Alef: The NEXT Conversation

13: Bar Mitzvah Season

This week we introduce Issue #13: Bar Mitzvah Season

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As we started putting together Alef‘s 13th issue, we realized that thirteen often gets a bad rap. Defined, simply, as “a cardinal number; 10 plus 3,” this numeric landmark is undeniably significant. But why? How did “13″ ever come to be associated with the negativity we so often ascribe to it?

13 has been deemed unlucky for centuries, a distaste manifested to it’s extreme as Triskaidekaphobia. You guessed it, a fear of the number thirteen. Let us give you a little run down of why:

• Some Christian traditions believe that, at the Last Supper, Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th to sit at the table.
• Viking tradition tells us that Loki, the 13th G-d in the Norse pantheon, engineered the murder of Baldr, and was then the 13th guest to arrive at his funeral.
• In Mesoamerican divination, 13 is the number of important cycles of fortune or misfortune.
• And, while this myth has been debunked, it was thought that the thirteenth law was expressly omitted from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (circa 1780 B.C.E.).

Leave it to the Jews, a culture fascinated with numbers (in the form of gematria) to give thirteen an entirely different significance. In addition to being the number of G-d’s attributes (according to the Torah) and the number of lunar cycles in the calendar, for Jews, thirteen is also the year of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah–that coming of age ritual oft-characterized by parties that fuel the hallway chatter of seventh graders. Between the study, the ceremony, the celebration, and the gifts, most of us have an opinion or two about this most important moment in a Jewish teenager’s life. We embrace ceremony, reject the ritual, go through with the ordeal anyway, and often come out the other side with at least one check for $18.

At the same time, some Jews never even entertain the idea. Whether they’re trying to defy their parents’ expectations by refusing to become a bar or bat mitzvah, or the ritual was never even an option put on the table, some of the Jews we’ve spoken with for this issue found their own ways to come of age.

So, for the next three weeks, share your stories, share your photos, and celebrate Issue #13 with us as Alef finally enters Jewish adulthood. We thought to print shirts that said “I Told My Story at Alef‘s Super Amazing Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebration” but mom said that it was either that or the make-your-own-pizza buffet station. Oh well.

On that note, L’Chaim!

-Alef

Photos by Erika_Herzog and susansermoneta, licensed under Creative Commons.

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Bar Mitzvah Season Posts
Masada or Bust
To Become an Adult
A Bat Mitzvah in Lake Oswego, OR (503)
Bad Mitzvah
January 14
Bat Mitz-huh?
It Should Have Been Grandma’s First Bat Mitzvah
Right of Passage
The Accidental Bat Mitzvah
Spooky, Scary
Alef Interviews: Shmaltz Brewing Company Turns 13
Bar Mitzvah Photos!

Tags: bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, coming of age, jew, jewish, lucky, party, thirteen, unlucky

Posted by Emily.Comisar@birthrightisraelnext.org, Saturday, April 3rd, 2010, 10:53 am, Bar Mitzvah Season.