Mazel Tov

This past weekend, my family attended Samuel Grossman's Bar mitzvah. Sam's mom works with my wife Margaret. It was a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful synagogue. We were excited to see what this was all about because neither of us had ever been invited to such a thing. It cracked me up as I walked in, the little guy working as an usher was wearing a white suit and had a shiny golden head cover with a bright sash looking thing on his shoulders. Then, to top off the whole look he had an eye patch. I whispered to Margaret that he looked like a villain from a James Bond movie. I was given a head covering, kippa, or beanie before we walked in the sanctuary area. This was to show respect to God. We went to our seats and was amazed as the people at the front were standing facing the back of the room chanting a language that my kids were completely clueless about. I kind of chalked it up to some kind of Jewish music. As, I read through the bulletin thing, I got cracked up because I just talked earlier in the summer about the Hebrew people leaving letters out of the word G_d out of respect to his name, and there it was a G_d right in the bulletin. It continued and they began the Bar mitzvah part of the service. I had a few observations that I wanted to share with others.

First, the peoples love for God's word knocked me down. They keep their holy scriptures in an ark at the front of the room. It was special just opening up the ark to get out the scriptures. Everyone stood. Sam carried the scriptures through the room and people moved to the isle as he walked by. It looked like they were all reaching out and kissing these scrolls as they walked by. How often do we just disregard the scriptures given to us? I mean, we carry are Bibles on our phones. We don't think about bringing them with us to church because the words will be up on the screen. I understand the book itself is not Holy. The anointing the holiness comes from the things that are written. As a kid's pastor though, am I doing justice the appreciation of the scriptures? As a parent, do my kids understand the things that are written in there are not just any words on a page? I teach on reading your Bible probably several times a year, I do nightly devotions with my kids but am I really getting across that this Book is something that is life changing. I was challenged by the Holy Spirit to do a better job with this.

As I was sitting there, I kept thinking about what we have that equates to this? Sam thanked his Hebrew school teachers several times. He spoke from the Hebrew scriptures in Hebrew. He thanked his sister for her excitement about Judaism. It was a very cool thing to see. His parents and grandparents were both there and showed his families Jewish heritage. It was something that this family had prepared for months to make happen. You could see a family pride not just in the family but also in their Jewish family there at the synagogue. The effort put into this was valued by many. This passage into adulthood was a big deal. Where do we stand on this? We have crownings and gold medals of achievement given out. I have been able to see several of the kids here at first get those in the last year. How do we make these things more important not just to the kids to finish but to the families? Is the Mpact girls and Rangers clubs even the place where we need to be moving forward with this? I don't know. I know that we need something that families come around their kids and pass the heritage of their faith. It is important for kids to understand this. The question is: what does this need to look like?