Booked a hall for the bar mitzva today

I’m not a person who waits until the last minute to do things; my feeling is by thinking and planning ahead, you can minimize pressure and stress.  So why in the world am I so not on the ball about our upcoming bar mitzva?

I started lists…and I left them incomplete.  I kept losing them, and forgetting what I decided, and then making more lists, and losing them…  Every time I thought about the bar mitzva, I felt down, almost depressed.  This is not typical for me.  On Thursday night, I told myself that it was time to stop procrastinating- after all, it was only three weeks away –  so I made calls that night to organize the details of the kiddush for the bar mitzva.

We were planning to have the  kiddush at the bigger shul that my husband davens (prays) at, followed by the bar mitzva meal, since that day is the actual day of ds’s birthday.  Getting off the phone, I felt even more discouraged and less motivated; I felt such a lack of warmth and connection.  I felt like I was pulling teeth to get basic information, and I felt so frustrated that I couldn’t get an answer to the basic questions of how many people usually showed up to a kiddush, a low and high end estimate.  Everything about the planning was making me feel lonely and alone.

When I got off the phone, like a flash of light I suddenly realized why I was so unhappy that it was keeping me from doing anything.  I didn’t want to make the bar mitzva in the very large synagogue area, which since it’s in the process of being renovated, has bare cement walls with high ceilings that make it feel cavernous.  The big open space would just highlight how few people we knew and make it feel more lonely.  I didn’t want lots of people who didn’t even know us to be there gobbling up cake, and even worse, I didn’t want no one to show up because they didn’t know us!

So I did a mental 180 degree turnaround, and determined that we’d do whatever we had to do to have it in a place that we could feel good about it.  This morning we went to take a look at another hall close by, and I feel like the cloud over my head about planning this bar mitzva finally lifted!   It’s a nice open space, with a warm feeling – not huge, but nice.  There’s a full kitchen to use, and an additional room that’s included in the price.  Even though we only needed it for about five hours, we have to pay the bigger amount since they charge for the entire Shabbos, and we have to pay an additional 100 shekels for electricity since whatever lights we need will have to be left on the entire Shabbos.  But that’s okay, since we’ll be able to use it from Friday noon through Saturday midnight, which will make getting ready so much easier!

It will definitely be more expensive than the other place – because the synagogue basement isn’t yet finished, the fee to use it is very nominal.  But I’ve said before, frugality isn’t about spending as little as you possibly can in every area – that’s called miserliness – but budgeting your funds so that you can spend your money and live your life in the way that is meaningful to you.  So although we do have to be very careful about our expenses, particularly since dh isn’t yet working, to be so cheap on a special event that none of us would enjoy it isn’t really a savings, you know?

Since we’ve delayed everything, there are no invitations printed yet that have to be changed, so dh was able to make that change today without any difficulty.  It feels so good now to jump into the planning for this now!

Avivah

5 thoughts on “Booked a hall for the bar mitzva today

  1. I made a Bar Mitzvah shortly after moving to Baltimore before I really felt like part of any shul. I also ended up renting a separate place and had davening, kiddush and meals only for family and friends. It was wonderful being able to share the simcha with people I felt close to instead of a lot of strangers. I’m sure you made the right decision. Mazal tov!

    1. Alisa, this is exactly it, wanting to share a special occasion with people who know and care about you. At first I felt like if we only had friends and family there, we’d have a mighty small crowd, but then decided better small and meaningful than impersonal.

  2. Mazal tov! Having met your son a couple of years ago, it is so exciting to think that he is soon to be a bar mitzvah. A fun and thoughtful young man, ka’h. Looking forward to hearing more about this milestone.

    1. Wait a minute – doesn’t this mean you have a bar mitzva on the upcoming horizon?? You’re right, he’s a very fun young man, and we hope that despite having left a sizable group of friends behind, that this will still be a special event for him.

      1. We do have a bar mitzvah iy’H on the Shabbos after Pesach. It’s a very special time and has led me into many thoughtful moments about parenting, children growing up, and the importance of family.

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