October 20, 2010

If you are 12 now, you’ve probably been hearing talk of your bar or bat mitzvah for years. Perhaps you’ve attended the bar and bat mitzvahs of friends or cousins. Perhaps you are the first of your friends to become a bar or bat mitzvah. Maybe you’ve attended a service and thought: How am I ever going to be able to learn all of that? Or perhaps you’ve already begun studying, and so far it’s felt pretty effortless. (Or perhaps you are a parent of a soon-to-be bar or bat mitzvah.)

What follows are my Ten Commandments for bar and bat mitzvah students. Some I’ve learned during my years of teaching and preparing students for the “big day.” Some come from former students who’ve recently gone through the process and for whom the experience is very recent. Remember, if you are having concerns, you’re probably not alone. In any case, while there are no guarantees in life, following these commandments is likely to serve you well and help you to feel prepared, confident, proud and a little less anxious.

I thou shalt make a study schedule

You’re most likely in middle school and have a lot on your plate. You may be in a new school, have a lot more homework, have less free time than you used to, and you may be getting involved in lots of extracurricular activities. As with any long-term project, assignment or goal, it’s best to set a time each day when you will work on it. Choose a time that works most days, and stick to it. The first week or so may be a challenge, but once it becomes part of your schedule and you get used to it, it will come naturally and you’ll see that you are making great progress.

II Thou shalt save thy parents from nagging

Most of us do not want to be nagged. And most parents would prefer not to nag. Once you’ve figured out when you’re going to study, just do it. Becoming bar or bat mitzvah is about taking on more responsibility. What better way than to begin by studying without needing reminders (at least not too many reminders). You’ll feel good about it, your parents will be proud of your self-discipline, and there will be a lot less arguing (which should make everybody happy).

III Thou shalt take ownership of thy studies

Come to your lessons prepared but also with an agenda. Let your tutor know you need help with a particular prayer or that you are having trouble getting a certain melody, or that you just can’t figure out how to get it all done. Ask questions about the Torah portion or about something that didn’t make sense when you were working at home. If you’re having trouble with some aspect of the preparations or you’re feeling anxious, let your tutor (and/or a parent) know that you need help figuring this out. Taking an active role in this process is another way of taking responsibility and ownership and being an adult.

IV Thou shalt limit thy extracurricular activities

You may be thinking: No way am I giving up soccer, trying out for the musical, cheerleading, (fill in the blank). You don’t have to give it all up, but if you want to reduce the stress in your life, it may make sense to plan for fewer obligations during the months prior to your bar or bat mitzvah. Trying to squeeze in play rehearsals and performances, baseball practices and games, schoolwork and bar or bat mitzvah preparation will only stress you out.

V Thou shalt work hard

This doesn’t mean you have to get stressed out. But you want to feel that you worked your hardest and that you deserve to feel proud of yourself. If you can honestly say that you put your best effort and work into making this a special time, then you’ll feel that much more proud of all you accomplished to get to that place.

VI Thou shalt be patient with thyself

It doesn’t all come at once, but eventually it comes together. If you start to get stressed out or frustrated while studying, take a break, have a snack, watch some television or take a power nap. Then come back to it. Trying to learn something when you’re stressed out will often cause you to feel more stressed out.

VII Thou shalt stop and smell the roses

Take time during the weeks and months of preparation to recognize how much you’ve learned and how your confidence has grown as the days go by. Recognize that what you’re chanting today, you didn’t know two weeks ago. Recognize that what you now chant effortlessly, you were stumbling through a month ago. Don’t take all of your efforts and studying for granted. Recognize all that you have learned.

VIII Thou shalt remember this is a prayer service

This is not a performance. It may seem like that as you prepare — or even on the actual day — but you’re leading parts of a service. It’s a sacred time for you and your family and even for your community. Everyone who has stood before the congregation (rabbi and cantor included) have made mistakes. If you do, then you are in good company. And even if you do make a mistake, it doesn’t take away from all the hard work you put into preparing.

IX Thou shalt be anxious

This doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you would be commanded to do (or that you want to hear), but think of it as permission. I usually tell students they are not allowed to be anxious until a month before the bar or bat mitzvah day. And even then, the goal is that any nervousness should be about the fact that you will be in front of a lot of people and not because you are feeling unprepared. That having been said, it’s normal to be at least a little nervous, so don’t fight it. Talk with your parent, tutor, rabbi or cantor about how to calm your nerves a little. But, if you are nervous, then you’re in the majority because most bar and bat mitzvah students are (whether they admit it or not).

X Thou shalt remember you have a lot more to learn

Hopefully the preparation for the bar or bat mitzvah was a positive experience. Hopefully you will feel good about it in the end. Hopefully you will see how much more there is to learn and how much more you can grow through the learning offered at your synagogue and in the Jewish community. Perhaps you will seek out (or be offered) more opportunities to be a leader in your community — reading Torah, being an aide in the religious school, etc. Becoming bar/bat mitzvah is the beginning of a new stage in your life as a member of the Jewish community. Seek out opportunities, take up offers from the clergy or teachers.

Finally, remember: You are taking your place as an adult in the Jewish community, and hundreds if not thousands of other young Jews around the world are as well. You are part of a community of young Jews becoming young Jewish adults. And, you are continuing the chain of all those who have come before you in your family and in your community. You are the next link – connected not only to those who came before you, but also to those who will come after you.

Jeff Bernhardt teaches b’nai mitzvah students at Temple Israel of Hollywood and privately. He is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.

As tallit maker Shoshana Enosh watched a first-time customer sift tentatively through her wares, she got that feeling she can never explain.

“Why don’t you try this one?” Enosh suggested, knowing which tallit to pull from the rack.

The woman nervously wrapped the prayer shawl around her stooped shoulders. Enosh said she began to cry as she watched the transformation.

The woman stood up perfectly straight — “a proud person, a whole person, for that second,” Enosh said.

No surprise the woman bought the tallit.

Enosh lives for experiences like this one. Though of ambiguous faith herself, she has spent the past 24 years trying to enhance the spiritual experiences of other Jews by deepening their connection to religious garments.

“You really don’t know what your soul wants until you’re playing with these toys,” she said.

The wife of Akiva Annes, rabbi emeritus of the Reform Temple Judea in Tarzana, Enosh spent much of her early life in synagogue. In fact, the idea for Enosh’s company, Shosha, which also makes kippot and chuppot, came to her during a Shabbat evening service.

Standing outside the sanctuary, Enosh watched a man snatch a tallit from the nearest rack, throw it over his shoulders and race inside. To her surprise, the men who followed did the same thing.

Enosh said the way the men put on their tallitot made it seem as if they had “no idea why they were doing this. They were not even connected to the movement or the motion.”

Plus, she added, “[the tallitot] weren’t very pretty.”

Enosh, a formally trained textile designer, dyer and weaver, set out to change that.

There was plenty of room for innovation in the field in the 1980s, Enosh said. Before then, tallitot were practical garments, drab and unadorned, she said.

She likes to joke that “practical” is no way to go about making — or, for that matter, buying — tallitot. “Where was the color?” she asked.

There was a whole world of unexplored possibilities — turquoises, pinks, browns, reds, oranges, purples, golds. She designed with them all, using traditional wool, choice silks and other materials to fashion vibrant new garments. Color has since become her signature.

“We vibrate with color,” Enosh said. “Color is what our world is about.”

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, one of Enosh’s regular clients for the past 15 years, said her skill with color is instinctual. He recently brought her a picture of the sanctuary’s new carpets, and together they designed a set of matching prayer garments for the clergy.

But Enosh didn’t stop at color. She added hand-painted designs, metallic sheen to some of the tzitzit, and crystals —sewn on, not glued —to the kippot.

She realized that tallitot sit poorly on the neck — “Why put a straight edge on a round surface?” — so she curved the midsection. It might seem like a small change, but she says the effect has been widely felt.

“The fabrics have a really great drape,” said Andrea Pullman, owner of Gallery Judaica in Westwood. “Nothing is stiff about anything.”

From the confines of her cramped, bustling Northridge workshop, Enosh has supplied the Judaica store for some 20 years. Her garments, which start as low as $300 but can go for more than $1,000, continue to sell well.

Many of Shosha’s customers are kids, often nearing b’nai mitzvah age. A tallit is a traditional gift for the occasion.

One customer stands out in Enosh’s memory. She was a soon-to-be bat mitzvah with big ideas for her tallit. A lot of times, Enosh said, parents pooh-pooh their kids’ crazy ideas, but this mom gave her daughter free rein. The girl wanted wild animals painted on her tallit — a tiger and a snow leopard. The mom said OK, and the finished product was one of Enosh’s favorite pieces.

Enosh said traditional tallitot don’t mean anything to children, unless they have some hand in the creation process.

“To build tradition in a child, it seems to me they have to have something to relate to first, and then to grow with,” Enosh said.

But for someone so invested in the spiritual lives of others, Enosh, who was born to American parents in New York but raised in Cuba, remains curiously detached on questions of religion. She is a deeply spiritual person — she leads classes in qigong, a Chinese system of meditative exercises intended to improve physical and mental health— but said she never “totally embraced” her Jewish heritage.

But her spirituality was never static; it constantly evolved as she tried new things. Discovering the power associated with religious garments provided Enosh a newfound spiritual outlet. She knew she had to share it with others.

“It’s a piece of art that you’re putting on your body,” Enosh said. “I think that’s honoring your soul.”

For more information, call Shoshana Enosh at (818) 886-5021.