Bar mitzvahs are failures because once the gifts have been unwrapped, the cash deposited and the balloons popped, what is left? Is there any lasting value to this year of study, of running to synagogue for lessons, of nerves and anxiety? The success of a bar mitzvah should really be judged by the value added to a young man’s life.
The bar mitzvah is meant to be an initiation into Jewish life, and we’ve turned it into a graduation. A young man goes through the compulsory 12 months of drudgery and then wipes his brow, and with a deep sense of relief quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Free at last, free at last, thank G‑d Almighty, I’m free at last.”
It’s like the old story of the synagogue that was plagued by mice, until the rabbi decided to give all the mice a bar mitzvah. They were never seen again. Or the rabbi who said he finally worked out what happened to the 10 lost tribes of Israel. They never really got lost, he said. They just had a bar mitzvah!
A generation ago, the Jewish historian Cecil Roth advocated that the age of bar mitzvah should be moved up to 17 or 18, in the hope that we might then be addressing a more mature young man who would better appreciate what Judaism has to offer. After all, just because he’s reached puberty and biological maturity doesn’t mean he is mentally and emotionally mature.
Can we really prepare 13-year-old boys or 12-year-old girls for the big issues of life? Can we teach Jewish philosophy to this age group? What is the meaning of life? Can one prove the existence of G‑d? Why do bad things happen to good people? Where was G‑d in Auschwitz? The only answer we’re giving them to all these questions is a sing-song passage they must learn to parrot by rote. And, more often than not, they have no clue what they are singing about.