attendance. Of course one may argue that to make up for it the Sabbath Mincha service, which had become even weaker than the Sabbath morning service, would now be strengthened and revived. However, in the Sabbath morning service the Bar Mitzvah relatives and friends join in worship with the general congregation, but the afternoon service would tend to become exclusively the Bar Mitzvah service. People not connected with the Bar Mitzvah family are not likely to attend.
However, it well may be that it is futile to attempt to prevent these late Saturday Bar Mitzvahs. They are increasing, and they very well may continue to increase because of the social convenience mentioned above. What must be done is to keep it within the decencies of tradition as much as possible. Let it be a late Mincha service, close to dusk. Then it will be followed by the Maariv and the Havdala service when it is definitely dark. Then the Bar Mitzvah party, in mood and in the words spoken, should certainly begin as a seudas mitzvah. In that case, the new custom may be deemed quite acceptable.