What a busy, beautiful weekend of family celebration, in honor of our newest bar mitzva boy!
I appreciate that the photographer took a lot of spontaneous pictures.
It’s not easy to get a picture of a large group of people, and it’s basically impossible to get a picture without someone blinking or moving. And with late afternoon temps in the 90s, tired children….everyone did great!
It was a lot of work cooking and baking and organizing, but I had so much sincere enjoyment that it didn’t seem so significant.
This week’s Torah portion was the third longest in the entire Torah – my last son had a double parsha, and this parsha was more than twice as long as the double parsha!
This bar mitzva boy is a late reader, but he not only prepared the entire parsha, but the haftarah as well. Many people commented to me on how confident he was, that his reading was clear, loud and accurate. He was consistent and persistent in his preparations, and we are all so proud of him!
His reading took an entire hour. Literally. It was really, really long. Afterwards, he told me he felt a bit sad that it was over, and he was sorry he hadn’t read the haftarah more slowly to enjoy it even more. He’s already planning to prepare some of the Torah reading for an upcoming week!
He’s a wonderful young man and it’s been gratifying watching him grow up.
I’m feeling quite a bit of poignancy, some bittersweet feelings. This was the last of three bar mitzvas in just a little over three years, and it will be a few years until the next one. They really do grow up so fast….
Avivah
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