Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
Foreword by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
Introduction by Rabbi William H. Lebeau
PMA Best Religion Book of the Year!
The inspiring guide to spiritual
celebration used in hundreds of congregations—Reform,
Conservative, Reconstructionist—revised and expanded!
“Parents and their children acutely
feel the social pressures that surround bar and bat mitzvah.
But they want to feel the spiritual promise of the event, the
pull of the divine, and the knowledge that they are
participating in an event that has meaning both in the ancient
past and in the very immediate present. They want to know that
the steep incline before them is their family’s own
version of Sinai, the summit where, in every generation, Jews
meet God, individually and as a people. They want to know that
bar and bat mitzvah can be a path to that summit. And they want
to know how to get there. . . . This book can be their
guide.”
—from “Why This Book Was
Born”
Helps people find core spiritual values in
American Jewry’s most misunderstood ceremony—bar
and bat mitzvah. In a joining of explanation, instruction and
inspiration, Rabbi Salkin helps both parent and child truly be
there when the moment of Sinai is recreated in their lives.
Rabbi Salkin asks and answers questions
that make parents and children more comfortable with the event
and able to experience it more joyfully. How did bar and bat
mitzvah originate? What is the lasting significance of the
event? What are the ethics of celebration? What specific things
can you do to reclaim the spiritual meaning of the event? How
to further develop spirituality? What spiritual values can
parents and young people build together?
To help guide friends and family who are
not Jewish through this important Jewish life cycle event,
Rabbi Salkin provides a brief, welcoming overview: “What
Non-Jews Should Know About the Bar and Bat Mitzvah
Service.”
“An invitation to all families to
link the sacred act of ‘going up’ to the Torah with
the sacred process of ‘growing up’ in faithfulness
to God and community.”
—Rabbi
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (Reconstructionist),
Beth-El Zedeck Congregation, Indianapolis
“I hope every family planning a bar
or bat mitzvah celebration reads Rabbi
Salkin’s
book.”
—Rabbi
Harold S. Kushner (Conservative),
author of
When Bad Things
Happen to Good People
“Shows the way to restore
spirituality and depth to every young Jew’s most
important rite of passage.”
—Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin (Orthodox),
author of Jewish Literacy
“In a gentle style.… Shares
both practical and spiritual suggestions for bringing God and
significance back to each stage of the bar or bat
mitzvah.”
—American
Library Association’s Booklist
“Raises the questions that most need
to be asked at every bar and bat mitzvah.”
—Rabbi
Laura Geller (Reform)
“A gem from front to back…. A
book that should be required reading for all parents planning a
bar or bat mitzvah.”
—Jewish
Family and Life
Rabbi William H. Lebeau is vice chancellor and chairman of the
Department of Professional Skills and dean of the Rabbinical
School at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He was a
congregational rabbi for nearly twenty-five years.
