For University Students, It’s Never Too Late For a Bar or Bat Mitzvah
BINGHAMTON, NY — While the typical bar and bat mitzvah party celebrates the coming of age of 13-year-old Jewish boys and 12-year-old Jewish girls, a grand celebration of an entirely different nature took place at Binghamton University in New York. The party had all the trappings of the standard teenage affair, but it was 15 fully-grown college students who celebrated their entry into Jewish adulthood, albeit a bit late.
“These are not young kids going through the motions. They are not having a bar and bat mitzvah to enjoy a party,” said Rabbi Levi Slonim, program and development director at the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life in Binghamton. “These are young adults who have decided to make a passionate statement about the centrality of Jewish identity in their lives.”
With or without a ceremony to mark the turning point, Jewish women become responsible to observe the Torah at the age of 12, while Jewish men enter adulthood for ritual purposes at the age 13. Slonim, though, explained that a celebration of Jewish adulthood – especially after learning about the responsibilities that status entails, as the collegians did – has an inherent value at any age.
“By doing this publicly,” said the rabbi, “they are affirming to friends and family that Judaism is something they feel strongly about.”
More than 250 students attended the celebration, which featured a lavish meal and lively gender-separate dancing. Some 30 parents, friends and family members of the honorees traveled from across the Tri-State area of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, and from as far away as Miami.
john
this is huge and must be built on torah pride!