blogs/rabbi-huberman

Fifty Years After My Bar Mitzvah

Exactly fifty years ago, on a sunny day in Montreal, I stepped into my tailored blue suit, picked up my neatly folded tallit, and, with my parents, brother, and grandparents, began the ten-minute walk to my bar mitzvah.

The world was different then.

Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States. Lester B. Pearson was Prime Minister of Canada. The top five songs on the Billboard charts were You Can't Hurry Love,followed by Yellow Submarine, Sunshine Superman, See You In September, Summer in the City, and With A Girl Like You.  Alfie was the top movie, and Valley Of The Dolls was the bestselling book.

Jean Beliveau was captain of the Montreal Canadiens. Bob Nevin led the New York Rangers.

That week, That Girl, The Monkees, and the original Star Trek debuted. The Metropolitan Opera House opened at Lincoln Center, Sandy Koufax again surpassed three hundred strikeouts in a season, and Chevrolet introduced the Camaro.

On that day, fifty years ago, in front of three hundred friends and family, I chanted my Haftarah, and led most of the service. I delivered a speech written for me by my dad.

The following night, our family hosted a "night affair" led by Zev Lerner and his Orchestra. Relatives -- most of whom I really didn't know -- danced the Bunny Hop, the Cha Cha, and the Bossa Nova.

And as a shout-out to my thirteen year old classmates and friends, the band offered two songs so we could "make thego-go." The songs were Hanky Panky and Georgy Girl.

At the time, I had no idea what would follow. There was so much pressure at the time not to embarrass myself; I gave little thought to my future as a Jew.

In the months that followed, many of my friends dropped off the Jewish map. Indeed, these events were so pressure-laden and void of any spirituality that they often served to minimize rather than enhance their Jewish connections. Meanwhile, I remained active in our synagogue.

Our congregation, the Young Israel of St. Laurent, was a close-knit liberal Orthodox community of about one hundred and fifty families which, when it opened, had great potential.

But, ultimately, after commuter tracks, an expressway, a cemetery and factories surrounded the neighborhood, the synagogue aged out and our building was eventually sold to an Armenian church.

In its latter days, my father became our lay leader. He would organize services, and even deliver High Holiday sermons.

When his work schedule demanded that he travel out of town up to seven months a year, at age thirteen, I became one of the primary prayer leaders.

It is that foundation in traditional davening (prayer) which grounds me today.

It was not a perfect Jewish life. Most Saturday mornings, when my father was home, he'd boot open the door of mine and my brother's bedrooms and force us out of bed to attend synagogue.

During my latter teen years, especially after a night out, I often resented having to get up and lead services for a dwindling group of aging men.

During the 1970s, I sought escape from this world of Jewish obligation, and took a job as a newspaper reporter three thousand miles away in northeastern Alberta. When Patte and I eventually moved to Edmonton, I rejoined Judaism on my own terms, and, as they say, the rest is history.

This is the journey I recalled this week with my friend and congregant Peter Orshan, who, hundreds of miles away in Roslyn, celebrated his own bar mitzvah on that same weekend fifty years ago.

The featured song at Peter's "night affair" was Hanky Panky.

At Shabbat services this week, we will both be called to the Torah and reflect upon the past fifty years, and our Jewish journeys from childhood to adulthood.

Next week, I'll travel to Toronto to spend a day with my parents, my daughter, and my grandson. I plan to look at the album of my bar mitzvah photos. I will touch the faces of those distant relatives who danced that day, most of whom are no longer with us. It will be a bittersweet review.

Many of my thirteen-year-old classmates are now grey-haired. They are contributors to society, participants in their communities, and role models to their children and grandchildren.

Yet, I wonder if all of us were to now convene fifty years later, what would we remember, and what lessons and memories would we recall?

For, in spite of all the eccentric teachers we endured at Hebrew day school, something remained. Not every one of us is seated in the front rows of our respective synagogues every Shabbat, but a common sense of community, reflection and kindness endures.

There is so much I have learned about Judaism during the last fifty years, in many ways, in spite of those intense early years of rote and repetition.

I have learned that Judaism is more than pews and prayer books. It is about the compassion which we extend to each other, and the kindness which we infuse into the world.

I have learned that those prayers and rituals which many of us were convinced came directly from Mount Sinai, were composed and conjured by elders of their times. There are new prayers and rituals which we can divine.

I have learned that each one of us has a Torah, and what is Jewish for each of us may differ from person to person. Yet, each of us is precious is God's sight, and in the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel "no one has a monopoly on holiness."

I have learned that all humanity shares a universal desire to live in peace. While the Jew is commanded to be a light until others, and to leave this world each day better than when it started, I also have learned that all religions, based in love, humility and reflection, share this prayer.

I have learned that Judaism is not found within the hair splitting of Biblical quotes, but rather upon the values that they are based.

I have learned, as the Talmud teaches, that "the Torah begins with kindness and ends with kindness."

It is one reason why perhaps in our own training of bar and bat mitzvah students within our congregation, we focus less on repetition, and more on values.

It is one reason perhaps why last Sunday about fifteen post b'nai mitzvah youth were back in Hebrew school mentoring our younger students, and climbing higher on the Jewish ladder.

It is one reason why perhaps all of Judaism, in particular its teachers and leaders need to reflect. What was the best of what we learned fifty years ago, and what can we build on?

How can we focus on connections between people? How can we raise each other, and build communities of meaning and spirituality? How can we express our individual gifts and passions through a Jewish filter, to promote Tikun Olam, the healing of the world?

These are some of my reflections as I recall the anniversary of my 1966 bar mitzvah.

My grandparents are gone. I remember their lessons of sensitivity and compassion which I attempt to model every day.

I thank my parents -- my mother from a secular background and my father from an observant upbringing -- with gratitude that I was born into this sometimes conflicting, but ultimately liberating mix of Jewish philosophies.

I also think of my mortality, and how little time I have to do much. But as our Sages teach, the task of fixing the entire world is virtually impossible, yet we can still tend with beauty and purpose to our corner of it.

To love our spouses more, to hug our children and grandchildren tighter, to embrace our friendships and try in our own way - within our own vocations to imbue the world with "goodness, justice and humility." (Micah 6:8)

Fifty years later, I reflect upon the fact, that I may not accomplish everything I dreamed of. I may not become a rock star. I may not pitch a no hitter. I may not bring about the age of Aquarius.

All we can do is awake each day, and do what we can do.

For whatever we do not accomplish in our lifetimes, can be taken up by those who follow, and by those who inherit our spirit, our passion and our good names.

Thank you to my parents, aged 91 and 90, who created this. And to my wife who continues to ensure that I grow every day.

I blessed by them, my children, grandson and you.

In the speech my father wrote for me fifty years ago, I declared, "Today I am a man."

Five decades later, in the speech that I get to write, I express a hope that I continue to grow, and become a better person.

With praises to God, let us each embrace what we have. For in spite life's descents and ascents, failures and success, we have been blessed with privilege to engage in this sacred journey.

We are in this place, in the here and now. That is all we have.

And when I think of it, I would not have had it any other way.

Hallelujah.

Shabbat shalom, v'kol tuv (with all goodness)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman