Rabbi Janet Marder

Yom Kippur 5768

Introduction to Aliyot for B’nai Mitzvah and Confirmation Students

            Each year during the Torah service on the High Holy Days we honor students who celebrated Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Confirmation in the year that’s just passed. Each year I wonder how they are looking back on that experience. I know that some students, along the way, felt overwhelmed by extra responsibilities layered onto a life already full of obligations and challenges. And some were asking serious questions about God and their Jewish identity, and wondering why they were doing this.

            For some families, the time of preparing for Bar/Bat Mitzvah or Confirmation was full of joy and meaning; for others, I know, it aggravated tensions between the generations.

            Believe me when I tell you that neither of these life cycle events was dreamed up by rabbis to torture students and their parents. What it’s really about is that word I just said: generations. Students, when you come up here in just a moment to stand together around the Torah, you are making a visual statement to all the older people in the congregation – especially your parents. You are another generation. Your lives are different. You will walk into a future that none of us will see.

            Your role, as the next generation, is to walk forward. And parents, you are coming to understand, I know, that your role as mothers and fathers is to stand still. You have to do it over and over again. You stand still and watch them walk away from you into kindergarten; you stand and watch them dive off the diving board and run away on the soccer field; you stand and wave goodbye when they get on the bus for camp; you stand on the bima when they’re 13 years old and watch them walk into the congregation carrying the Torah, all by themselves. You watch your 16 year old climb into the car and drive away; you watch them travel to Israel or Europe without you; and someday, much sooner than you think you will kiss them goodbye at college.

            Again and again, you watch them walk away from you, and you stand still. Not that your lives are static. What I mean is that your job is to stand fast – to be your children’s touchstone, the thing in their life that is constant and steady and always to be counted on, when so much of their lives is chaos and change. And your job is to stand up for values and principles, to be your children’s pillar of integrity and goodness as they think about how they are going to live. Your job is to stand firm, with patience, love and good sense – even when they push back. And your job is to stand up with pride and to celebrate the fact that they are growing up and leaving you.

            So when we call up the next generation of the Jewish people, the ones who will make the future that none of us will see, I am going to invite you parents to stand in your place as a sign of love and respect for your daughters and sons. Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Confirmation was your rite of passage, too, and we honor you for standing strong, even when it was very hard to do.

            Students, with all my heart I hope you’ll remember the Hebrew and Jewish learning that we gave you during the time of your growing up here at Beth Am. But even if you don’t, I hope you’ll remember that your parents tried to bring you close to the Torah, and that they are standing up, today and always, because they believe in you.