Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site linus.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!sb From: sb@linus.UUCP (Shimshon Berkovits) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Bat Mitzvahs Message-ID: <782@linus.UUCP> Date: Wed, 29-Feb-84 12:26:49 EST Article-I.D.: linus.782 Posted: Wed Feb 29 12:26:49 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 1-Mar-84 02:55:39 EST References: <402@sii.UUCP> <3395@utcsrgv.UUCP> Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA Lines: 18 Andy is actually correct. Bar mitzvah is something a boy becomes on his thirteenth Hebrew birthday; bat mitzvah is something a girl becomes on her twelfth Hebrew birthday. Nobody has to do anything. (I am told that in the case of my father, a reasonably well known Orthodox philosopher and theologian, nobody did anything for several weeks. When it was his "turn" to be called to the Torah for a weekday reading, he was quietly called. That was a matter of several weeks later.) However, once a boy reaches religious majority, he is elligeable to be called to the Torah. It has become the practice to call him on the first oportunity that arrises. If he comes to services only on Shabbat (Saturday), that's when he gets called. It has further become the practice to make note of this recognition of his becoming bar mitzvah by having a party. Unfortunately, the party often becomes the main focus of the boy's passage into religious adulthood. He becomes a bar mitzvah even if his parents have not told him he is Jewish. Shim