The Bar Mitzvah

Ceremony

          Coming-of-age ceremonies have been practiced since the beginning of time.  These ceremonies symbolized that a person was becoming an adult and with these ceremonies came more responsibilities.  Many early civilizations’ coming-of-age ceremonies have been to test their physical abilities, but the Jewish ceremonies were different. They were based more on a person’s spiritual abilities than on a person’s physical ones.

          The Jewish ceremonies evolved and grew.  Children started to learn to read from the Torah when they first learned to read, which was as early as 5 years old.  The first age of responsibility was 20.  That was when a person was responsible to pay taxes and go to war if he was needed.  For other reasons the rabbis changed this age to 13 for boys and 12 for girls because girls mature earlier, but they still only had to go to war and pay taxes when they were 20.  Many kids were advanced enough to take part in services before the age of 13 and this was encouraged, but 13 was the age when a person was expected to follow the commandments.  

Over time these ceremonies became more and more important.  Rules were developed like the Bar and Bat Mitzvah can only happen on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. These coming-of-age ceremonies evolved into full-fledged services and became one of the most important ceremonies in a person’s life.

          In the Middle Ages though, about seven hundred years ago, the Jews in Northern Europe changed their attitude.  They started discouraging very young children from participating in services.  They thought that the children were too young to take an adult’s part in services, and that they didn’t truly understand what they were doing.  So it became accepted that a boy had to wait until he was 13 to be truly accepted into the Jewish world.

           The Bar and Bat Mitzvah also change what a person can wear.  During and after the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, a person can wear a tallit, which is a traditional Jewish shawl with a prayer on the hemline.  Another thing a person can wear, during and after the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, are tefillin which are pieces of parchment that have prayers from the Torah written on them.  These are encased in two small leather cases that are wrapped around the forehead and the arm, because a prayer says that they shall be bound to your arm and shall serve as frontlets between your eyes.