Please share our joy as our darling boy is called to the torah as a bar mitzvah. Never mind that he doesn’t really understand the words he is reading. He understands the story in general and will relate it to sports, his sister, and a Disney movie in his speech.
It is fine because we don’t speak Hebrew. We don’t even light candles or attend any services other than some of the high holidays and those are really boring. We are planning on quitting the congregation as soon as the dust settles on the eighteen dollar checks. That was what it took to get the kid to complete Hebrew school anyway. Only the promise of spending some of the cash for a new flat screen TV for his room could keep him going through that mind numbing routine.
Thank you so much for donating to his mitzvah project. Really, it was our mitzvah project. He didn’t do that much. It wasn’t worth any more begging and threatening; we had enough of that just getting this far. Besides, he is so busy with the sports and school and his friends. So all he ended up doing was an hour at the soup kitchen. They signed his form and he was out of there.
We’ll see you at the service. We are going to look great. The rabbi gave us the aliya blessings all written out in English transliterations so we can sound like we speak Hebrew. We should probably practice them. Not that we pray. Not that we really believe any of this stuff. We believe in god, of course. But we just don’t see the need to have all the bowing and reciting. I wish it were like Passover where we can just go right to the meal and skip all the mumbo jumbo. We are only doing this because…well…because we would feel left out. Our son would feel like something was missing if he didn’t have this experience. I didn’t stick with my religious education after my bar mitzvah, but maybe he will. Well, he won’t, but he could have.
Our celebration continues with a loud and expensive party on Saturday night. All we need is a bride and it could double as the kid’s wedding. It’ll be as big and as grand as anyone else’s party. We’ll have two hundred of our friends and almost as many kids. Don’t worry, they will be on the other side of the room and we’ll have hired dancers to give them gifts and keep them grinding away at each other. Consider bringing earplugs because the music has caused hearing loss and headaches.
The theme of the party is toys and games. Each table is one of our sons’ favorites. You’ll be sitting at iPod or maybe Xbox or Gameboy. Don’t worry, there won’t be anything from the service at the party. We’ll do a quick blessing over the bread and wine because we have this beautiful challah cover that my in-laws brought back from Israel that we need to use. After that, it is alcohol for the adults and fried foods for the kids!
We are giving away sweat suits with the kid’s name on them at the end of the night to all the kids. They will all wear them to school on Monday and make anyone who wasn’t there feel like complete losers.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for my kid’s thank you note. He may never get around to it. We’ve prewritten all the envelopes for him already and we may need to write the thank yous too. The best you’re going to get out of him is a quick, “Thanks for the generous gift. It was nice to see you.” He doesn’t know what you gave him and you won’t actually see him at the party. He’ll just hang out with a few of his friends and the dance staff. But he’s just a kid. Hopefully, we’ll see you for a moment or two.
We hope you can join us for this very important religious celebration. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
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