My BIG FAT Twin Hasidic Bar Mitzvah

You’ve seen the movie.

My Big Fat Orthodox Greek Wedding.

Yeh. It’s funny.  

I’m living it.

But, it’s My Big Fat Hasidic Bar Mitzvah. A twin bar mitzvah. G-d willing. And I’m going to need G-d’s help. A few years ago, and I quote myself, I said, “I’m not going to do one of those big bar mitzvah’s. Lets just have an open house on Sunday. Come have a bagel.”

I still dream about that.

It just got complicated.

Relatives.

Friends.

Rabbis.

Speeches.

Hasidic Husband.

I’ve been told I’m experiencing PBSD (pre bar mitzvah stress disorder) and I have a few things on my mind:

·      menus (how much does bulk herring cost?) and how many hot dogs to order for the hotdog bar?

·      will the black hats or clothing still fit that we bought this summer(we somehow started our boys on growth hormone 3 months before their bar mitzvah and after purchasing their clothing…smart move)?

·      how to enable my mother to use her electric scooter over the weekend

·      how to be sure there’s enough of a mechitza to keep my husband happy but not too much of a mechitza to freak everyone else out

·      whether my dog will get enough attention over the weekend

Oh, yes, and the video montage. We don’t want to pass that up. Everyone needs to see each moment of our kids growing up. I’ve suffered through enough of them and it’s our time. Plus we have 2 kids so the video should be twice as long, right?

Oh, and what about those gargantuan pictures that you blow up so everyone can sign. Our first-born son has one sitting against the wall in our basement. He’s holding a trumpet that he doesn’t play anymore. He is SO taking the photo to his apartment…. when he gets one. It’s the first thing I’m shipping out. He gets the trumpet too.

I got smart with my daughter and made her a collage. It’s hanging in her bedroom that she uses when she comes home from school, about twice each year. I tried boxing everything up but it wouldn’t fit into her two closets. I had this grand idea of renting out her room on airbnb.com until my husband said “Ilana, you can’t just have anyone come and stay in the house.”

I mean, why not?

I think I’m going to offer  bedroom tours showing off everything we’ve saved from the past 21 years.

I’ve been to a lot of bar and bat mitzvah celebrations from ones that look more like weddings (Actually I take that back. They look better than most weddings. ) to ones that are quite simple. I once was at a bat mitzvah celebration where the entire synagogue was turned PINK. Pink chairs, pink ceiling drapes, pink, pink, pink. It was like we had stepped into a virtual bowl of cotton candy. I went to another one where they had shopping bags for each table as “shopping” was the theme. You could choose which “store” (table) you wanted to sit at. Of course you haven’t lived if you haven’t been to a sports themed bar mitzvah with a huge 3D stand of the bar mitzvah boy holding a basketball.

Our invitation lady asked what theme/style/color I was looking for on the invitation. She said, well I see you like color (it was a tie dye day), maybe lets splash some color on the invitation.  Color? Have you seen my other half?

I think I should show you some photos of my husband and boys.

My husband and boys wear two colors, which aren’t technically colors: black and white. She looked at a photo of my husband and said, “Oh, I see. Well, we can work with that.”  She caught on quickly.

I once had an acquaintance of mine (not Jewish) remark that he thought it would be nice to have a “bar mitzvah.” That’s when you know we’ve all missed the point.

One of my twins asked me what his theme was going to be. 

Uh. Jewish.

“Oh,” he said, “Well that makes sense. “ He’s smart.

Now onto the invitations list.  Just creating the list is enough to cause a migraine. And my husband wants to be sure everyone is dressed appropriately, keeping Shabbos and that it is noted on the invitation.  Well that eliminates about ¾ of the guest list. I nixed all of that.

Our list contains, friends, family and those who we feel compelled to invite covering just plain orthodox, modern orthodox, yeshivish, conservadox, conservative, reform, non Jewish, just plain Jewish, and Hasidic. Though anyone is welcome to attend our event, as our shul is always open, my husband suggested that I only send out invitations to those friends and family members who clearly identify with their birth sexual orientation and know on which side of the mechitza they belong. 

How boring.

I suppose it’s simply a logistical issue, along the same lines as choosing which bathroom to use.

We’ve been told our crowd is too large for the syngagogue Kiddush committee. So, we’ve decided to basically hijack the shul Kiddush for a Hasidic-style Kiddush with a mechitzah which should send just about everyone from the vilda chaya (wild kids), candy hoarders, cake stuffers and plate-over-fillers into a tizzy… and that includes the guy who constantly peeks over the mechitza.

Food, yes, it’s a necessary part of this long weekend but somehow it gets out of control. And honestly, it makes me sweat. And decorations. Can’t I just throw up some balloons? I had one person suggest I make mini Hasids out of scarecrows and put two on each table (one for each boy). Yep, that’s cute. Probably not happening. I’ll probably stick with the balloons tied to picture frames. I still have a few left from my older son’s event.

You see its not that I don’t like a good party. I just don’t like planning them. I like going to other people’s parties. I’m just being honest. But I suppose this is all good for me, for everyone, for our community and of course for my boys.

My boys like many other bar mitzvah boys around the world will not be culminating their learning. This is the beginning for them. They will step into a world where they wrap tefillin daily, pray 3x daily with a minyan, are counted amongst a minyan, and required to uphold most of the 613 commandments. They will continue learning Torah, Mishnah, Gemara and many other books of Jewish thought. So, I, as their mother, am relishing the end of their childhood. I adore their sweetness, which I pray sticks around under all their new clothes. I am not sad. I am honored. I am in awe. It is a precious moment to see someone take responsibility for their place amongst the Jewish people. Though there are many sects of Judaism and interpretations, we all highly depend upon “the keepers of the book” to keep our faith, understanding and responsibility as Jews strong.

May these boys grow up kind, strong, fearless, dedicated, respectful and honored to be a Jew.

Now back to the food: should I order beef, turkey, chicken or polish hotdogs for our hotdog bar? And do I invite cousin Clara? And, can I put out those cards at the party that say, “Table 20: I DID NOT RSVP?”

I suppose I’ve lost focus on what’s important here: Twin boys becoming responsible “adults” in the eyes of Jewish law and the Torah. Even Oprah realizes the importance of this day as she recently featured a young boy, Mendel from Budapest, on the day before his bar mitzvah in her show “Belief.”

I’m thinking a bar mitzvah in Budapest might not have been a bad idea.