Reflections on a Bar Mitzvah Service in 2017

At b’nai mitzvah services at my synagogue, Temple Emanuel, a member of the Board of Trustees serves as the representative of the congregational leadership.  Yesterday, I was that representative.  More than 500 families are members of the Temple, and I did not know the family of Saturday’s bar mitzvah boy.  So I arrived at the Temple not entirely knowing what to expect.

I left the service uplifted.  If young Nate is any indication of his generation of Jews, there is much to be optimistic about.  He was friendly, poised, well-prepared, full of good humor -- and wisdom.   

His Torah portion included the story of the Golden Calf, found at Exodus Chapter 32:  When Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Commandments from the Eternal, his brother Aaron was left in charge.  The people became restless waiting, and, being unsure as to whether Moses would return at all, asked Aaron to make a different god for them.  Aaron did so; he told people to give him their gold, from which he himself then fashioned into a Golden Calf as the god they sought.  When Moses returned, he was outraged and asked Aaron what had happened.  Aaron said, truthfully, that the people had urged him to get them a new god.  But then Aaron lied to Moses, saying that he “cast [the gold] into the fire, and there came out this calf,” thus seeking to limit his direct involvement in the treason.

Nate used this part of the story to discuss the importance of telling the truth, noting that Aaron had given Moses “fake news.”  And Nathan then went on to stress the importance of taking responsibility for one’s errors -- to admit mistakes, to admit falsehoods.  There are many lessons one could glean from Exodus 32.  The lesson Nate drew from it in 2017 could not have been more appropriate for this time.  The more young people there are like Nate, the better our future will be.

I was also struck by the B’nai Mitzvah Service readings, that Rabbi Stone and Cantor Boxt developed a few years ago for the Temple.  They are both timeless and timely.  I want to share some of them here:

One is the fuller text of the famous except from Ann Frank’s Diary, where she wrote, “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”  Here is the entire passage, which all of us should find useful in these particularly troubled times:

            "It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.  Yet I keep them, because in spite of  everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.  I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.  I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.  In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out."

Ann was around Nate’s age when she wrote these words, when our ideals were so much more under siege than they are today. 

Another passage from the Service:  “May we cultivate the art of doing wisely, bringing head, heart, and hand together to redeem our sacred and fragile world.”

And, finally, after the Aleinu, this poem from Judy Chicago:

            And then all that has divided us will merge.

            And then compassion will be wedded to power,

            And then softness will come into a world that’s harsh and unkind,

            And then both men and women will be gentle,

            And then both women and men will be strong,

            And then no person will be subject to another’s will,

            And then all will be rich and free and varied,

            And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many,

            And then all will share equally in the earth’s abundance,

            And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old,

            And then all will nourish the young,

            And then all will cherish life’s creatures,

            And then all will live in harmony with each other and the earth,

            And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.

May we all take these words to heart and may these words help lead us to action.  For as Dr. King instructed us, while the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”