Surviving Your Bar Bat Mitzvah

Provides a practical, humorous guide for Jewish students and their families as they prepare for their "big day," helping students and families not just survive but understand and enjoy this important Jewish milestone.

What could be more ingrained in the Jewish psyche as well as pop culture everywhere than the B’nei Mitzvah ceremony? For generations, families have joined synagogues and schlepped their kids to lessons. These hapless pre-teens struggle with cracking voices and unfamiliar melodies, fight with their parents about time spent practicing, and eventually face a couple hundred of their closest friends and relatives to sing for a couple hours in a foreign language. The current model of B’nei Mitzvah training does not resonate with most 13-year-old kids. They do it because they know they have to do it. Their parents and grandparents went through the same thing. It’s time to re-evaluate how our kids learn and prepare to be knowledgeable and engaged members of the Jewish community. Raising the Bar Mitzvah is the book that will lead Jewish professionals as well as lay congregants on a more productive and meaningful path.

How to manage the process with grace, joy and good sense. A practical guide that gives parents and teens the "how-to" information they need to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process and grow as a family through this experience. For the first time in one book, everyone directly involved offers practical insights into how the process can be made easier and more enjoyable for all. Rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, parents, and even teens speak from their own experience. - What's it all about? - Preparation for Parent and Child - Tutoring, stress, expectations, enjoyment, planning for children with special needs - Negotiating the ceremony and celebration - Designing a creative service, heightening the spiritual exercise, special issues related to divorced and interfaith families, planning a party that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event.

Torah Study & D'var Torah Writing for the 21st Century! Featuring... - Full retellings of the Biblical text - written at a teen level! - Great advice on ways to approach the Biblical text! - Handy charts and organizers for preparing a D'var Torah and learning the melodies for Torah trop! - Blessings for all customs and traditions! Links to maps and resources (ebook / ePub edition only)! - Easy instructions for putting on tallit and tefillin! - Useful timeline of Biblical history and events! English texts include: - Va-Yikra / Leviticus 25: 1 to 26: 2 - Blessings for reading the Torah (traditional and alternative) Hebrew texts include: - Va-Yikra / Leviticus 25: 1-13 (three aliyot) - Blessings for reading the Torah (traditional and alternative)

Like Judaism itself, the ritual of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah has developed over time. As with all rituals, participants need to invest it with meaning if it is to move beyond mere performance. In a time when we seek to strengthen Jewish continuity and identity, the bar and bat mitzvah provide opportunities to create meaning in our children's lives. It is the moment when the Jewish community grows by one. A Spiritual Journey is at once a guide to the practical issues of becoming a bar or bat mitzvah and an exploration of the deeper emotional and spiritual elements, inviting young adults and their families to appreciate the ritual's inherent richness and beauty. B'nai mitzvah and their parents will benefit from this thoughtful examination of the ceremonies that lie at the heart of Jewish identity. A Spiritual Journey ensures that the ceremony sets Jewish young adults on a lifelong path toward wisdom, faith, justice, and peace.

Torah Study & D'var Torah Writing for the 21st Century! Featuring... - Full retellings of the Biblical text - written at a teen level! - Great advice on ways to approach the Biblical text! - Handy charts and organizers for preparing a D'var Torah and learning the melodies for Torah trop! - Blessings for all customs and traditions! Links to maps and resources (ebook / ePub edition only)! - Easy instructions for putting on tallit and tefillin! - Useful timeline of Biblical history and events! English texts include: - Shemot / Exodus 13: 17 to 17: 16 - Blessings for reading the Torah (traditional and alternative) Hebrew texts include: - Shemot / Exodus 13: 17 to 14: 8 (three aliyot) - Blessings for reading the Torah (traditional and alternative)

An inspiring collection of bar mitzvah stories demonstrate how moving, diverse, humorous, and uplifting the ritual is. The stories are fast-paced and full of energy. The continual change of subject and location allows each story to grab the reader's mind and emotions.