MY BIG, FAT, JEWISH, BAT MITZVAH RECEPTION

Dear CybeRav,

The kids and I went to a cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah last Shabbat. The girl led part of the service, read some Torah with fine trope, did her half of the haftarah, and gave an appropriate speech that was clearly not written by her mother. It was impressive.

But then came the party.  It was one of those huge elaborate affairs with a loud DJ and dancers and fancy food stations and an upscale meal and a big entrance for the bat mitzvah girl. The girl and her mother changed outfits between the service and the party so they could have almost matching party dresses.

Throughout the weekend and before it, various discussions involved how much to give for a bat mitzvah gift. My jaw dropped at some of the recommended amounts. In some cases, people claimed they were taking into account the cost of the meal at the party!

I don't get it. It all seems too flashy. The emphasis on the party seems disproportionate. My gut reaction is that so much of this is inappropriate. I know those DJs and party planners are happy to be earning a living from affluent Jews, but I always wonder what they think of us. What does the coat-check guy think of Jews? I kind of want to tell the guy, "We're not all like this." But then I start having my own negative feelings of Jews, too. I want to separate myself from all of it.

How did we get here? And how does each of us handle it? I don't want to be bitter about everyone' s celebrations, but they do make me feel nauseated. As bar/bat mitzvah talk ramps up for people my age, I figure I have about 15 more years of it. I have to get through it somehow. Finally, as a community, what can we do about our values?

SUFFERING FROM JEWISH PARTY FATIGUE

CYBERAV ANSWERS

Dear Suffering,

What a fine question--or series of questions as the case may be.  Let's see if we can get to the heart of your issues.

How did we get here?  I guess my first first answer to this first question is another question:  who are "we?"  It doesn't sound like you are part of the we, and I don't think that I am part of the we, and actually, I know a number of B'nai Mitzvah parents who would definitely consider themselves outside the we group you identify.  For those who are a part of that we, the Jews whose semahot turn into displays of conspicuous consumption, I'm averse to lumping them all into one group.  Do they feel that this is the one and only certain Jewish simhah they may ever be able to arrange for their child so they are going to go all out?  Or do they need to display their wealth due to insecurities about their tenuous standing among their peer group?  Or is this how Jews in the 21st century celebrate after the horrific experiences that Jews of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries endured (not to mention a number of centuries preceding those)?  Or are Jews just so secular these days that, in fact, there is often no religious significance to a Bar/t Mitzvah and it is only about the party?  I don't know the answers.  It would take a well-funded research project to find out.  I don't think it fair to necessarily condemn families who do go all out.  At the same time, we can probably think of 100 better ways to use one's resources which can be equally joyous and more in tune with traditional values--like taking the family to Israel, sponsoring a Jewish concert or lecture or Scholar-in-Residence for the synagogue in honor of the child, planting trees in Israel for all your guests, etc.  

I have to get through it somehow.  And you will precisely because you will guide your family down a different path.  Can families in the community or even your kids pressure you into making a party that you would rather not attend yourself?  I doubt it.  And as for a Bar/t Mitzvah gift, everyone should give what their heart dictates.  I don't think covering the cost of a reception dinner for each person attending is such a bad idea, but that also depends on how reasonable the reception is (which is a judgment call on your part), and nevertheless, that approach is only a suggestion, not a rule.

Finally, as a community, what can we do about our values?  Well, first, we can raise these issues in a public forum, like a Blog, or a meeting of the parents, and honestly ask what it is that we are trying to accomplish in arranging elaborate displays of food, music, exotic dancers, and sundry other party games?  Do these parties reflect our values?  Must we take out a second mortgage on our homes in order to entertain our family and friends?  Is diving into this pool of materialism really a lesson we want our impart to our children?  These are all questions we need to raise in the community and I thank you for raising them for us.  You know, between you and me, we could save the community a lot of bucks--not too shabby in an economy still recovering from a serious recession. 

In the mean time, know that in the Jewish community, displays of independence and virtue exist along with displays of tasteless opulence, and whether the tasteless exceed the tasteful, I can't tell for sure, but I can tell you that it is your choice which "we" you wish to associate with.

ISRAEL HATRED: AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHER EXPLAINS

People ask me from time to time—Why Israel?  Why the Jews?  Why are we hated?  The possible answers abound—jealousy because of our success, resentment because of our ethical positions, discomfort because of our efforts to reform the status quo, vengeance because classical Christianity held us forever guilty of a murder we never committed, etc.  But of all the answers I’ve ever come across, none resonate as much as the perspective of David Hume (1711-1776), the Scottish philosopher and economist, whose sobering views on ethics and morality explain much about our moral or immoral selves, many decades after his death. 

  

It’s simple, Hume might argue.  We would steal if we could, but we don’t because it’s a liberty that will ultimately come back to haunt us.  Others would be free to steal from us and we wouldn’t like that very much.  The same is true of murder or perjury.  Our ethics are thus based totally on utilitarian grounds.  An example which further explicates this point of view is often cited by way of a group of space aliens who find their way to earth.  They are intelligent, thoughtful, feeling creatures, but relatively tiny and of no particular use to humans.  What would be their fate?  Hume’s answer is bleak—they would be oppressed, if not killed.  And so, Hume explains, we can understand the dismal fate of the American Indians at the hands of the Europeans or women the world over, trapped by a patriarchal structure that forever sees them as weak and vulnerable and seeks to keep them weak and vulnerable. 

  

Enter the Jews.  All of us.  All 0.2% (if that) of world population.  By all accounts, no one should care about us if only due to the difficulty in actually finding us.  But finding us is no problem.  Our minute numbers notwithstanding, we are highly visible—in the arts and sciences, or in literature and politics.  We are present and extremely visible.  Our meager numbers make us eminently expendable among an abundance of humanity whose evolutionary advancement is highly exaggerated.  And the fact that attempts to rid this world of us have failed time after time only inflames the hearts of those already given to Jew-hatred or Israel-hatred (they are truly one and the same). 

  

Given all this I not only reject all claims by so many—sadly Jews among them—that the State of Israel has grown too strong militarily.  To the contrary, our insubstantial numbers require that we remain a formidable military power, if we intend to survive.  David Hume, who understood the plight of the vulnerable, would certainly concur.  On this 64^th anniversary of Israel’s birth, I pray that this little country keep growing in all ways, and that we hutz la’Aretz Jews (we who live “outside of Israel”) understand the critical role we play in keeping our governmental agencies fully supportive of the only true democracy in the Mid-East:  Israel. 

  

One final word.  With all the anti-semitism in the world, how can we Jews go about our business with any degree of sanity?  We can live daily and fully precisely because the idiots of this world do not define us or our political or social lives.  The truth is that the universe is gorgeous, and earth is a precious bead of blue in space, and the hordes of haters all combined hold no candle to the 36 tzadikkim, the 36 righteous people who sustain the earth and the rest of us.  We must be wary of those who hate, but we must also resist sinking to their level.  With God’s help, the hatred will diminish over time as evolution continues to favor reflective, thoughtful and compassionate creatures, rather than the other types.  May Israel continue to be a light onto the nations, playing a significant role in the unfolding of a more ethical human animal over time.