“Have you heard the latest about the Cohen Bar-Mitzvah?” I was asked at the school gates this week? “No” was my reply. “They’ve booked JLS to appear” I was told. “They went to a BM in North London and JLS were there so the Cohen’s have decided to have them too.” I didn’t really respond because I didn’t quite know what to say. Obviously I think it is ridiculous and completely excessive to go to such an expense but being a closet JLS fan I suspect that I would have been slightly overwhelmed were I to be at the Cohen’s BM party.

I have been and heard of Bar-Mitzvah parties where there have been captain Jack Sparrow lookalikes, Britain’s got talent finalists, FA cup replica’s in a variety of places from the Natural History Museum, Pinewood Studios and a marquee in the back garden. Each one has had its merits and downfalls. Each one is a great party and I’m sure the Bar-Mitzvah family were very proud. However, I have been wondering in recent months how much of the Bar-Mitzvah is about the ritual or about the party. Nothing has made me think about this more than the watching the film Sixty-Six, Strictly Kosher and the story of Saul (http://www.judithtrust.org.uk/learning-disability-and-mental-ill-health/case-studies/sauls-story/)

Sixty-Six tells the story of a thirteen year old who is not only hoping that his Bar-Mitzvah is going to be a more sprauncy affair than his brothers but also has to deal with what many summer born Jews have had to deal with in the past, that he shares his Bar-Mitzvah with a football match (which in Bernie’s case happens to be the world cup final). On Strictly Kosher we watched Jack Aizenberg celebrate his Bar-Mitzvah at the age of eighty-five. Jack was a survivor of the Shoah and had spent his early teens in Buchenwald concentration camp. Saul is a teenager, born with a genetic disorder that means he has severe language and communication difficulties and learning needs. He is the boy at the centre of the Judith Trust’s inclusion campaign. What have Saul, Bernie and Jack got in common? Their Bar-Mitzvahs’ was a massive deal to them and the people around them just didn’t seem to get it. Saul’s rabbi told him that he couldn’t be Bar-Mitzvah, Jack’s family seemed to be distinctly unimpressed at Jack’s service and Bernie’s family were far too worried about the difficulties of the daily grind to worry about his coming of age.

Bearing all that in mind, are we to blame for the change in the way we approach Bnei-Mitzvah? Is it about finding the right venue, outfit and X-factor reject? Is it about showing your parents and family that you are officially a grown up? Or, is it about showing your community that you too are taking on the responsibility of being a proud and responsible Jew?

After all, it doesn’t say anywhere is Jewish writing that a Bar-Mitzvah is about celebrating the wonderfulness of your child.  In fact in the Talmud and Mishnah the only reference to Bar-Mitzvah (and even that is still tenuous) is that at the age of thirteen a boy must take on the commandments of the torah. The idea of the ceremony itself did not develop until the Middle Ages so the concept of becoming Bnei-Mitzvah is still relatively new! And as for the party, Medieval Rabbi, Jacob Ben Asher says in his compilation of Jewish law that "It is a mitzvah for a person to make a meal on the day his son son becomes Bar-Mitzvah as on the day he enters the wedding canopy" A-ha, so that’s where the Cohen’s got the idea from!

Not having had a Bat-Mitzvah, I cannot tell you what it feels like. But I can tell you that as much as I hear about the fabulous parties held by the families of the ‘park round the corner and pretend we walked’ variety of Jew I also hear about the boy who did a sponsored bike ride for Rabbi’s for Human Rights to commemorate his coming of age. Or the boy who walked across every Bridge in London to raise money for a cancer charity. How about the girl who twinned her bat-mitzvah with a victim of the Shoah and then traced his family so they could share the simcha? Many of our teenagers are making their Bnei-Mitzvah’s meaningful and we need to applaud them for that. Research coming out of the USA suggests that an increasing number of teenagers are trying to make their coming of age meaningful by asking for gifts to be donated to the local children’s hospice, by completing sponsored events and giving 10% of their gifts to charity. It is refreshing to think that our teenagers are happy to show the world that their Bnei-Mitzvah is not just about them but is about the world around us as well. As Jews we are instructed to pursue justice (Deuteronomy 16:18) and many of our teenager’s are using their moment in the spotlight to remind everyone of that. Maybe that is what the Cohen’s should be focusing on rather than the star studded line up of their party!

You choose

My kids have a book called You Choose[1]. The book gives the reader a choice of where they want to go, who their friends and family are, where they want to live and what they want to put in their homes, what food they want to eat, what they want to work as and what they want to do in their spare time, what pets they want and where they want to sleep. The book illustrates to me, the differences between my boys; Sammy chooses to live in the toadstool every time whilst Oliver’ choices vary between the castle, mansion (the house with lots of rooms) and tree house. Sammy always wants to eat Spaghetti Bolognaise whereas Oliver goes for the cake, jelly and ice-cream. Sammy wants a pet unicorn and Oliver in recent weeks has graduated from the dragon to a more practical (and perhaps more realistic) hamster.

In some ways I love and hate the book. I hate the fact that we have to read it practically every day, that Sammy is stubborn about his choices and that Oliver no longer wants a princess as his friend because in his words; “I’m a boy and boys don’t like princesses”. However, what I love about the book far outweighs what I hate. I love the fact that the book has become aspirational to the boys. Both boys want to be a pilot, want to ride in a space rocket and want to score a goal at the world cup. The book allows them to be whatever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. There are no limits.

What would it be like to live a life with no limits? To live in a world where all five year olds were able to travel into space, where all seven year olds could go to Cinderella’s ball, where no teenager suffered from acne or social awkwardness, a world where all A-level students could go to university without worrying about lifelong debt, to be certain of a job upon graduation, to be certain of finding a life partner, of having children easily and bringing them up safely and securely.

If we lived in a world with no limits, would we be any happier? Probably not. Knowing my limits and trying to conquer them makes me happy. I am in control of my own destiny. I know I won’t be living in a toadstool but I am going to do what I can to make myself happy and my life fulfilling.

There are two things that I think is true of everyone. No one is born lucky or unlucky and everyone has a mission in their lives to fulfil.  Of course there are people who have terrible things happen to them and we empathise with them and say they’re unlucky. When my mother died people said how unlucky I was. My attitude was that I was lucky enough to know it was coming and say everything I wanted to say. Not everyone has that opportunity.

Choices, destiny and luck; is there a difference? I believe so. I don’t think luck really exists. We make our own luck, it’s not lucky to be offered a great job, you worked hard for it, it’s not lucky to go on holiday and have great weather, it’s the weather patterns. Our destiny is something that is predetermined, the realisation that our world is greater than just the here and now, it’s the contribution we make to our family, our community and our society. Choices. That we have full ownership of. When we face barriers, it’s our choice about whether to dismantle them or find another route. When we are unhappy, we can choose to bring about a change to that situation which brings about a return to our happiness. When we are told no, we must choose to find out why and use that to move forward. Everyday, we make choices, big ones, small ones, ones which will have no impact on others, ones which will change everything.

Sometimes I wish I was five years old again when the choices amounted to whether to live in a castle or a tree house, whether to have cheese or quorn sandwiches in my packed lunch or what fruit to choose at snack time. Life was definitely simpler then. But the fact is today, even as I enter my mid thirties, I still believe that we have the power to make positive choices about the way we live and learn from the consequences of making the wrong choices. We are in control. I think the biggest weakness and our biggest challenge is not making a choice at all and staying on the fence because we are fearful of the consequence of that choice. No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and there is nothing weak about making choices. The weakness lies in those who don’t make any choices or those who would rather shout at the world for being unfair, than be proactive about making a choice.

2012 is a year in Britain for being part of history; The Olympics and the Jubilee have made us want to be a part of history. I wonder this year how many of us will be conscious about the choices we make and about writing or rewriting our own history?

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[1] You Choose, Nick Sharrett, Pippa Goodhart, Random House publishing