Bar Mitzvah « Hebrew Learning Circles

April 17th, 2011

Dear Friend,
Happy Spring! As Hebrew Learning Circles continues to grow and bring Jewish education into homes, I’m excited to share with you our plans for development - and offer you an opportunity to belong to our exciting community.

Our immediate goal is to make this unique Jewish educational and community model accessible to 300 students by 2014. We aim to make quality Jewish home-study widely available, well recognized in the Jewish community and delivered with state-of-the-art educational tools and resources. We are hard at work offering students and families a connection to a vital and positive Jewish identity on a scale that would truly make a community-wide difference. But we can’t do this without you.

Become a Friend of Hebrew Learning Circles.
As a member of Friends of Hebrew Learning Circles you will enhance your connection with our learning and celebration community and have a vehicle through which to gift others with the benefits you’ve already received. Choose from three levels of membership. If you make your donation by April 30th, your membership will come with a special gift in gratitude for your contribution.

1. FRIEND at $360 a year. You will receive free Chanukah party tickets, priority access to the Rabbi during critical life-cycle events HLC and a special gift - Embroidered Yarmulke
2. SUPPORTER at $1,800 a year. You will receive free 2 high-holiday tickets, Hanukkah party tickets, priority access to the Rabbi during critical life-cycle events and a special gift - Kiddish Cup
3. SUSTAINER at $5,400. You will receive free 4 high-holiday tickets, Hanukkah party tickets, priority access to the Rabbi during critical life-cycle events and a special gift - Silver Mezuzah

I invite you to take part in offering a vibrant alternative for Jewish children and families. Help us transform Jewish education in 21st century America. Support an engagement with Jewish tradition that is based in vitality, joy, relevance and the warmth of home replacing a message that was once rooted in guilt and obligation. Help us make a difference.

We would like to send you a copy of our business development plan. Please request the business development plan by e mailing us at hlcoffice@mac.com.

With blessing,

Rabbi Ruben Modek
hlcoffice@mac.com

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, development, homeschooling, Jewish education, membership, Parenting
Posted in Uncategorized

New Circles Forming Now in the Following Locations:

September 29th, 2010

Larchmont, Westchester, NY
Yorktown Heights, Westchester, NY
Sleepy Hollow, Westchester, NY
Nyack, Rockland, NY
Suffern, Rockland, NY
Chestnut Ridge, Rockland, NY
Glen Rock, Bergen, NJ

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, homeschooling, Jewish education
Posted in Announcements

What Is The Legacy Passage Bar and Bat Mitzvah Program?

January 3rd, 2010

An innovative educational tool designed to address the rite-of-passage needs of the minimally-observant American Jewish family. An heirloom-quality family workbook and a deck of cards, the program radically re-contextualizes the Bar and Bat Mitzvah (BM) process (preparation and ceremony). The program’s approach transforms the BM from a celebration of the child’s Jewish self to a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self - abilities, family, people-hood, and soul.

Book Cover Design

The Legacy Passage curricular tools provide the synagogue’s educator/Rabbi with:
● A well organized family education framework. A year long BM preparation course that meaningfully and seamlessly integrates the many BM strands into a coherent and powerful process.
● An artfully designed book, which is structured to neatly store the entire gamut of BM related documentation. It is intended to remain a child’s precious keepsake alongside other cherished religious books and paraphernalia.

The process incorporates three major components:
● Family and facilitator (rabbi/cantor/tutor) together clarify a vision for the BM preparation year. A shared mission is established, i.e. to transmit the family’s legacy to the maturing child - personal as well as Jewish. We thus invite the parents to be full and equal partners with the synagogue representative in carrying out a deeply meaningful and shared mission. This component focuses on conceptual clarity-making and relationship tone-setting with the BM family.

● The family takes the lead role in selecting the components of the child’s BM preparation program within the parameters of the synagogue ritual standards and values. The process of Engaged Choice (see ASEM assignment cards) allows each family to design a rite-of-passage program that focuses on their child’s strengths and interests. It further establishes and deepens the parent/synagogue partnership. The BM preparation program is pedagogically centered around two classical BM themes:
a. Legacy Passage.
b. Maturity training and celebration.

● The synagogue representative inserts into the book’s designated loose-leaf pocket information with practical advice regarding the nuts and bolts of producing their ceremony and accompanying celebration. The family need not reinvent the production wheel. The synagogue representative will offer pragmatic guidance in order to free-up family members’ time and attention toward the BM educational and emotional substance.

Why Legacy Passage?
For the majority of minimally-observant American Jewish families during the past couple of generations the BM ceremony has been a primary motivator for participation and affiliation with the synagogue. Participation with a Jewish educational system and/or prayer community whether Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, or unaffiliated has provided families with a sense of belonging and pride. The participating BM child has enjoyed the rewards of personal recognition and accomplishment. However, for many families the engagement has primarily been child focused and lasted until the youngest completed his or her BM track. This dynamic has been further compounded by the fact that many a family and their young celebrant have gone through their Jewish educational phase experiencing a great deal of incongruity, dis-empowerment, and cognitive dissonance - belonging and pride notwithstanding. As a result most BM graduates have remained alienated from Jewish communal life until, at best, they themselves have become parents. And so a diminishing cycle continues.

We have developed the Legacy Passage BM program as a response to the incongruous experience that we believe is systemic to the contemporary American synagogue BM. Legacy Passage is designed to enable a different BM paradigm. We approach BM holistically. The program treats the BM preparation period and ceremony as a Jewish celebration of the child’s entire self - body, heart, mind, abilities, family, people-hood, and soul. Our goal is to deeply engage the full spectrum of the child’s and family’s life experience, not only the Jewish “sliver”. Our premise is that each individual in the family as well as the family system as a whole already possess the ingredients for a coherent, congruent, empowered, and Jewishly authentic rite-of-passage process.

Our approach follows from the analysis that a BM program that offers a compartmentalized experience, focusing primarily on the celebrant’s synagogue skill-set, perpetuates a disconnect between the child’s Jewish communal experience and the rest of his/her life. The latter will most likely win the contest of appeal. The Legacy Passage program operates under, and propagates, the assumption of identity wholeness rather than a contest between a “Jewish life” and a “rest of life”. Legacy Passage is designed to honor the student and family for who-they-are as-they-are helping them discover and mine their extant identity resources and strengths. Most importantly our program is designed to validate and enhance the family’s wishes for Jewish connection, learning, and practice. The family chooses, we, clergy and educators, follow and guide.

We have found that the family/child centered approach provides participants with a deep sense of relevance and lasting emotional satisfaction. It is our belief that as synagogues around the country adopt the Legacy Passage holistic approach, BM standards and practices will shift to better serve the minimally observant constituency, renewing an authentic reciprocity and loyalty between synagogues and a growing number of their members.

Bring Legacy Passage to your Hebrew School today!
Contact us for details
845 348 9810 or e-mail mylegacypassage@me.com

Published and distributed by Hebrew Learning Circles, Inc. (501c3)

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, Haftorah, initiation, Jewish education, Jewish legacy, Jewish tradition, life cycle, Parenting, religion, rite of passage, synagogue, tutor
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

Home As Hebrew School

December 23rd, 2009

Home Is Where The Hebrew School Is (By Julie Wiener. Published in The Jewish Week, NY, Dec 15, 2009)
For 12-year-old Juliet, of Sleepy Hollow, getting to Hebrew school each week requires no carpool. Instead, on Mondays at 6 p.m. she waits in her living room, and Hebrew school comes to her.
First her two classmates, Aaron and Heather, are dropped off, followed by their teacher, Rabbi Reuben Modek, a tall, gentle, bespectacled 52-year-old man who wears a Bukharan kipa.
Filing into the warmly decorated dining room, an oil landscape painted by Juliet perched on the upright piano, teacher and students settle into their chairs, setting notebooks and workbooks onto the round, wooden table before them and nibbling on the doughnuts and fruit that Juliet’s mom has set out.
While Juliet’s pajama-clad younger sister watches curiously from the adjacent living room, their mom chats in the kitchen and the family’s fluffy Persian cats prance about, the three 12-year-olds and their rabbi pull out homemade siddurs and say the Shema.
For a small but seemingly growing number of families, home-based Jewish learning — whether with a personal tutor or in small groups, like Rabbi Modek’s Hebrew Learning Circles program — is offering an attractive and convenient alternative to synagogue-based Hebrew schools.
The vast majority of American kids receiving a Jewish education continue to do so in synagogue schools, and many of these programs have dramatically restructured and improved in recent years.
Nonetheless, anecdotal reports suggest that families are increasingly turning to private teachers and tutors — sometimes arranging to observe the bar or bat mitzvah in a synagogue, but often opting instead for private ceremonies in homes, restaurants, country clubs, Israel and other locations. One set of privately educated twins recently shared a bat mitzvah ceremony at Galapagos, a gallery and performance space in Brooklyn.
Harried families trying to balance the demands of work, school and numerous extracurricular activities — as well as those who have a negative impression of Hebrew schools or synagogues — report that home-based programs enable them to obtain a more personalized education for their child in less time, with more flexibility and on a more convenient schedule than they would in a congregational program.
“These days, a temple sometimes just doesn’t fit the bill,” says Juliet’s mother, Hope, who asked that the family’s last name not be used in order to protect their privacy.
In addition to Hebrew Learning Circles, created about nine years ago, a small cadre of for-profit and nonprofit resources are springing up to serve families like Hope’s.
In some cases going the private route can be far less expensive than synagogue-based Hebrew schools, which usually require a minimum of two to three years of enrollment and temple membership before allowing students to be bar or bat mitzvahed.
Such home-based programs aren’t the only option for those seeking alternate routes to bar and bat mitzvah: in many neighborhoods Chabad, the outreach oriented chasidic sect, helps families arrange personalized courses of study and inexpensive ceremonies, although their Orthodox approach does not appeal to everyone.
Along with the growth of independent minyanim and even the increasing accessibility of Jewish resources and information online, these alternative Hebrew schools pose a challenge to the quasi-monopoly synagogues once enjoyed in the fields of Jewish education and worship.
According to Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, the trend reflects “the whole notion of personal training that has become part of North American culture.”
Individualized Hebrew schools make sense in a society of SAT tutors, fitness consultants, college application advisers, “people that help prep resumés and personal shoppers,” Rabbi Olitzky notes.
But some worry the phenomenon poses a threat not just to synagogues, but to the communal ideals synagogues stand for.
Some synagogues, like Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, are pushing back with policies discouraging the use of private tutors. “While exceptions are made for special-needs kids, the shul will not schedule bar or bat mitzvah ceremonies during Shabbat morning or community mincha services unless a child “meets the requirements for Jewish education in a communal setting.” Only day schools and congregational schools meet this requirement, and BJ’s rabbis will not officiate at the bar-bat mitzvah ceremonies of privately tutored kids.
Defenders of the home-based programs argue, however that they can be a portal into Jewish life for families that might never have considered joining synagogues. And they urge congregations to learn from, rather than deplore, their success.
“These kinds of organizations, however they are motivated ideologically, are providing something people clearly are looking for,” says Rabbi Olitzky.
The world of private Hebrew tutoring is surprisingly “hush hush” as one tutor puts it, with few tutors advertising or marketing extensively and many demonstrating a surprising lack of ambition in growing their businesses.
Nonetheless, families find teachers in a variety of ways. Some enterprising parents find individual tutors through their own personal connections or by asking around at synagogues, day schools, university Judaic studies departments and rabbinical seminaries.
In the New York area, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a number of small, young companies and organizations match children with private teachers and help families coordinate private bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies.
In addition to Hebrew Learning Circles, which recently incorporated as a nonprofit organization and which has 27 students and 75 “graduates,” there is Door To Door Tutoring, founded in 2002 by Joel Cohen, a former Hebrew school teacher who also works full time in finance, and Partners with Parents, established in 1999 by twins Laurie and Jesse Gerber. Responding to requests from clients, Door To Door and Partners With Parents added tutoring in other subjects, like math and science, as well.
In Los Angeles, Todd Shotz — a 35-year-old film and TV producer who is also a longtime Hebrew school teacher and bar mitzvah tutor — has for seven years run a business called Hebrew Helpers, mostly hiring actors and artists as tutors. He currently has 46 students, some in small groups and others one-on-one. In San Francisco the five-year-old group Jewish Milestones runs a referral service, one that not only serves families seeking an alternative route to bar or bat mitzvah, but also helps people find clergy for weddings, funerals and other lifecycle ceremonies.
Many of the people who run such programs say they have fond memories of their own childhood Hebrew school experiences and insist they are not trying to lure people away from synagogue programs.
“The synagogue should be the first try, but for some families it will either be nothing or us, and we want to give the kids and parents a positive experience,” says Laurie Gerber, whose program currently has seven Jewish studies students.
Most companies were formed somewhat by accident, by individual tutors who began getting more business than they could handle on their own.
Door to Door’s Cohen says that one private student “turned into five, five to 15, 15 to 25” until he was “tutoring every day.”
“I didn’t want to say no to these families,” he says. So he began hiring friends —young professionals, teachers, actors looking for part-time side gigs — and formed a business.
Hebrew Learning Circles’ Rabbi Modek, who has run several synagogue-based Hebrew schools, was leading a havurah in Nyack in 2000 when two parents asked him to tutor their children. More parents, hearing about the group, asked if their children could join.
“I discovered that the concept was phenomenal,” he says. “There was something about the kids’ and families’ motivation that was different, something calming about being in a home. There was a sense of ownership the kids had that they didn’t get in a more institutional setting. And it grew naturally from there.”
Rabbi Modek developed an extensive curriculum and hires college students and other part-timers, whom he trains as teachers.
Some parents get together, create their own programs and then collectively hire a teacher.
In Croton, parents Jason and Elissa Holzman joined five other families to create a havurah, which hires two Jewish Theological Seminary students as teachers. Classes for the children, who range in age from kindergarten to fourth grade, take place every Sunday morning in the homes of havurah members, with a different family hosting each week. Holzman’s next-door neighbor, whose children are older, has organized a similar program.
“Part of what is appealing about this is the opportunity to have a little more control” over the curriculum and “how material comes across,” says Jason Holzman, who attended a Conservative synagogue Hebrew school as a child.
The intimacy is also a plus.
“We’re forging a closer bond with these families than you would do in a temple.”
There is no single profile of the typical private Jewish tutoring family. According to Cohen, his clients are everywhere on the spectrum from “a day school student who wants extra attention to ‘Ohmigod, my daughter is 12, and can you help me through this process?’”
While many private tutoring families never join a synagogue, others combine the tutoring with temple membership, sometimes sending one child to Hebrew school and having another do home-based learning.
Gerber reports that her “most common customer comes in third or fourth grade because they can’t go twice a week to Hebrew school, or they have [scheduling conflicts with another activity] or a learning issue.”
“Some parents are scarred by their experience of Hebrew school,” she adds. “They want a positive experience for their children and do not want to risk it.”
Many other parents are intermarried, or grew up with no Jewish education — or, as Rabbi Modek puts it, “have allergies to organized religion and wouldn’t step in a synagogue if you paid them.”
Some are seeking more input over what the child learns.
“Every family has a very different set of needs and connection points,” says Gerber, adding that in selecting a curriculum “everyone has preferences about God, no God, Israel, modern Hebrew versus biblical Hebrew.”
Other parents seek out tutoring when Hebrew school isn’t working for their child.
Andrea Kott’s daughter enjoyed Hebrew school at the Reform temple they belong to, but after enduring her son’s constant complaints, Kott, who lives in Tarrytown, switched him to a Hebrew Learning Circle.
Not only was it more engaging for him, but it made for a more intimate bar mitzvah process. Many temples “treat bar mitzvahs like assembly lines,” she complains.
Perhaps most appealing for parents is that their children actually seem to enjoy the home-based arrangements.
“Instead of going from seven hours of classroom to more classroom, they go from seven hours of classroom to somebody’s house,” Kott says. “On beautiful days [Rabbi Modek would] take them outside.”
Susan Stremple, of L.A., recalls how her 11-year-old son Ethan, who participates in a Hebrew Helpers group, was “was so disappointed” one weekend when he had to miss a session.
Of course the relative convenience of tutoring versus Hebrew school is a huge draw for everyone, as stressed families juggle myriad modern-day demands of work, homework, commuting and numerous extracurricular activities.
“With synagogues, it’s a huge commitment,” says Ina, whose son Aaron is in the Sleepy Hollow Hebrew Learning Circles group and who found the commuting, volunteering and other requirements imposed by area temples “overwhelming to think about.” (Like Hope, she asked that her family’s last name not be published.)
Where many temples require one, two, even three afternoons of classes, private tutors often come to the student’s house once or twice a week and stay only an hour and a half.
While that may sound like a trivial amount of time, tutors and parents say that working one-on-one and in small groups, they are able to cover material far more efficiently and effectively than they would in a typical-sized Hebrew school class, where time often gets wasted with discipline issues or what one Manhattan parent calls “goofy, feel-good stuff.”
Says Kott, “When the [Hebrew Learning Circle] would get together, it’s not that kids weren’t dropping pencils and chatting. But there was more space for thoughtful process” than there would be in a traditional classroom environment.
David Klafter, an Upper West Side father whose daughter attended Hebrew school at the family’s synagogue for a while then switched to a group taught by a Partner with Parents tutor, said the small group was “more rigorous” than Hebrew school.
In addition to the rigor and convenience, parents and their children praise the informality and one-on-one relationships of the home-based approach.
“My sons were so comfortable and happy with Joel,” says Upper East Side mom Michele Teitelbaum, whose two children each studied with Cohen from fourth grade through bar mitzvah. “It was like having an older cousin around … My boys were beyond prepared for their bar mitzvahs, but also they got life lessons. Joel’s a mensch and a true role model.”
Ari Gold-Parker, a Hebrew Learning Circle grad who is now a sophomore at Harvard, remains in touch with Rabbi Modek, who he calls “Reuben,” and is still good friends with two of the other kids from the circle.
“Hebrew school age can be a really awkward, horrible time for kids,” he says. “Most people look back on that time with not-so-good memories, but having a small, informal setting with a rabbi who we liked made it feel very much not like school and helped us get engaged on a different level.”
Of course even the happiest home-tutoring families acknowledge that the setup is not perfect. Many lament that their children are missing out on the social aspect of being in a Hebrew school, and the feeling of belonging to a larger community.
“It’s a tradeoff but so far we’re pleased with it,” says Ina, of Sleepy Hollow, who recalls having a “great time” growing up in a temple youth group.
Kott, who continues to belong to a Reform temple, describes her temple as “a place you can go and physically share time and space with the people in your community,” whereas with Hebrew Learning Circles “you’re kind of in a bubble.”
“I happened to be friends with the other moms, but our paths don’t cross on a daily basis — we have to go out of our way to see each other; there’s no central meeting place.”

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, homeschooling, Jewish education, Jewish tradition, life cycle, synagogue, Temple, tutor, tutoring
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah, HLC Article

Transformational Bar and Bat Mitzvah

October 30th, 2009

Does a child really transform or even transition from childhood to adulthood when they become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah at the age of 13 or 12 as is held by Jewish tradition? Does life change for the contemporary Jewish child after his/her ceremony? How about the rest of the family? Does anything change for them after the Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony? Does the normative initiatory Jewish process today live up to its ancient promise, still echoing in our collective Jewish memory, of a transformational transition from minority to majority?

The traditional Native American youth who goes out solo into the woods on a long and challenging vision quest returns with a vision, a name, and a readiness to take his/her place among his/her community’s productive adults. The youth’s life has been transformed.

The young Biblical King David (Book of Samuel’s I, chapters 16, 17) single handedly kills a lion and a bear while out alone tending to his father’s flock of sheep. This event prepares him for the ultimate initiatory experience of his youth, defeating the giant Goliath. Thus King David is transformed into his role among the adult warriors of his people.

The contemporary American teenager mentoring with a qualified instructor toward earning his/her driver’s license is being prepared for high stakes activity along with the adults of his/her tribe. Once initiated, the teen will be entrusted with handling the potentially lethal moving vehicle, and will bear real consequences in the event of harmful misuse. S/he now has the power to kill or protect herself or others. The teen’s life is being transformed.

Is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah child’s life transformed after having successfully mastered his/her Haftorah? The experience of many suggests that not quite. But it should be. Bar/Bat Mitzvah by definition is a transformational term. Mitzvah in Hebrew has two different meanings. From the word Tzavta, company or group, Mitzvah means community. From the word Tzivah, instructed, Mitzvah means that which has been instructed or ruled. Bar, literally son, or Bat, literally daughter means in our context ‘member of’. Just as a child is a member of his/her family, so too son or daughter of Mitzvah plainly means ‘member of Mitzvah’. Thus the term Bar/Bat Mitzvah means member of a community sharing a common set of rules. Becoming a member of a morally demanding collective requires a character buildup, a transformation of one’s earlier nature.

But is stepping up to a status of greater moral demand in and of itself sufficient for maximizing the maturation benefits inherent in the Bar/Bat Mitzvah transition? Another interpretation of Mitzvah, as derived from Tzavta, company, suggests that perhaps a deeper cultivation is yet in order. Our sages tell us that Tzavta, company, could, in the context of Mitzvah, refer to being in company with God. That the rules, Mitzvot (Mitzvahs), are sacred and thus serve spiritually as the vehicles for, or the expressions of, our shared sacred values. In other words, our tribe’s Mitzvah system is structured around each our deepest capacity for existential and spiritual connectedness. When the Bar/Bat Mitzvah program addresses that capacity the Mitzvah potential is maximized and the transformation is palpable.

When we examine youth initiatory events across cultures and throughout history, whether among traditional native peoples, through the stories and characters of the the great mythologies (i.e. Bible), or in contemporary life, we find that the presence of seven programatic elements contribute to the successful and meaningful transformation of child to adult.

These elements bring about transformation in part because they interact with the initiate’s innate capacity to be “in company, Tzavta, with his/her God”. These initiatory programs help the young person confront life’s scared as well as practical edges at which moral and existential maturation is inevitable. We, the initiating adults must find the wisdom and courage to allow our maturing young-one to sufficiently extend themselves out and beyond the comfort of early parental protection and into the realm of a deliberate and growth-full challenge course.

The seven elements of the transformational maturation program are:
1.    Child being mentored by parents in the sacred values of the family and by qualified instructors in the sacred values of the tribe. By ‘sacred values’ we mean those values for which keeping one would voluntarily forefeit comfort, treasure, or life should it be necessary.
2.    Child being coached in clarifying his/her personal life mission as well as the collective mission of his/her tribe.
3.    Child being trained in the ceremonial skills, both collective and individual, practiced by the family and tribe.
4.    Child is taught how to master new practical adult life skills.
5.    Child passes endurance challenges that help him draw on newly found reservoirs of energy and willpower.
6.    Child declares his/her new set of mature commitments relating to self, family, tribe, humanity, and all living things.
7.    Child receives affirmation and acknowledgment from the family and community through ceremony, speeches, gifts of ritual garb and paraphernalia, and gifts of the heart.

At a different time and in another place a Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony and the preparation period leading up to it would have included all of these ingredients providing for a powerful and organic life transition. At the other end of the process the boy or girl would start afresh with a sense of meaning and place, an experience that eludes many of us post moderns. Many parents report about their own Bar/Bat Mitzvah initiatory process as having offered irrelevant challenges at best and little challenge in areas of concern, interest, and potential personal growth if any. The lives of an entire generation has not been transformed by our experiences with our synagogues of youth.

The original Bar/Bat Mitzvah event has had many of its transformational ingredients fall by the wayside over the course of modern history leaving us with a set of noble yet dry traditional motions to go through. Albeit many a family, while bravely stepping up to the contemporary Bar/Bat Mitzvah plate, somewhere inside continue to grasp for the original and whole-life affirming initiatory experience that they intuit should be available and accessible.

Our children deserve more than a period of exposure to an often irrelevant (to them) Jewish culture followed by our magnanimous permission to them to choose whether or not to identify once the Hebrew School “burden” is over with. They deserve more than an opportunity to march up to the Bima, snagogue podium, perhaps for the last time, to offer a substantively obscure yet polished performance to a delighted audience of relatives and friends who are all the while taking great effort to mask their ritual discomfort.

This Rabbi believes that our children deserve the full transformational initiatory experience through which they enjoy meaningful self-discovery, profound bonding with parents and adult mentors, and a gained sense of their rightful place in the Jewish as well as human chain of generational transmission.

No, a transformational Bar/Bat Mitzvah event does not exist per-se but increasing attempts are being made. And no, our synagogue traditions are not to be discarded as they hold the precious wisdom of ritual heirlooms that have withstood the test of time. The renewal of Bar/Bat Mitzvah though, is not the task of the guardians of tradition. From them we gratefully learn. It is the job of post modern families who are willing to engage their maturing children with self-honesty, who are commited to reclaiming the power of Jewish generational transmission for our times, and have the courage to take charge.

Our children are entitled to meaningful instruction in the sacred values of their parents along with the ceremonial skills practiced by their families and communities. They are entitled to help in clarifying their sense of a life mission and that of their people. They are entitled to be initiated into, and trusted with, new adult life skills and responsibilities. They are entitled to being appropriately challenged and trusted on all levels of human being: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They are entitled to the challenge of making new significant commitments relating to themselves and the world around them. The ceremony day then becomes the icing on the Babka (traditional Eastern Europian Jewish chocolate flavored cake). While for many of us our Bar/Bat Mitzvah experience has left a scant impression if any, at the end of his or her day, our child deserves nothing less than having been transformed forever.

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, Haftorah, initiation, Jewish education, Jewish legacy, Jewish tradition, Parenting, prayer services, religion, rite of passage, Spirituality, synagogue, transformation, vision quest
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

Transformational Bar and Bat Mitzvah

May 31st, 2009

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Haftorah, initiation, Jewish education, Jewish legacy, Jewish tradition, life cycle, Parenting, religion, rite of passage, Spirituality, synagogue, transformation
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

What is the Legacy Passage Bar and Bat Mitzvah program?

May 24th, 2009

Legacy Passage is an innovative Jewish educational tool designed to authentically address the rite-of-passage needs of the minimally observant American Jewish family. A heirloom-quality family workbook and a deck of cards, the program radically re-contextualizes the Bar and Bat Mitzvah (BM) process (preparation and ceremony). The program’s approach transforms the BM from a celebration of the child’s Jewish self to a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self - abilities, family, people-hood, and soul.
The Legacy Passage curricular tools provide the synagogue educator/Rabbi a well organized framework for a year long BM preparation course that meaningfully and seamlessly integrates the many BM strands into a coherent and powerful process. The artfully designed book, which is structured to neatly store the entire gamut of BM related documentation, is intended to remain a child’s precious keepsake alongside other cherished religious books and paraphernalia.
Three major components:
1. Family and facilitator (rabbi/cantor/tutor) together clarify a vision for the BM preparation year. A shared mission is established, i.e. to transmit the family’s legacy to the maturing child - personal as well as Jewish. We thus invite the parents to be full and equal partners with the synagogue representative in carrying out a deeply meaningful and shared mission. This component focuses on conceptual clarity-making and relationship tone-setting with the BM family.

2. The family takes the lead role in selecting the components of the child’s BM preparation program within the parameters of the synagogue ritual standards and values. The process of Engaged Choice (see ASEM assignment cards) allows each family to design a rite-of-passage program that focuses on their child’s strengths and interests. It further establishes and deepens the parent/synagogue partnership. The BM preparation program is pedagogically centered around two classical BM themes:
a. Legacy Passage.
b. Maturity training and celebration.

3. The synagogue representative inserts into the book’s designated loose-leaf pocket information with practical advice regarding the nuts and bolts of producing their ceremony and accompanying celebration. The family need not reinvent the production wheel. The synagogue representative will offer pragmatic guidance in order to free-up family members’ time and attention toward the BM educational and emotional substance.

Our approach follows from the analysis that a BM program that offers a compartmentalized experience, focusing primarily on the celebrant’s synagogue skill-set, perpetuates a disconnect between the child’s Jewish communal experience and the rest of his/her life. The latter will most likely win the contest of appeal. The Legacy Passage program operates under, and propagates the assumption of identity wholeness rather than a contest between a “Jewish life” and a “rest of life”. Legacy Passage is designed to honor the student and family for who-they-are as-they-are helping them discover and mine their extant identity resources and strengths. Most importantly our program is designed to validate and enhance the family’s wishes for Jewish connection, learning, and practice. The family chooses, we, clergy and educators, follow and guide.

History
The program evolved from our experience with tutoring and ceremony leading with approximately seventy students over the course of the past near decade. While serving members of Congregation B’nai Torah of Orange County NY (Conservative style) and Hebrew Learning Circles (www.hebrewlearningcircles.com) home-study-program participants since 1998, we have been searching for ways to address the ethno-spiritual needs of the minimally observant Jewish family. The all-in-one workbook and card deck concept emerged organically in 2006 as we began organizing our, and others’, best practices into a coherent pedagogical unit. The ASEM assignment-cards system has been met with great enthusiasm by our students ever since we introduced them in 2007. The assignments have been providing us invaluable opportunities for heuristic Jewish education. Our participating families have continually been our best teachers.
Since the start of 2009 we have been working diligently to prepare the program for publication and widespread use. Presentations about the Legacy Passage unit at the Ohalah Rabbinical conference in January 2009 have been received with enthusiastic interest. The wealth of useful feedback has helped us further fine-tune the Legacy Passage Family Workbook and the Legacy Passage Facilitator’s Edition in preparation for publication. Recent presentations of the curriculum to a select group of Rabbis and Jewish educators have stirred-up honest reflections, great discussions, and subsequent enthusiastic interest in the program.

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Jewish education, Jewish legacy, life cycle, Parenting, religion, rite of passage, Spirituality, transformation
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

RAISING THE BAR AND BROADENING THE MEANING OF BAR AND BAT MITZVAH

March 31st, 2009

How do we transform the Bar/Bat Mitzvah rite of passage from “a celebration of the child’s Jewish self” to “a Jewish celebration of the child’s whole self”? We designed the innovative Legacy Passage program to do exactly that through engaged-choice. Parents and child are invited into the process as full partners as they choose from a wide range of meaningful engagement options.

The entire Bar and Bat Mitzvah process from beginning to end streams through three stages: training, ceremony, and celebration. Could each one of those stages become in and of itself a life changing experience that effects the child’s healthy emotional development as well as strengthen family bonds?

Our answer is a resounding yes. We view the Bar/Bat Mitzvah experience as a powerful and necessary rite of passage that contributes to the family and child’s overall well being. We begin by asking parents and child to consider the very essence of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process, which is the passing of legacy from elders to youngster. Just as we, adults, have been shaped by the legacy of our parents – their values, beliefs, stories, unique skills, and important projects – so too our children will be shaped by ours. The life experience of many suggests that one’s Jewish legacy is part of a greater personal and universal whole. What would it look like then, if we passed down our entire legacy package to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah child, not only the Jewish traditional content? This question is our starting point.

The Legacy Passage program is designed to facilitate conscious, deliberate, and heartfelt transmission of a family’s treasured legacy to its young. Since each family’s legacy is unique, each Bar and Bat Mitzvah process, from its inception to the party, is custom designed in close collaboration with the entire family. We help the child’s elders engage with him or her as significant mentors. A set of intelligently challenging and fun assignments help the Jewish child try out and achieve new levels of maturity and connectedness under the guidance of his or her mentors. The ceremony and party thus celebrate the child’s special abilities, the family’s self defined values, the gift of Jewish people-hood, and the soul residing within.

This rite of passage, channeling a loving transmission down the generations, then becomes the soil in which the child’s future holds root. Our Rabbi and expert tutors are more than Jewish-educators. They are coaches who consider Jewish tradition as it uniquely applies in the context of each child’s whole life. Isn’t that exactly what the Bar and Bat Mitzvah rite was originally intended to be?

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, initiation, Jewish education, Jewish legacy, Jewish tradition, life cycle, Parenting, religion, rite of passage, synagogue, transformation
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

Transformational Bar/Bat Mitzvah

March 19th, 2009

The seven elements of the transformational maturation program are:
1.   Child being mentored by parents in the sacred values of the family and by qualified instructors in the sacred values of the tribe. By ‘sacred values’ we mean those values for which keeping one would voluntarily forefeit comfort, treasure, or life should it be necessary.
2.   Child being coached in clarifying his/her personal life mission as well as the collective mission of his/her tribe.
3.   Child being trained in the ceremonial skills, both collective and individual, practiced by the family and tribe.
4.   Child is taught how to master new practical adult life skills.
5.   Child passes endurance challenges that help him draw on newly found reservoirs of energy and willpower.
6.   Child declares his/her new set of mature commitments relating to self, family, tribe, humanity, and all living things.
7.   Child receives affirmation and acknowledgment from the family and community through ceremony, speeches, gifts of ritual garb and paraphernalia, and gifts of the heart.

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, Haftorah, initiation, Jewish education, Jewish tradition, life cycle, Parenting, religion, rite of passage, Spirituality, synagogue, transformation, vision quest
Posted in Bar Mitzvah / Bat Mitzvah

Rabbi Modek’s Classes - at the Community Night of Jewish Learning - Saturday, March 7th, 2009

February 23rd, 2009

At the Rockland Jewish Community Campus, 450 West Nyack Road, West Nyack, NY

Quick preview of Rabbi Modek’s sessions:

Class session I RAISING THE BAR ON BAR/BAT MITZVAH

Our ancestors passed on their Jewish legacy through rites of passage that were life transforming and life affirming. Can we reclaim the existential depth of Bar/Bat Mitzvah? Through surveying Jewish sources and current innovative practices we will search for the answer.

Class session II HASSIDIC STORY TELLING
Through storytelling and discussion students will encounter the pearls of wisdom offered in tales of the Baal Shem Tov and other Hassidic masters.

To register go towww.jewishrockland.orgto register on line
Questions? Email: melton@jewishrockland.orgTHE PROGRAM IS OPEN TO ALL–$18 SUGGESTED DONATION
BABYSITTING PROVIDED

ALL CLASSES AND TEACHERS:

Class session I – 7:40-8:30 pm

1. SCARLET RIBBONS: RAHAV: SACRED PROSTITUTE? WOMAN OF VALOR?
Madonna may not know it, but the red string she loves to flaunt has everything to do with a feisty woman named Rahav who lived long ago in Jericho. In this lively workshop, we will gain a clearer portrait of this unique “non-Jewish Jewish” heroine.
JUDITH ROSE
Educational Consultant, Director of Vital Movement™, Adult Education at CSI-Nyack

2. ETHICAL WILLS: A SACRED JEWISH PRACTICE
We will learn that although human life can be described in generalities, each life is unique in its blessings and difficulties. Although it is true that we take nothing from the world when we leave it, it is the greatest human wish that along the way we leave something of value, some sign that the world is better because we lived here. We will discover how Ethical Wills give voice to these human dreams and wishes.
RABBI PAULA MACK DRILL
Orangetown Jewish Center; Melton Faculty

3. PARAHSAT HASHAVUA AS A CONSTRUCT IN TIME
How do you read the Torah? Learn how to study the Torah one day at a time. See how the weekly parasha can be lived out daily and applied to the weekly rhythm of our lives.
RABBI CRAIG SCHEFF
Orangetown Jewish Center

4. “PRAYER CAN BE…..”
Have you ever wondered if the act of t’fillah (prayer) could be more meaningful to you? Have you ever explored t’fillah in unique ways….ways that are not found in conventional textbooks or siddurim? In this session, we will use interactive and creative techniques to explore the prayer experience, and understand it in a more personal, nuanced and meaningful manner.
BETH KRAMER
Educational Director, Temple Beth El

5. A TASTE OF MELTON:
THE RIGHT TO LIFE OR THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE: A JEWISH PERSPECTIVE
In the past few years and undoubtedly in the coming years the national debate over the court case Roe v. Wade is center stage in our political and religious forums. In this session we will take a look at the Jewish perspective based on many different sources and viewpoints that cross the spectrum of Jewish denominations, using the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School way of teaching.
RABBI JOSHUA GRUENBERG
Congregation Sons of Israel-Nyack; Melton Faculty

6. SHOULD WE ACTIVELY SEEK CONVERTS TO JUDAISM?
We will discuss some of these questions: Is this the time for us to stop obsessing about who is being lost to the Jewish community and instead to start acting on who might come in? Does Judaism have something to offer to spiritual seekers? Where do we begin?
RABBI ARYEH MEIR
West Clarkstown Jewish Center; Melton Faculty

7. RAISING THE BAR ON BAR/BAT MITZVAH
Our ancestors passed on their Jewish legacy through rites of passage that were life transforming and life affirming. Can we reclaim the existential depth of Bar/Bat Mitzvah? Through surveying Jewish sources and current innovative practices we will search for the answer.
RABBI REUBEN MODEK
Hebrew Learning Circles

8. JERUSALEM IS THE NAVAL OF THE WORLD! SONGS, MIDRASH AND MYSTICAL TALES OF THE HOLY CITY WE LOVE
Come learn sources and stories about Jerusalem, our holy city. Songs about the holy city inspire us, and midrash about Jerusalem is simply majestic! Everyone who loves the holy land and our precious City of Gold is invited to come learn together.
RABBI SCOTT BOLTON
Head of School, Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School

9. FINDING GOD WHILE PRAYING
Discover the different intentions of our prayers and where and how we can find God and godliness.
RABBI PAUL KURLAND
Nanuet Hebrew Center

10. ISRAEL: 60 YEARS IN 50 MINUTES
A whirlwind tour as participants share memories and eye witness accounts during this decade by decade survey of the history of the Jewish state.
CAROL H. KING, LCSW
Jewish Family Service of Rockland

11. PURIM EXPOSED—THE REAL STORY
Where are the miracles in the Purim story? Why is G-d’s name not mentioned in Megilat Esther (the only book of Torah missing G-d’s name)?
RABBI CHAIM ZVI EHRENREICH
Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center—Chestnut Ridge

12. J, E, P, D- WHY REFORM AND CONSERVATIVE JEWS ARE NOT ORTHODOX
A look at the scholarly reasons why non-Orthodox Jews do not literally accept “Torah Mi-Sinai,” the concept of the entire Torah being given at Mt. Sinai. Time permitting, we will also deal with the consequences of such a belief vis a vis Torah and mitzvot.
RABBI DANIEL PERNICK
Beth Am Temple

13. THE MIDRASHIC IMAGINATION: HOW WE LEARN TORAH FROM PEOPLE WHO RAISED SHEEP AND GOATS
An attempt to come to an understanding of how the Midrashic process helps us keep learning from the Torah although it was created so many thousand’s of years ago in a totally different culture and milieu from ours.
RABBI DAVID FASS
Temple Beth Sholom

14. ENRICHING YOUR GRANDCHILDREN’S JEWISH EXPERIENCES
Grandparents have a unique opportunity to demonstrate what it means to live a Jewish life (accompanied by a large dose of hugs and kisses!). This workshop will examine how grandparents look at themselves and their personal grandparenting style and offer suggestions for ways of (subtly) adding Jewish values to family events and celebrations (w/o being the ‘family rabbi’ or guest lecturer!).
SHARON HALPER
Regional Educator, Union for Reform Judaism, Grandmother

15. WAITER! THERE’S A SWEATSHOP IN MY SOUP!
Recent labor scandals in the kosher meat industry have forced us to re-examine our approach to one of the most basic aspects of our lives—our food. Explore the question of the ethics of what we consume, as we discuss the issue in light of ancient and modern Torah teachings concerning labor justice.
RABBI MICHAEL ROTHBAUM
Campus Rabbi/Program Director, Hillels of Westchester

16. FEMALE, ARAB, CHRISTIAN: NARRATIVE VOICE IN SAMI MICHAEL’S
“A TRUMPET IN THE WADI”
In this class we will examine how Baghdad-born Hebrew novelist Sami Michael integrates the quintessential Other into the center of Israeli culture simply by “playing” a trumpet in a Haifa Wadi. Participants are expected to have read this short novel (in English) before coming to class.
JOE LOWIN, Ph.D.

17. DID THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT REALLY HAPPEN? (A TASTE OF MELTON)
In May 2001, Rabbi David Wolpe (Conservative Rabbi) said in a sermon that archeological evidence shows that the Exodus from Egypt never happened. His statement generated an uproar in the Jewish community. As Jews, must we believe that the Exodus really happened?
BARBARA ROSENTHAL BIRNBAUM
Melton Faculty, CSI Nyack Adult Ed

18. OUTREACH IN THE OUTBACK
Stories and lessons from three years traveling around Australia connecting and reconnecting isolated Jewish people with their heritage…Christians in Cairns, Davening in Darwin, Bar Mitzvah in Blairgowrie and Torah in Townsville…
RABBI DOV OLIVER
Center for Jewish Life, RCC Hillel; Instructor, Rockland Community College

Class Session II — 8:40-9:30 pm

1. EVERYTHING YOUR KIDS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, DRUGS, BODY IMAGE AND TATTOOS*BUT WERE AFRAID TO TALK ABOUT WITH YOU
Want to know about the Jewish view on these controversial issues and how to talk about them with your teens? Join us for this exciting session.
BENJAMIN LEWIS
Educational Director, New City Jewish Center

2. SCARLET RIBBONS: RAHAV: SACRED PROSTITUTE? WOMAN OF VALOR?
Madonna may not know it, but the red string she loves to flaunt has everything to do with a feisty woman named Rahav who lived long ago in Jericho. In this lively workshop, we will gain a clearer portrait of this unique “non-Jewish Jewish” heroine.
JUDITH ROSE
Educational Consultant, Director of Vital Movement™, Adult Education at CSI-Nyack

3. I WILL BOW TO NO MAN: ISSUES OF AUTHORITY IN THE BOOK OF ESTHER
Join us for a lively session of text study lead by JT Waldman, the author and illustrator of JPS’s critically acclaimed graphic novel, Megillat Esther. This session will uncover how characters in the Esther story relate to systems of power and agents of authority. Open to students of all levels, previous experience with biblical text-study and familiarity with Hebrew is recommended.
JT WALDMAN
Jewish Publication Society

4. TASTES OF JAPAN
Traditional yet kosher appetizers & main dishes from The Land of the Rising Sun emphasizing aesthetics and preparation that maintains the nutritional value of all ingredients. Let’s create and taste an edible art we can enjoy on Shabbat and holidays! Registration is limited to the first 20 to sign up.
SIGALIT BEN ZEEV
Israeli Teacher of English as a Second Language in Japan among other talents.

5. MAKING PRAYER MEANINGFUL: A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE OF MA’ARIV, THE EVENING SERVICE
Through an exploration of the structure and intentions of the evening service, we will have an opportunity to consider what prayer does and could mean to us. There will be an opportunity for experiential learning and personal meaning making.
RABBI PAULA MACK DRILL
Orangetown Jewish Center; Melton Faculty

6. A TASTE OF MELTON: HOMOSEXUALITY AND JUDAISM
In this class we will explore sources both ancient and modern that deal with Judaism’s attitude toward homosexuality. Together we will try to navigate through these difficult sources so that we can all see through a Jewish lens when looking at this important relevant national and religious issue, using the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School way of teaching.
RABBI JOSHUA GRUENBERG
Congregation Sons of Israel-Nyack; Melton Faculty

7. IS THERE A FUTURE FOR JEWISH-MUSLIM RELATIONS?
Jews and Muslims have a complicated and somewhat tortured history. The Muslim presence in this country is growing rapidly and is felt in the public square. Where and how can Jews dialogue with Muslims?
RABBI ARYEH MEIR
Melton Faculty; Rabbi, West Clarkstown Jewish Center

8. HASSIDIC STORY TELLING
Through storytelling and discussion students will encounter the pearls of wisdom offered in tales of the Baal Shem Tov and other Hassidic masters.
RABBI REUBEN MODEK
Hebrew Learning Circles

9. HOLOCAUST: FAITH AND OUR FIGHTING SPIRIT THROUGHOUT THE DISASTER INSPIRES
In this session, we will explore how Jews continued to keep our traditions and have faith, in the ghettos and in the camps. Writings from Holocaust era writers inspire us to renew our commitment to our way of life. In the blessed memory of the holy ones who perished and with respect to the fighters and survivors, we will study together.
RABBI SCOTT BOLTON
Head of School, Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School

10. IMAGES OF RESISTANCE AND REVOLT
Depiction of the Holocaust is not limited to images of Nazi atrocities. Join Rabbi Berkman for a slide presentation surveying several artists who identified with the heroes of the ghetto, partisans and other symbols of spiritual and active resistance.
RABBI DAVID BERKMAN
Rabbi, New City Jewish Center

11. BODY LANGUAGE
Our relationship with eating and dieting can be a reflection of a deeper psychological, social and spiritual hunger. Let us examine together how our quest for wholeness, wellness and meaning can be honored and nourished.
CAROL H. KING
Jewish Family Service of Rockland

12. MUST THE HUSBAND BE TOLD? A CASE STUDY.
A Ba’alat Teshuvah had an abortion while still non-religious. Her ultra-orthodox husband has no idea. He will be performing the Pidyon HaBen ceremony for their new son. If he does so, there is a problem of his taking the Lord’s Name in vain, as the mitzvah does not apply to a second pregnancy. A Rabbi knows her past. Must he or the wife warn the husband, despite her embarrassment? This is a real case. A teshuva was written in response. We will discuss that teshuva.
RABBI DAVID HOJDA
Florence Melton Adult Mini-School

13. THE MORTGAGE & CREDIT MELTDOWN—A HALACHIC PERSPECTIVE
Who is accountable? Is it the lender, borrower, investor or broker?
RABBI CHAIM ZVI EHRENREICH
Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center—Chestnut Ridge

14. GREAT JEWISH MISCONCEPTIONS–THE SEQUEL
Join a continuation of last year’s SRO talk about beliefs that are commonly held about Judaism, but which happen to be completely false. No prerequisites!
RABBI DANIEL PERNICK
Beth Am Temple

15. THE MIDRASHIC IMAGINATION: HOW WE LEARN TORAH FROM PEOPLE WHO RAISED SHEEP AND GOATS
An attempt to arrive at an understanding of how the Midrashic process helps us keep learning from the Torah although it was created so many thousand’s of years ago in a totally different culture and milieu from ours.
RABBI DAVID FASS
Temple Beth Sholom

16. THE COMFORT, HEALING AND POWER OF PSALMS
At one time or another all of us face challenges in our lives, and particularly during these difficult times. The words of the psalmist echo the universal call to God from our individual fox holes.
Join Rabbi Mitrani Knapp for an exploration of the words from this sacred part of our Tanakh.
RABBI SUSAN MITRANI KNAPP
Assistant Rabbi, New City Jewish Center

17. ORGAN DONATION
In the spectrum of Jewish thought.
RABBI DOV OLIVER
Center for Jewish Life, RCC Hillel; Instructor, Rockland Community College

18. MOSES AS CROSS-ETHNIC ADOPTEE
We know his story well enough, but we forget that Moses was a Hebrew raised in the home of Egyptians. What does Moses’ experience tell us about the particular challenges of the cross-ethnic family? Join us to discuss the saga of the ultimate “hard-to-place” adoptee.
RABBI MICHAEL ROTHBAUM
Campus Rabbi/Program Director, Hillels of Westchester

19. THE CREATION STORY IN GENESIS: WHAT IS IT REALLY ABOUT? (MELTON)
The story of the creation of the world in Genesis has been variously translated and interpreted. What does the actual translation say? What does it mean? Can it be reconciled with scientific theory?
BARBARA ROSENTHAL BIRNBAUM
CSI Nyack Adult Ed; Melton Faculty

9:30-10:15 pm—Dessert and Musical Program

“Cantors Amy & Barry Kanarek & the Temple Dudes”

Cantors Amy (Greenburgh Hebrew Center) & Barry (Nanuet Hebrew Center) Kanarek & The Temple Dudes, featuring Ken Blumberg on guitar, Bruce Pollack on drums and Rose Pollack on flute, perform a wide assortment of folk and rock music from Israel, America and the world over. They frequently play at coffeehouses and festivals in the area and will appear in concert at the Nanuet Hebrew Center on March 22. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/TheTempleDudes

Tags: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, Jewish education, Jewish tradition, Parenting, religion, Spirituality, Torah
Posted in Classes

Posts Tagged ‘Bar Mitzvah’