In the Jewish faith when a boy is 13 it is traditional for him to have a Bar Mitzvah which signifies his move from child to man. My middle one Matthew is going to be 13 and at the end of November he will have his Bar Mitzvah.
Depending on how religious you are there are variations on the way this is done, but basically there is a service in the synagogue where the boy has to say prayers and/or do part of the service, and this is followed by a lunch or party for friends and family.
Although this sounds quite straight forward it obviously takes a little bit of organisation! What happens in the service is largely dictated by the synagogue, but wherever the family belongs there is always a lot of work for the boy. Passages need to be learnt in Hebrew, which is confusing for no other reason than it must be read backwards from right to left, and when the scrolls are read there is no punctuation. The words are sung but there is no melody written, which means it all has to be remembered and it is very different from any language learnt in school. Matthew has started his lessons and fortunately is diligent. Mainly he listens on his iPod and so far there has only been a limited amount of wailing as he sings his portion.
The other part of the celebration is the party. This varies from a simple lunch with immediate family to an all singing, all dancing affair in an expensive hotel. We have tried to go for the middle ground.
As soon as Matthew had his 11th birthday we requested the date we preferred for his Barmitzvah. The service will take place on the Saturday morning and we wanted to have the party on the Sunday. We know that the last Monday in November is always an inset day at school and by having our preferred weekend we could all have a lie in and wind down day on the Monday. Once the date was confirmed we needed a venue. It seems mad looking so early but there was a disco we had used for the twins and this was already booked when we phoned them two years in advance.
Anyway venue was chosen, disco booked, photographer called and I knew that I had 18 months where I could forget about everything. That time is now over, and we are getting down to the finer details. With a Bar Mitzvah it can be less formal than a wedding and quite often there is a theme. For the twins it was football and specifically Manchester United and for Matt is is something completely different. When the invitations go out I will tell you what it is, but for now I have to keep quiet, sorry!
It is funny to be thinking about invitations in June for a function in four and a half months but they have to be sent out with enough time for people to reply and and us to give final numbers to the venue. The names and addresses have to be given by the end of August so the invitation lady has time to make them. Everything needs to be organised far earlier that you imagine and with the school holidays approaching I would really like to have names and addresses finalised by the time the boys break up.
Next months we are going to do a food tasting to make sure that the meal we have chosen tastes as good as it sounds so I will update you on progress then as the countdown really begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment