Bar and Bat Mitzvah

Make Your Own Midrash for a Great D'var Torah 
from Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage: An Empowering Guide for Students, Families, Educators, and Clergy by Rabbi Goldie Milgram 

Why Symbols and Metaphors Are Important to Dvar Torah Creation
from Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage: An Empowering Guide for Students, Families, Educators, and Clergy, by Rabbi Goldie Milgram

Characteristics of a Memorable B-Mitzvah D’var Torah (From Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage: A Guide for  by Rabbi Goldie Milgram)

A memorable B-Mitzvah d’var Torah

•     Helps those present to connect some aspect(s) of the Torah portion to their own lives

•    Touches on something in your life that is likely to have happened in the lives of others in the room

Sample Chapter: The Outline for Preparing a Dvar Torah
from Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage: An Empowering Guide for Students, Families, Educators, and Clergy by Rabbi Goldie Milgram 

 Interpreting Your Torah Portion (Excerpted from Reclaiming Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a Spiritual Rite of Passage by Rabbi Goldie Milgram)

How are Tefiillin made?

Tefillin are a set of two leather boxes filled with parchments on which a scribe has written specific verses from the Torah, then attached the boxes to leather straps, each knotted so that one can go around your head and one around your weaker [non-dominant] arm. It is quite complex to make Tefiillin, and one is best served by buying good quality ones made by a scribe. The term tefillin (Aramaic) shares the root of tefillah, prayer.

The environmental impact of your rite of passage, celebration and even your thank you notes is worthy of serious consideration since there are lots of ways to have a wonderful bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah while also being gentle on the environment. Here's how:

To what end B-Mitzvah? A cross-cultural look at adolescent rites of passage helps us take a look at our own rite with new eyes.

From Clare R. Farrer, "The Mescalero Girls’ Puberty Ceremony", page 240 of Mahdi, Louise Carus. Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage, Carus Publishing Company, Chicago, 1996.

The ceremony is conducted by men determined to be holy by the tribe, beyond reproach. Each Holy Man/Singer must be intelligent and able to memorize and interpret songs in a special form of Mescalero Apache. Each must sing 64 different songs on each of the four nights of the Ceremony Additionally, the Singer must memorize long stories of the people, their travels, and accounts of tribal interacts from the beginning to the present. The Ceremony is thus a re-enactment of events from the beginning of cosmological time and a recitation of ethno-history.

An emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually satisfying Bat or Bar Mitzvah can best emerge when you begin by creating a BMAP – a Bar/Bat Mitzvah Action Plan. This involves pausing with the likely stressful array of logistical decisions that are on your plate, and reclaiming the joy of this process by taking some time to focus on building a healthy planning team and considering the feelings and needs of each member of your team.

If you are parent, the BMAP process will transform you from a taskmaster into a team member; if you are an adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah student the BMAP will awaken more spiritual possibilities than you might ever have imagined; if you are an adolescent student, the BMAP will empower you in numerous healthy ways.