Bar Mitzvah on Saturday Afternoon

Granted that it is valid (as it is) to have Bar Mitzvah on Saturday afternoon or on Monday or Thursday, or whenever there is a regular Torah reading, should we encourage Bar Mitzvahs to take place on these un usual times, Saturday afternoon and during the week? (From Rabbi Morton M. Kanter, Bay Shore, Long Island, New York)

The form of the question indicates at the outset that this is not a problem primarily of law as it is a matter of congregational policy or organization in face of a social situation. Clearly there has arisen in relation to Bar Mitzvah a problem of congregational organization or management which is becoming more and more difficult. Up to about twenty five years ago, very few Reform congregations had Bar Mitzvahs. All of them had Confirmation for an entire class at one service. In most of the Reform congregations, until recently, Confirmation was considered to have supplanted Bar Mitzvah. The few Reform congregations which retained the ceremony had only an occasional Bar Mitzvah. But in recent years, perhaps the majority of our congregations have Bar Mitzvah, and in those congregations almost every boy who reaches the age of thirteen goes through the ceremony. In fact, many of the congregations have added a similar ceremony for girls, Bas Mitzvah. Since each boy who is Bar Mitzvah (and each girl who is Bas Mitzvah) must go through the ceremony individually, this new situation has created suddenly a congestion of the congregational schedule. Even if there are two Bar Mitzvahs a Sabbath, there simply are not enough Sabbaths in the year to accommodate all the Bar Mitzvahs.

One wonders what happened in Europe in the Orthodox communities when, also, every single boy became Bar Mitzvah. In the first place, in the one community there were many little synagogues, and thus there was plenty of room to scatter the Bar Mitzvahs over the community. But with our large congregational institutions, this is more difficult. A middle-sized city, which in Europe would have perhaps twenty little places of worship, has in America only three or four.

There is an additional problem besides this one of the reduced availability of separate synagogues in modern times. Nowadays, in America and in England too, the Bar Mitzvahs have become huge social affairs. Hundreds of people come to almost every Bar Mitzvah. As a result, the regular congregation is “swamped.” The Sabbath service seems to be a private religious affair for this particular family and its friends, and gradually the sense of regular worship on the Sabbath by the regular loyal worshipers is destroyed or at least greatly weakened. In Europe, where Bar Mitzvahs were modest affairs and perhaps ten or fifteen extra people might have come, the worshiping congregation did not lose its sense of identity from Sabbath to Sabbath because of these occasions. Nowadays it is possible to have a different congregation every Sabbath, one that rarely returns to the synagogue.

All this has greatly concerned the rabbinate, which would wish to retain the manifest benefits of Bar Mitzvah (the motive for a deeper study of Hebrew, the sense of personal responsibility, and so forth) while avoiding these unexpected congregational problems which the great social excitement of Bar Mitzvah and the small number of separate congregations has brought about.

This explains the number of new questions which have been received in the last decade similar to the one which we are now discussing. These questions all reflect a search for other days in the week on which to put Bar Mitzvahs besides the regular Sabbath service. There have been questions as to whether it is proper to have Bar Mitzvah on Sunday morning, one even on Yom Kippur day. Friday evening has by now been fairly well established as a time for Bar or Bas Mitzvahs. The present question concerns the propriety or at least the advisability of having Bar Mitzvah on Saturday afternoon.

It should be clear that the ritual of the Bar Mitzvah, as it developed over the centuries, was always bound up closely with the reading of the Torah. It is at the reading of the Torah that the father recites the familiar blessing, transferring religious responsibility from himself to his son. This connection of Bar Mitzvah with the Sefer Torah has become so intimate that the right of the Bar Mitzvah to be called to the Torah is a right superior to almost all others; for example, to the right of a father whose child will be circumcised during the week, or to the right of a husband whose wife has come to the synagogue for the first time after childbirth. The only right to be called to the Torah which is superior to that of the Bar Mitzvah is the right of a bridegroom in the week of his wedding. All these laws of relative rights to be called to the Torah are given by Mordecai Jaffe in the “Levushim” and are quoted by Abraham Abele Gombiner (Magen Avraham to Orah Hayyim 282).

So there is one general answer to possible dates for Bar Mitzvah. If there is a Torah reading on that day, then the Bar Mitzvah may properly take place. Thus, for example, there can be no Sunday morning Bar Mitzvah unless it happens to be the Sunday of the New Moon, or other occasion when the Torah is read. Bar Mitzvahs on Friday night are not justified by Orthodox law because there is no Torah reading for Friday night, but by our Reform custom they are amply justified. When the Union Prayerbook was newly revised, the Committee was confronted with a widespread demand for a Torah-reading service on Friday night. The majority of our people come to services on Friday night and they should hear the Torah read. Therefore, we went beyond Orthodox custom and, because we felt that the times needed it, ordained the reading of the Torah on Friday night. Since we read the Torah now on Friday night, we can have Bar Mitzvahs on Friday night.

The suggestion made in the present question that Bar Mitzvah be held on Saturday afternoon has much to commend it. In the first place, the Torah reading on Saturday afternoon, as that on Monday and Thursday morning, is traditional. Although there is no prophetical reading, there is the regular reading of the first part of next week’s portion. Besides the advantage that this is a traditional time for Torah reading, there is another practical religious advantage if some Bar Mitzvahs are held on Saturday afternoon. No matter how many Bar Mitzvahs were held on Sabbath afternoon (which, by the way, in most of our American business and professional fife is a day off from work, and many people can come), such ceremonies would not be destroying the regular Sabbath service attendance. On the contrary, we would be adding a service, or at least reviving one which had fallen into complete neglect. This certainly would be good. I wish it were possible that many Bar Mitzvahs could be thus placed. It is decidedly more justified by the older tradition to have a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday afternoon than on Friday night; and, at least in the larger congregations, we would spare ourselves the overcrowding of our regular services by transient spectators and, in addition, ease the congestion of the year’s schedule.