What's So Funny? My super-sweet bar mitzvah convention

At some point during my childhood I became aware of the fact that Judaism is handed down through the mother and it was precisely at this point that I informed my Jewish father that I was, in fact, not a Jew.

“Yeah, technically that’s true,” my Jew father said to me, his eyes full of stars of David. “But they still would have put you on the train.”

That tragic truth got to me, and it was precisely at that moment that I began to think of myself as one of the tribe. That these people with whom I shared bloodlines with had been so persecuted and suffered so cruelly helped me to establish an unyielding connection to the Jewish race. That day I became a Jew.

That said, I’m a pretty shitty Jew. My mom’s Christian, I celebrate Christmas, I never went to synagogue, and I don’t really believe in Judaism. I’m of the Jewish race, you see, not the Jewish religion. Of course, this didn’t stop me from snagging a free birthright trip to Israel. Or from being jealous as fuck of all the kids in the seventh grade who got to have bar and bat mitzvahs.

How could I not be? Those things were amazing! Everyone was jealous of whoever was getting mitzvahed; that kid became the most popular kid in school for, like, three weeks leading up to the big day, and at least a week after. Sometimes two! That all depended on the parents. If they really pulled out all the stops, spared no expense, and blew the collective minds of the seventh grade, that kid could ride the popularity surge of a dope mitzvah clear through puberty. So, of course, the parents went all out: Grant Epstein had an NBA court dance floor and amusement park-style hoops for us to shoot on. Scott Horowitz had a bunch of instruments and a karaoke machine that would record you and your friends rocking out, then eject a music video on VHS for you to take home with you. Suck on that, Grant Epstein! (I’m pretty sure four brace-faced, white seventh-graders in expensive tween suits botching the shit out of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was 35 percent responsible for Kurt Cobain killing himself. Maybe 40.)

At my private middle school, bar and bat mitzvahs were like a showcase for the imagination of whoever was becoming a young man or woman. If they could envision it, their parents could achieve it. So when I got wind of Mitzvah Mania—Colorado’s yearly bar and bat mitzvah convention, a showcase for families planning their child’s impending monotonous incantation of the Torah—I had to go check it out. What wonderful new wonders were waiting, I wondered, all the while marveling at my own alliteration.         

But my marveling was short-lived. Because nothing’s changed—I might as well have been walking into that Hyatt Grand Regency banquet hall in the year 1993. Same stupid smoke-and-mirrors and faux nightclub themes; same sports backdrops for the little Jew athlete; they even had the exact same make-your-own-music-video machine I’d seen at Scott Horowitz’s bar mitzvah! It just spits out DVDs now. I felt like those future naysayers you always hear complaining: This is 2010? Where are all the robots? Where are all the flying cars? I was expecting floating obelisks for the chosen child to hover above the party in his or her superiority or replica Wailing Walls or a guy who dresses like Hitler who you can hire to just kick in the dick all night. What I got was oxygen bars and 50 different types of cupcake.

I realized, too, that the doting parents and their eager children hadn’t changed either. Sure, those kids all have cell phones now and suck down energy drinks by the crateful and tweet and retweet and sext, but seeing the unbridled zeal of burgeoning woman- and manhood right there in front of me took me back. And I realized that lack of change was a good thing. Bar and bat mitzvahs are not about the bells and whistles. They’re about growing up. They’re about commemorating a milestone. They’re about those first incredible, awkward dances with a member of the opposite sex. They’re about watching your classmates become responsible members of their chosen faith, and then watching them collect their bounty. Then resenting the shit out of them for their popularity surge. Some things will always be the same.