PMA Best Religion Book of the Year!
The inspiring guide to spiritual celebration used in hundreds of congregations—Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist—revised and expanded!
‘Parents and their children acutely feel the social pressures that surround bar and bat mitzvah. But they want to feel the spiritual promise of the event, the pull of the divine, and the knowledge that they are participating in an event that has meaning both in the ancient past and in the very immediate present. They want to know that the steep incline before them is their family’s own version of Sinai, the summit where, in every generation, Jews meet God, individually and as a people. They want to know that bar and bat mitzvah can be a path to that summit. And they want to know how to get there. . . . This book can be their guide.’
—from ‘Why This Book Was Born’
Helps people find core spiritual values in American Jewry’s most misunderstood ceremony—bar and bat mitzvah. In a joining of explanation, instruction and inspiration, Rabbi Salkin helps both parent and child truly be there when the moment of Sinai is recreated in their lives.
Rabbi Salkin asks and answers questions that make parents and children more comfortable with the event and able to experience it more joyfully. How did bar and bat mitzvah originate? What is the lasting significance of the event? What are the ethics of celebration? What specific things can you do to reclaim the spiritual meaning of the event? How to further develop spirituality? What spiritual values can parents and young people build together?
To help guide friends and family who are not Jewish through this important Jewish life cycle event, Rabbi Salkin provides a brief, welcoming overview: ‘What Non-Jews Should Know About the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Service.’
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, Indianapolis
Introduction by Rabbi H.William Lebeau, Vice Chancellor, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Preface to the Third Edition Why This Book Was Born
Chapter 1 Beyond ‘Today I Am a Man’
Chapter 2 “Speak to the Children of Israel”: How Bar and Bat Mitzvah Speak to the Inner Life of Children
Chapter 3 The River of Tears: How Bar and Bat Mitzvah Speak to the Inner Lives of Parents and Grandparents
Chapter 4 Hearing God’s Voice: The Meaning of Torah
Chapter 5 Putting the Mitzvah Back in Bar and Bat Mitzvah
Chapter 6 Rites and Wrongs of Passage: Putting the Party in Perspective
Chapter 7 To a Skeptical Jewish Parent
Chapter 8 The Shabbat Morning Worship Service: Finding Your Place in the Words
Chapter 9 The Changing Jewish Family
Chapter 10 After the Thank You Notes: Helping Your Jewish Teenager Develop Jewish Values
Appendix 1 What Non-Jews Should Know About the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Service
Appendix 2 A List of Places for Your Tzedakah Go and Learn: Resources for Jewish Parents
Glossary
Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading
About the author
Rabbi William H. Lebeau is vice chancellor and chairman of the Department of Professional Skills and dean of the Rabbinical School at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He was a congregational rabbi for nearly twenty-five years.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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