On Faith: BBQ or bar mitzvah, gathering is a ritual we’ve sorely missed

For those of us who love ritual, it has been quite a dry spell. Judaism is an ancient, ritualistic religion, and while some happily adapted to Zoom services where they don’t have to even get dressed, much less get dressed up, I’ve found such services to be rather lackluster. For one thing, the service leader, no matter how wonderful, is basically praying for you. And as I sit in my office, I’m missing all of the things which say “prayer space” to me.

First of all, Jewish services require ten Jewish adults, called a minyan, for a prayer service to take place. People in tiny squares on a screen do not really cut it for me. I also miss the synagogue itself and its religious sancta--the bima (raised platform) on which sits the Aron haKodesh, the Holy Ark, which holds the Torah scrolls. Also missing is the Ner Tamid, Eternal Flame, in front of the Ark. Moreover, Jews face east towards Jerusalem for our most important prayers, and in my office, this means I face a blank wall. This kind of zaps the spiritual quotient for me.

So, that’s why leading a bar mitzvah service in person and virtually earlier this month was so very powerful for me. The bar mitzvah date had been changed twice, and then, just a few weeks before the third date, Pierce County slipped back into Phase 2, and the bar mitzvah’s mom had to pivot once again. She moved the bar mitzvah outside to a two-sided shelter, cut her guest list, complied with the mask mandate, and even though it was a tad chilly, we made it work.

A bar mitzvah (bat mitzvah for girls) is a religious ceremony for children who have reached age 13, considered to be the age of religious responsibility in Judaism. The ceremony takes literally years of preparation. Children must learn to read Hebrew, which has a completely different alphabet, and they learn to master many prayers of the Jewish liturgy, which are sung or chanted in Hebrew. The bar mitzvah boy leads much of the service, a sign that he will be counted in the minyan from that day forward. The highlight of every bar mitzvah service is when the boy reads a section from his Torah portion known as the maftir, or concluding section of the day. This is a special honor.

It is difficult to read from the Torah. The Biblical text is written in calligraphy, and just like today’s modern Hebrew, there are no vowels in the text. Unlike modern Hebrew, there’s also no punctuation, and since it’s handwritten on a parchment scroll, the writing can be very compressed or quite elongated. The text is chanted in a system called “cantillation” or trope, according to marks (also not in the scroll!) developed by scholars known as the Masoretes in the 9th and 10th centuries CE.

The boy also reads a section from the prophets, chanted in Hebrew according to a different cantillation system. This is such a major accomplishment that after the bar mitzvah boy finishes chanting his haftarah, which also means ending, everyone tosses candy at him, showering him with blessings for a sweet life. (And then, of course, the kids in the congregation scramble to pick it up for immediate consumption!)

When our bar mitzvah service was moved outside, I wondered how we would create sacred space in a two-sided events tent on a lawn also traversed by neighborhood families on their way to a walking trail. We did have a bima of sorts—the bar mitzvah boy’s mom had rented a stage for her son and me to stand on, but there was no Ark for the Torah and no Ner Tamid—even the sun was mostly fickle that day. To maintain social distance, I suggested the Torah should rest on a table below our bima until it was time to read from it. I was thinking banquet table. But an antique dropleaf table was brought from the house, covered with an age-yellowed antimacassar, both of which had belonged to the bar mitzvah boy’s great-great grandmother. We rested the Torah upon the table and reverently covered it with a tallit (prayer shawl). Suddenly that outside space was transformed into a holy place, and not a single thing was missing.

As we begin to gather in person again for celebrations and for sad occasions, I hope we will remember the time when the sacred had to be squeezed into small squares on our computer screens. It, too, was holy space, but screens are filters, and they separate us as much as the plexiglass barriers that sprang up to keep everyone safe. So, as we log off, put away our hand sanitizer and begin to lower our masks, let us celebrate our best, almost forgotten ritual, be it bar mitzvah or BBQ. Let us celebrate the ability to once again gather together—safely—in community.

Rabbi Sarah Newmark is a Gig Harbor resident whose work is focused on life-cycle events, teaching and pastoral counseling.

This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 5:30 AM.