Brave Tweens: Starting Something You Don't and Can't Yet Understand

Did you have a b mitzvah? Do you remember how mysterious the whole thing was before you actually started? 

Grasping just how unknown the b mitzvah process is to every single person who undertakes it is a unique perspective that only an experienced teacher can describe. 

Lucky for you, here I am to do just that! 

The pre-b mitzvah kid is in a unique position that they themselves seem only able to understand in hindsight. Student after student of mine has reflected after their b mitzvah, or in the weeks leading up to it, how their own past selves could never have understood what the b mitzvah was all about just a short few months earlier. I can also confirm that explaining it all in advance does very little to illuminate the actual experience of doing it. It is a highly experiential education. 

One begins the process quite intimidated. About what? They’re never fully certain. Sure, anxiety will always find a place to land; pick your poison:

• “I can’t get up in front of people and sing something I don’t know!” 
• “What if I make mistakes?” 
• “What if I forget stuff?” 
• “Jewish stuff makes me uncomfortable!” 
• “I don’t get it!”
• Etc.

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fears and anxieties expressed by pre-b mitzvah students at the very beginning of their process. I have excellent answers for each: 

• “You’ll know it so well you’ll be singing it for the rest of your life” 
• “You will! And everybody does. It’s no big deal” 
• “You might! And I’ll be there to help you if so.” 
• “It makes everybody uncomfortable! But you’ll get used to it as we go”
• “Most people don’t. But by the end, you’ll be one of the people who gets it the most in the entire room”
• Etc.

And yet, these assurances do little to help the kid actually feel better. In fact, these assurances are usually repeated for 6-months straight before they start to make a difference in the child’s feelings about the b mitzvah itself. 

I would argue, too, that it’s not just my supportive approach changing the child’s perspective. I have watched it happen 100 times. Actually getting into the material, learning what they need to learn, taking it step-by-step, building up their knowledge, skills and confidence: these are the major ingredients that make the recipe turn out just right. Actually doing it is what helps the kid start to ‘get it’, start to feel better about it, and indeed, start to understand what it is they’ve actually signed-up for. 

Another observation that might bake your noodle: the b mitzvah ritual marks and celebrates the transition of a Jewish child into a Jewish adult. I can confidently report that the b mitzvah learning process, and the experience of stepping up onto the bima for one’s b mitzvah, are together the very things that catalyze that growth. So which is it? The b mitzvah happens because the child starts maturing into a Jewish adult, considering their Jewish identity, and exploring their place in their Jewish community? Or the child begins exploring what kind of Jewish adult they want to be because of their b mitzvah experience?   

And they started the process knowing none of that!! Can you imagine being handed a thick dossier, being told the project will take a year and change your life, but that it is inexplicable and incomprehensible to you? Being told you have to do it, and just getting started will make it feel better? How brave one would need to be in order to actually agree to such a thing!

So, next time a child in your life is stepping up to the plate for b mitzvah time, remember: it’s an extremely precarious, mysterious thing they’re doing! They are signing up for a year of very hard work, and a massive project that they don’t, and can’t, yet understand. Something they will only understand when it’s done. 

It is a very very brave thing that every b mitzvah kid is venturing to do. And I’m here to support them through it.