[Avodah] bat mitzva "bo bayom"

[Michael Kopinsky]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 8:39 PM, Ira Tick <itick1986 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It really does not matter whether or not the transition to adulthood is
> something to celebrate.  A seudas mitzvah is specifically to honor one's
> accomplishments and one's significant choices and to celebrate the good that
> has been done for the person and for the Jewish people.  A bar or bat
> mitzvah has yet to accomplish anything other than become old enough to start
> making choices and searching for the opportunity for achievement.  As was
> said before, celebration by itself is more like a seudas hodaah, or simply a
> happy occasion.
>

That does  not explain why a bar mitzvah is a seudas mitzvah, whereas any
other occasion is not. If I want, I can make my 23rd birthday part "to
celebrate the good that has been done for [me] and for the Jewish people,"
but that doesn't make it a seudas mitzvah.

Reform and Conservative Jews in America glorify the bar mitzvah because the
> children are practically expected to abandon religion at the age when their
> parents can no longer force it on them, so a big deal is made of the
> "committment" of the children to accept communal and religious
> responsibility for the future, even after they leave the Hebrew School...
> That's probably how the custom of children reading the Torah for their bar
> mitzvah became popular.
>

I think you have it reversed.  Because bar mitzvah is made into such a big
thing, the kids view it as an end, rather than as a beginning. They don't
glorify it because it's the end, rather it's viewed as the end because they
glorify it so much.  Lately, efforts have been made to remind the kids that
a bar mitzvah is only the beginning, but those are efforts to stem the tide,
not the original form.

KT,
Michael
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