QUARRELING FAMILY AND BAR MITZVAH

QUESTION:

The father and mother of the Bar Mitzvah boy are divorced and they hate each other. The child shares his mother’s hatred for the father. Now the boy is to be Bar Mitzvah. The father insists upon his rights as the father to participate in the service. But if the Rabbi promises to honor that right, it is certain that the Mitzvah/would not take place. Furthermore, the paternal and the maternal grandfathers also demand a share in the service. Since it was impossible to reconcile the various parties, the Bar Mitzvah was conducted without the father being permitted to participate, but instead the Rabbi himself read at the Bar Mitzvah the part that the father reads. Was this procedure proper? What is the law in this situation? (Question from Rabbi Philip Bernstein, Rochester, New York)

ANSWER:

SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, considering the popularity of Bar Mitzvah, there is almost nothing in the classical legal literature on the details of this ceremony. Of course the age of thirteen is mentioned in the “Ethics of the Fathers.” But there is no recorded legal basis for the Bar Mitzvah service as it developed in the Ashkenazic lands, namely, that the boy is called up to the Torah, that the father makes a specified blessing, that there is then a family celebration, “Seudah,” after the services. The Shulchan Aruch, the classic code, has virtually nothing at all on the Bar Mitzvah service as we know it. Its only comment on it is by Isserles to Orah Hayyim 225:1 who merely mentions the fact that when a boy is Bar Mitzvah his father comes up to the Torah and recites the blessing, “Praised -be Thou, Who has rid me of the responsibility.” The only classic authority who believes that it is an actual legal requirement for the Bar Mitzvah boy to be called up to the Torah is Mordecai Jaffe in his “Levush. ” (See Be’er Hetev to the passage.) But Isserles himself is uncertain whether the ceremony has actual mandatory standing because he suggests that when the father recites the blessing, he shall leave out the words “Thou, O Lord, King of the Universe” (Shem v’Malchus). These words are always omitted when a blessing has dubious legal standing. This is due to the fear of taking the Name of the Lord in vain by reciting a needless blessing.

Since Bar Mitzvah has such shaky foundations, so that it is not certain whether it is an actual commandment or not, and since, therefore, so little is said in the classic codes about Bar Mitzvah, it becomes especially difficult to determine details involved in the ceremony, the father’s rights, the grandparents’ rights, etc. But perhaps we may find some guidance in this vague situation by finding a parallel in some other commandment involving father and son. Let us consider, for example, the commandment of the redemption of the first-born child (Pidyen ha-Ben). This defi nitely has the status of a commandment, an inescapable Mitzvah. It is rooted in Scripture in a number of places. See for example Numbers 18 : 4-16. It is positive commandment # 393, and occupies a whole large section in the Shulchan Aruch {Yore Deah 305).

Now with regard to this well-established Mitzvah, the rights and the status of the father are absolutely clear. The redemption is a duty incumbent upon the father and upon no one else. If the father dies or negleets the duty, the son, when he grows up, must redeem himself. An interesting discussion of the father’s right and duty in the redemption is given by Chaim Sofer in his responsa, “Macheney Chaim,” Volume III, Even Hoezer 75. A grandfather asked this question: His son-in-law is away on business and cannot be home in time to redeem the child on the thirtieth day. May the grandfather (who asks this question) take the place of the son, in consideration of the Talmudic principle ( Yevamos 62a) that “the son of a son is considered his son”? The response of Rabbi Sofer is that only the actual father (or in later years the child himself) has this right and this duty. The grandfather may do sot but not because he is the grandfather; he may do so only if the son appoints him by wire as his agent, and the son could appoint anyone as his agent. In this (except, of course, for the mention of telegraph) he follows the exact decision of the Taz (David b. Samuel Halevi, who lived in the 16th-17th century) at the end of Section 11.

By the way, the dictum quoted from Yevamos that a son’s son is considered his son is paralleled in the Palestinian Talmud ( J . Yevamos 6:6) by the statement that the daughter’s son is not considered his son; but both sayings have no relevance to Pidyen ha-Ben or Bar Mitzvah, but refer to an entirely different matter, namely, the question of when a man is deemed to have fulfilled the commandment of “increase and multiply” if his son or daughter dies and leaves him grandchildren.

At all events, judging by these laws of the redemption of the first born, the father’s duty and right are virtually absolute and unless he appoints an agent legally, the redemption cannot be fulfilled by any other person, grandfather or not. If we have the right to make an analogy between the redemption and the Bar Mitzvah (since they differ so in their status) it would seem that the father’s right cannot be dispensed with.

As a matter of fact, the father does have a special right in the case of a Bar Mitzvah to consider himself indispensable. It is the duty incumbent primarily upon the father to teach his son Torah. This can be seen in the case of a divorce where the children may be in the mother’s custody, but the divorced father may claim the custody of the sons after the age of six because it is his duty to teach them Torah (cf. Even Hoezer 82:7). And it is the father, therefore, who, Isserles says, must recite the blessing, “Blessed be He Who has rid me of this responsibility . ..” So we may well say that if anyone can claim indispensability at the Bar Mitzvah service besides the boy himself, it is the father. There is, of course, no mention at all of grandparents in the meager discussion of the sparse Bar Mitzvah reference in the Shulchan Aruch.

But the essential fact remains that, unlike Pidyen ha-Ben, Bar Mitzvah is not one of the recorded Mitzvahs and dubious legal standing except that it has become a beloved ceremony arising first among the Ashkenazim. Therefore it is impossible to make definite decisions about anybody’s rights in the matter. In this particular case, therefore, since the Bar Mitzvah would not be held at all if the father participated in it, it is better that it was held withou him, for although he has more right than any other adult to be present, his right is nevertheless not a mandatory right but one of Minhag, of custom.

As for the Rabbi’s solution of reciting the father’s part in the service, that was not only a good and a practical solution, but also it is justified by the Talmudic dictum (b. Sanhedrin 19b) that he who teaches a child Torah is to be considered symbolically as his father. The law constantly speaks of reverence for father and for teacher and, in fact, in Yore Deah 242: 1, the law is stated that one must honor one’s teacher even more than one’s father. Certainly the Rabbi, the teacher, has the right in an emergency such as this to act in loco parentis.