The Jewish Internet with Mark Mietkiewicz, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

Forget the DJs and those outlandish theme parties. These people mean business. And they’ve waited a lifetime to prove it. Whether he just wasn’t interested when he was 13 or she wasn’t allowed at the age of 12, there are incredible stories of people who decided it’s never too late to celebrate their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

First, Stuart Schoenfeld clears up an important misconception. You don’t need to have the party or to read from the Torah to be a Bar Mitzvah. “A youth becomes Bar Mitzvah at age 13 with or without a ceremony. Yet rabbis welcomed men who came in search of a ritual confirmation of their Jewish identities. They created opportunities for these men to study and applied the name Bar Mitzvah metaphorically to the adult ritual.” Schoenfeld mentions that one of the pioneers in this area was Rabbi Albert Axelrad at Brandeis University, who held “belated” Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies in the early 1970s (http://bit.ly/adultbar1).

Hadassah Blocker was another pioneer when she developed the adult Bar and Bat Mitzvah program in 1976 at Temple Emanuel in Newton Centre, Mass. Visit her temple’s website to read the touching thank-you notes that graduates have sent to Blocker over the decades. “Words alone cannot express the feelings of and gratitude that I have for you for giving me the chance to learn about my heritage and to become a Bat Mitzvah…I always envied my husband and sons for having such a love and understanding for Torah and Judaism, and always felt ashamed that I didn’t have the same feelings, and wondered if the feelings would ever come to me. You taught me how to find that love and to express those hidden feelings (bit.ly/adultbar2).”

The commitment to have the ceremony usually means attending a synagogue-based class or one-on-one study with a rabbi for a year or more, as well as learning Hebrew skills to chant from the Torah, the Haftorah (Prophets) or conduct part of the service.

Adult B’nai Mitzvah tend to fall into two categories: as children, they couldn’t or they just didn’t want to (bit.ly/adultbar3). People like:

• Jane, who at 13, felt spiritually alienated;

• Joe, who converted to Judaism after he was 13; and

• David whose parents were “left-wing educators” and not at all religious. David chose to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah almost three decades later. “As much as I will deny having any type of spiritual connection, I have to say that reading from the Torah was a magical experience.”

Dan Pine explains that he decided to have a Bar Mitzvah to give him an idea of what his 12-year old son was about to go through — and fighting against. But “by the time of the ceremony, I had done a 180. I was no longer doing this for Aaron; I was doing it strictly for myself. When I stood before the Torah in the sanctuary that night, the Hebrew letters seemed ablaze. The sound of my own chanting voice resonated deep inside me (bit.ly/adultbar4).”

Did Pine’s Bar Mitzvah have a profound impact on his son? It didn’t seem so at the time. But “perhaps I planted a seed when Aaron saw me up on the bima (stage) that night, a seed that may sprout someday. There’s no way to know yet, but I hope he will reconnect with Judaism, maybe when he has children of his own, as I did.”

Not everyone having a Bar Mitzvah as an adult missed out on the ceremony as a child. Several people choose their 83rd birthday as the appropriate time to have a second Bar Mitzvah. Why 83? In Pirkei Avot, the Teachings of our Fathers (5:24), Judah ben Teima relates the significance of the various milestones in our lives. He suggests that at age 70 we have reached “fullness of years (bit.ly/adultbar5).”

In other words, the age of 70 should be considered a full life and anything above that is a bonus. That’s why, when he turned 70 + 13, David Schneider, a retired violinist with the San Francisco Symphony, decided it was time to face the music — and his congregation — to read the Haftorah and deliver a speech (bit.ly/adultbar6).

When Todd was coming of age, he was told that he would not have a Bar Mitzvah because he was dyslexic. Years later, on a group tour of Israel, he mentioned this in passing. A few days later, 86 guys marched up Masada to right the wrong done to Todd decades earlier.

As Lori Palatnik tells the story, “There was not a dry eye in the house. As Todd explained to them and shared with them, that if he would have known 28 years before that in 28 years, he was going to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah with 86 new brothers, he said he could have waited. It would have been fine (bit.ly/adultbar7).

“Every guy there who had had a Bar Mitzvah knew that this one was head and shoulders above. It was so meaningful. It wasn’t for the party, and it wasn’t for the parents. It was the real thing.”

Mark Mietkiewicz may be reached at highway@rogers.com.

To read the complete November 2014 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.