We made a quick trip up to the Bay Area (like, literally less than 36 hours -14 hours of driving) to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of my nephew.
A Bar Mitzvah is a wonderful, sacred, coming of age service that, as an outsider, I can’t fully understand the meaning of, but as an observer, I can appreciate, in many ways.
What I really loved about being at the Bar Mitzvah was the sense of tradition, of honor, the rite-of-passage, and the sacred space of passing down understandings from generation to generation, coming into adulthood, being grounded in faith and family, being surrounded by community. We were in a temple full of love and full of hope and full of possibility.
Being at the Bar Mitzvah service had me reflect on coming of age in my own life, and in that of my own children’s lives. I contrast the months of preparation to become a Bar Mitzvah with the sometimes abrupt and traumatic transitions to adulthood that some of us, in our family, have faced. I think about the beauty of the ceremony and the acknowledgment of the responsibilities and honor of adulthood with the contrast of increasing expectations of maturity without explicit opportunities to acknowledge (at least in front of community) my own pride at the transition of my children into adulthood. I think about the ways in which knowledge, values, and beliefs get passed down, explicitly and implicitly from parent to child, and about what children choose to adopt and adapt as they become adults themselves.
There’s no tidy ending to this blog as I’m thinking of all these things, and on a bit of a tight timeline this morning (as we have to return the rental minivan we used to haul up the convertible crib that will now go to my baby niece, as my 3.5 year old transitions to her big girl bed, another rite of passage), but I’ll end by saying how grateful I am for family and community — by blood, marriage, chosen, and destined — who witness our family’s coming of age, and walk alongside us in this journey. They are the greatest blessings and reminders of who we are.