BAR MITZVAH SPEECHES

SIMON 
BAR MITZVAH 
Saturday Morning Temple Speech

	Good morning everybody.  Good Shabbas.  I’m glad too see all of you here for Simons Bar Mitzvah.
  Especially those who have traveled far and at great expense.  AND for those, who we haven’t seen in a long
 time.  Too long, as is always the case.  
	Natalie made me rewrite this several times.  I was coming off a little preachy.  Like a college lecture. 
 God Forgive me for all the students I bored in my time. When you sit down to write something like this its HARD
 not to get too philosophical, and to keep it light. This is above all a joyous occasion. And its all about
 Simon. Him growing up, and the fine man he has become.  A renaissance man, a man for all seasons, and a Jewish
 man. 
	Being here, in the Temple, makes me think of my own Jewish education. When I went to Hebrew School all
 those many years ago.  One thing in particular stands out above all… On a weekly basis, for a period of YEARS,
 they would herd all of us little kids into the sanctuary and show us Black & White documentaries on the
 Holocaust.  Its true.  The repetition was very effective.  The Rabbi told us to never forget.  
	Those images of suffering and injustice were forever seared into my memory… This IS what it means to be a
 human being, this IS how we treat each other, this IS how the world works.  Those were Big lessons for a little
 kid… It made my other problems seem small.  I may not like what’s for dinner, but at least I’m not in some
 camp.  It was also a real test of one’s religion. How could God allow it?   Big, heavy thoughts for a little
 kid.   
	That was an education.  An education changes you.  It widens your perspective.  I HOPE, Simon, your time
 here in the Temple has changed you…  for the better… made you a better person… broadened your horizons and
 deepened your understanding of the world and our place in it… what it means to be a man, to be a Jew, to be a
 member of the Human Race.  I think it has. 
	I think about those films, and I think about MY father, gone now 10 years. I think about how short our
 time is here, walking on this planet. Make the most of your time here Simon.  Not only enjoy yourself and be a
 mensch, but be a man of substance too.  The world is full of crises and opportunities… You could be a scientist,
 an engineer, a doctor, a leader of men.  Do not spend all your time in trivial pursuits. You can make the world
 better, carry the weight of it, for a time.  It is for you to be aware. To be responsible. To be serious. 
	A father is supposed to give advice to his sons.  I could give you a list, a long one, and don’t think I
 haven’t made one, but for this moment I want you to remember just one, and that is to THINK.  God gave you a
 brain, USE IT.  Think a few steps ahead. Be aware of your surroundings.  See the Big picture.  Think for
 yourself.  
	Simon, I never raised you to be religious, but we do belong to a great tradition of God Loving people.
 Let it be a source of strength for you.  Your faith is your own. Explore it. Embrace it. Learn the Bible. Be a
 good Jew.  Be worthy of God’s Blessings. Never turn your back on your Judaism. 
        Today’s Torah reading is about Jacob. When we read the story of Jacob he sounds like a deceiver, yet he
 is one of our Patriarchs. He stole his brothers birthright and blessing. It’s incomprehensible. Yet God told
 Rebekah even before they were born the older son would serve the younger. That was God’s plan, his promise. That 
 is how it was meant to be played out. We do not know what he has planned for us or why. We do not know his
 will.  Just know that he is watching.  The Patriarchs had personal experiences with God. We might not, but we
 trust that he is there, over our shoulders, the God of our Fathers, guiding us as well as judging us. 
	Simon remember those who came before you.  Remember Alan. Remember me.  Forgive us our arrogances, our
 insensitivities, our overindulgences.  Remember our humor and love and insights. Going farther back, our
 ancestors, jewish or not, were full of all kinds of wisdom.  The kind you find in books. Read and think and
 remember.  Learn from all those who came before. 
	Judaism is not easy. It is a struggle in many ways. Our prayers and praise are in an ancient language.
 Prayers that were revolutionary 3000 years ago, but seem almost strange in our modern world of science, of
 evolution, quantum mechanics. Strange, but also comforting. Here, in the temple, saying these prayers and songs,
 we can connect to our past.  Here we can remember.  
	Simon, You are a man now, or so they say.  This does not mean we’re kicking you out of the house, …but
 that time IS coming, sooner than you think.  Don’t worry, we ARE not done with you yet, not ever.  We are all
 here for you, everyone in this room. We’ve all got your back, …we all want you to succeed.  Whatever you need we
 will help you.  You are NOT alone in this world.  There are a lot of people here who love you, and you’ve always
 been a good kid.  If you ever need help in any way just ask. 	Everyone, feel free to give Simon some advice
 today.  Take him aside.  Tell him a story of your youth. Give him a stock tip, whatever.  Let him know who you
 are.  Give him something to remember.  He should know who you are and you should want him to know.  Everybody… I
 want you to know there is going to be a giant Group Hug as soon as this over.  Several.  Thank you. Love and
 kisses. 


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CALEB
BAR MITZVAH SPEECH


Caleb’s Bar Mitzvah
Good morning everyone. I sat down and wrote a very long, sprawling odyssey of a speech filled with all sorts of obtuse history and academia. Afterwards, I reread it and said to myself “This sounds like the ravings of a madman.” These days I seem to have a lot on my mind. I think Alan would have liked it. He would sometimes write us long letters from the heart. Funny I should still be seeking his approval, but fathers always leave their mark. That’s a lesson for you Caleb. I’ll be haunting you for the rest of your life. Natalie read my speech next and soon after it went from 20 pages to 9. You probably should all be thanking her right now. 
I want to thank all of you for attending this special occasion. Natalie and I are very proud of Caleb. The boy, or should I say man, has a keen mind; His wit, his charm, his quirks, his interests, his abilities; make for a most wonderful individual. It has been my privilege to share my home with him, and be able to call him son. He never ceases to surprise and delight me. Children never turn out like you think. They are so much their own selves. It’s a sort of miracle, an infuriating one, but a miracle how they can be so similar and so different from us at the same time.  
Today we share this day with Caleb, an important day; a rite of passage into adulthood.  He is a Bar Mitzvah, a son of the commandments. He is now responsible for his own religious acts and keeping with the law of the Torah. Just a few weeks ago, Caleb was standing right in front of me when he accidentally knocked over a pile of tinker toys his younger cousins had been playing with. While holding one of the sticks, he looked me straight in the eye and said “It wasn’t me.” …Well Caleb, from here on, it is you. That’s part of growing up. 
  As a boy, my first love was art and fiction. For Caleb I would say it is dance and music. As a young man, my second love was science and biology. Later on my third love was history and games. Switching gears again I’m now finding a love for philosophy and literary criticism. We all go through stages. You will too Caleb. My grandfather Seymour when he was near the end of his life would stop and bless everyone he met. Bless you he would say. I think he felt he was closer to god, which made him a holy man. I really liked that. On behalf of Seymour, bless you all. 
Caleb, I hope in the sum of all things I have done right by you. I have always encouraged you to be independent, to try new things, to work and play well with others. I have always wanted you and your brother to be good men, strong of character, charitable, honorable, respectful, dignified, kind and forgiving, and able to make your own way in the world. 
Sometimes in our conversations, I will become preachy and didactic (Didactic… good SAT word Caleb). I know you tune me out, but you are young and of course you don’t know everything. Neither do I, but I’ve had more time to figure some things out. I lecture you because I want you to see the big picture and to reveal to you fine points about life that you might otherwise miss or fail to appreciate. That’s what parents are here for after all, not just to make you eat your veggies and clean your room. 
For instance, what does it mean to be Jewish? It is an important fact of your life that you are a Jew. I have struggled with my Judaism my whole life. Like Jacob who wrestled with God. We all struggle with faith, if we bother to think about it at all. 
That is what I hope for you Caleb, to struggle mightily with faith, with art, with society. To ask questions and to find answers. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.  Don’t just pass your days in a day dream of small pleasures, conveniences, and the stresses of modern life, but expand your mind, fill it with great thoughts. Try to find God. Infuse yourself with all the ideas of man, the wonders of the world, and all that can be imagined. Cultivate your garden here on earth and also your mind, and you will find lasting love, and happiness, and hope, and strength. So doing, you may live, not in fear, or obsession, or complaint, but in freedom, grace and acceptance. 
Caleb, know that every moment you live is a gift and be grateful for it. Every moment is an opportunity. We don’t come back any more than a stalk of wheat does. This is our time. These days are numbered. We must find salvation in this life, in these moments. No man needs more. No ego needs to last forever. Make your mark. Love those around you. Know what it is to be alive. Laugh at your suffering and pass gently into the night. 
On my side of the family, you never got to know your grandfather, or his father. That is a shame. I still mourn their loss. I hope that somehow, I have captured some of their wisdom, so that I may pass it to you.  
You can suppress it or ignore it or ridicule it, but in all of us there is some part, some urge, that wants to give thanks. A part of us that wants to pray. A part that wants to be better. God is who we imagine to be there to receive our thanks, and prayers, and to judge us. He is, by definition, the highest aspiration of man. He is the ideal we strive for. That is my rationale for faith, because sometimes reason and Zen and Shakespeare and Freud are not enough, you also need a little faith to fill in the gaps. You need a little faith to see you through. 
Without God we are lost. With him we are risen, we are elevated.  For a Jew, our real dilemma is not if he exists, but rather… what does God want from us? How does he want us to behave? From him comes the notion of Righteousness. It is the message of all the prophets. He gave Moses the commandments (Which ones, and how many, depends on the version you prefer). He gave us moral laws. Laws about how to treat each other. Law not just for the sake of order, but laws that promote justice and equality. It is our covenant with god to bear this responsibility, to be holy, to be worthy, to be righteous.   
Those Commandments had profound effects that define what it means to be Jewish. I see these as law, guilt, and empathy. Our ancestors were really into the whole law thing. The rabbis of late antiquity wrote the Talmud; Seven thousand pages of laws, legal arguments, dissertations, and commentary; most of which we ignore in Reform Judaism. We became Torah scholars… The Bible is the never ending source of our inspiration. We study, we argue, we question. 
This leads to another aspect of being Jewish… Guilt. With law and righteousness comes guilt… When I was young I saw a Movie where a bunch of pirates were caught, convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hung. One pirate said to another “But I’m innocent. I didn’t do it”. The second pirate replied back “Think about your life, you must be guilty of something”. I figured he must be a Jewish pirate… Nobody does guilt like the Jews. Ask my Mother… I Love you Mom. It is in the fabric of our being. We have been perfecting it for generations. 
This then brings us to the third aspect… Empathy. All that arguing and interpretation of the law, the grey areas, the nuances, the multiple points of view. This combined with our very long painful history has made us keen observers of human nature. Centuries of Slavery, massacres, pogroms, ghettos, genocide, countless indignities, millennia of diaspora. Sometimes we hide from it. Defend against the pain. Jewish Humor is second only to Jewish guilt. …But, are we not, acutely aware of discrimination, social injustice, and suffering in all its forms? It is said the Jews are the heart of the world. Our grief is the most acute. Our memories are long. 
Caleb, we are the people of the book. You read from the Torah today. Always study. Read. Be mindful of others. Know your history. Never stop learning. Keep an open mind and an open heart. See all the different sides to an issue. Don’t be quick to judge. Do not indulge in pettiness or vanity. Have humility. Put yourself in other people’s shoes. Be grateful for what you have. Have patience. Be willing to forgive. Have Compassion. Be a Mensch. This is what I believe. I hope you do too. If you need an example to follow, look no farther than your sweet Mother, She exemplifies all these qualities beautifully… And with great skill and cunning… I Love you Hon.  
One of the early Christian Church fathers, Saint Augustine, of local fame, said of the Jews… Leave these ones alone, for they are the mirror we look into. What he meant, was that a Christian, in order to judge his own behavior, should compare himself to his Jewish neighbors, his spiritual fathers. If we truly are the Chosen people, we must be as a gift to the rest of humanity; a beacon of light showing them the way. Caleb, with all your gifts and potential, you can be a good example to all, on your own terms. I hope this for you. 
Finally I would like to close with a prayer, something of my own devising… It’s not exactly the shema or the alenu, It’s more personal, but one final indulgence… 
	Thank you God. Thank you for days without pain. Thank you for the days I walk and talk. Thank you for letting me be of service to my fellow man. Thank you for these hands and the work they do. Thank you for Wine, Women, and Song. Thank you for my sweet imagination. Thank you for the beauty that surrounds us. Thank you for all creation. Thank you for people. Thank you for Love. Thank you for my wonderful wife. Thank you for my sons. Thank you for my life. Thank you. Praise You. Thank you. Amen. 





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