There’s nothing quite like Louisiana Jews. Actually, there’s nothing quite like Louisiana – with its odd mix of cultures, races, and old-world mysticism. If you want to play with avodah zara, take a tour of the French Quarter and the surrounding areas. It’s one of the few places where you can find Jews on the “West Bank” and no one gets all political about it.
During a recent business trip there, I visited a distant relative who told me their daughter is going to turn 12 soon. I congratulated them on this important event – and they told me that it’s really no big deal. It’s just an over-glorified birthday. In fact they did not plan on doing anything more than “Fixin to have a regular party for her.”
You might think this couple was not very connected to Judaism. After all, a callous approach to religious events is something you would expect from someone strongly-secular. In this case however, the couple is frum – and not the BT type either. It made me think why would frum people discount the importance of their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah? It occurs to me that misguided Frumkiet is to blame. Let me explain:
Birthdays are pagan events. They celebrate the astrological forces that were in power on the day of your birth. The central celebration of the birthday is when the child blows out candles of many colors. The candle blowing dates back to a ritual performed in honor of Artemis, Greek Goddess of the Moon. The colors on the candles each have significance in pagan ritual. But for some reason, frum people seem to be OK with birthday parties and candled cakes – in Louisiana and all over the country. Hey, it’s pretty mainstream.
But now let’s look at the Bat Mitzvah. The gemara (Kiddushin lamed aleph amud aleph) relates a story about how Rabbi Yosef wanted to establish a celebration in honor of his finding out that he would be obligated in Mitzvot. (He was blind; the discussion was whether blind people have the same obligations as sighted people). This story teaches us that when you gain responsibilities – you should celebrate. Ironically this goes diametrically against everything in American culture, where we celebrate getting more rights (like the right to drink, drive, and vote). This gemara is often quoted as the source for the Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebration. Sure the actual Bat Mitzvah party craze is hardly a frummie thing – but the mitzvah part should be.
Here’s where it get’s misguided. Because of the fear that someone might think that this frum family has any modicum of respect for females, or values anything modern, it seems important for them to totally discount the opportunity to place any religious significance to the acceptance of mitzvot by their 12 year-old girl. But they have no problem with just making a (pagan) birthday celebration. To them, this seemed more frum. Does this make sense?
I didn’t go to the birthday party – it was only for women. So I’m guessing there were no throws — after all there’s not much to see at that age. But for all I know they did have maskers and some glatt kosher Boeuf Gras.
Dude…we get it…you don’t like frummies. You think they are missing the point of what Judaism is really trying to say. 5 posts a week on that same topic over and over again is really getting old.
Dude, I love frummies. But I love criticism even more. Thanks for yours, and I’ll keep up mine.
While you did indeed write this particular post, my comment was directed toward Heshy: the one who decided to actually post this. Post after post, and it’s all the same. It’s getting old.
so don’t read it – I have been getting comments like this one for 4 and a half years and you know what?
I keep getting them, yet people keep reading it, enjoying it and I don’t pay for traffic or force anyone to come so screw off, I’m pretty sure that on almost every single post I have ever put up or written I have gotten one of these same comments. I put up stuff I like, I write stuff I like – if I listened to what the readers wanted, this entire blog would be about frum porn and shidduch tales.
Good post,yikes I didn’t know birthdays were pagan, although celebrating the fact that G-D has let you see another year seems o.k. to me, Bar Mitzvah Bat Mitzvah, couldn’t there be certain things that only men do, and certain things only women do, without it getting all politically correct and what not? I opted out of my Bat Mitzvah only because I was afraid I couldn’t learn it in time, and not to mention that we didn’t have the money that everyone else had, and quite frankly I was afraid that my party wouldn’t stack up, sad but true. I’m sure I’ll get flack, but this culture is way too concerned with “equality”, the question is what does G-D say about a Bat Mitzvah? If MEN mad it up that women shouldn’t learn, then that’s a problem, If G-D said it then who are we to argue? We always want to make things comfortable to us, some one pleas tell me the Law on Bat Mitzvah’s…
I meant to say if man made it up…
Neither Bar nor Bat Mitzvahs are mentioned in the Torah. The notion of age-based responsibility is all over the Talmud, but no explicit mention of a party. There is one gemara (I mentioned above) that is used as as source for having a party. It’s a bit of a stretch. But to the extent it makes sense (which I think it does), then it does for both boys and girls. And the idea is less so a “party” with a DJ and dancers, and more so a recognition that you have reached a life-milestone.
It does not matter whether you have a party of not. Once you reach of-age, you are considered an adult. So technically, you don’t need a party at all. There’s nothing political about this, unless you make this something political. It seems to me that these events are nice to have when infused with religious meaning, and they are silly to have if they are just a over-budgeted birthday party.
Thanking G-d once a year for another year of life is a charming way to see your birthday — I like it. But the origin of the celebration is pagan. Your idea is a great way to liberate the ritual from it’s pagan roots.
Well of course I thank G-D each and every day for another day, but I don’t follow it with cake each day! lol..
elana, I like the way you think / thank.
You should fix that immediately.
Elena, they aren’t “pagan”. They are universal, human and have existed everywhere calendars exist. Sometimes only special ones are celebrated.
the frummer you are, the less pomp and circumstance around your bas mitzvah, at least where i am from.
bar mitzvahs are a big deal, thousands of dollars are spent and it is a party not to be missed. Bas mitzvahs on the other hand are often small, quiet events with some girls from her class, sitting in the backyard eating pizza and decorating a cake as the afternoon activity.
it starts at birth! a boy is born, he gets a shalom zachor, a bris, a big fancy kiddush – and a girl? maybe a bottle of nice booze and a small kiddush depending on the parents financial status.
totally lame
hmmm….
I don’t know….I was born into a very strict, frum family, and our kiddushes were no smaller than my brother’s (same for our children), we had sholom nekaivas, and where boys have an upshernish for their 3 birthdays, we had “outneirishes”. We had the choice whether or not to choose a party as a way of celebrating our bat Mitzvahs, and for those of us who chose that, our parties were all bigger (in terms of number of guests in attendance; we never did anything that was costly) than my brother’s. This is the case with many other people I know, minus the strange names. I think sometimes with girls, people are thankful for the fact that they don’t have to put on an event so soon after giving birth, and they end up forgetting one altogether due to hectic schedules. Usually, unless you have to do something, you don’t. Many of these people I know ended up making a big kiddush to honor the birth of the girl several years later (when they remembered).
All sorts of things are never mentioned in Torah. Tablecloths, somersaults, clapping your hands, enjoying the sunset. That doesn’t make them pagan. Tokenz.com, where you seem to have gotten your information on cakes and candles is not exactly scholarly or well-researched on a lot of matters.
People have celebrated birthdays since we had calendars. Festive occasions have been celebrated with cakes every place that has had flour or sweetener.
A.
I had not seen that site. Pharaoh is the first birthday I know about. Candles (and especially blowing out candles) have spiritual overtones in pagan cultures. And I know this because I know everything there is to know. After all, I went to Telz and learned if you “turn it and turn it, you’ll find everything in it” (the Telz motto). All Telzers know that all you need to learn is Toirah and you will then know everything.
Moreover, I bet tablecloths are in the Torah – even Aish.com tells me that I have to use a tablecloth on Shabbos http://www.aish.com/sh/t/rai/48970161.html (and they are as close to Torah as one can get these days). So there. 😉
The whole “candles for Artemis” thing is completely unfounded. Utterly.
The first we see of candles on birthday cakes is in th 18th century in what is now Germany. They aren’t from “pagan cultures” and don’t have significance there because the whole thing was invented in recent times in Europe.
OK, I need to amend this. Celebrating birthdays is found lots and lots of places. The modern birthday party with presents, candles on the cake, funny hats and all every year is recent. The only religion it owes anything to is Capitalism.
Virtually all of the saint’s days (i.e. St. Patrick’s Day March 17th, the Feast of St. Francis Oct. 4 , etc.) are the day the saint died. When I was a kid I thought this was really creepy– like it seemed to be celebrating the fact that the person died. But the reason for this is that in almost all cases nobody knew when the person was born (maybe even the person themselves didn’t know) because nobody kept track of this since it wasn’t considered important. The Church recorded the date somebody was baptized (which would normally be within a few weeks of birth) so that’s why we can go back and trace pretty closely when various historical figures were born, but except for really important births (birth of child to king and queen) nobody recorded the specific date anywhere. The person would know (hopefully) the year they were born and maybe the season, but just like virtually nobody could tell you right now the hour they born (since that information is never used) few people could tell you the day they were born.
Mom,
Interesting point about the record keeping and the importance of baptism over birth. One of the things you might notice as a difference between our religions, is that Jewish holidays celebrate national events (the people left Egypt, the people received the Torah, the people were saved from some bad guy), or personal events (a parent’s yaharzeit, my recovery from an illness, etc.). But we never have a national celebration of an individual’s event (e.g. the birth of a savior, ressurection of an individual, etc.) (OK, the more mystical trends in Judaism are breaking the “never” part of that statement.)
The Torah deliberately obscures and under-glorifies Moses’ birth (just a child of two regular levites) and death (we don’t record the date or location). And it does so for the Revelation at Sinai too (we don’t record the exact date or location).
Anyway, it just goes to show you that we all consider what is really important to us. If the gods of commercialism are important to us, we worship them with our credit cards. If our daughters are important to us, we celebrate their accomplishments. If our social status in an intolerant community is important, we worship those values and try to be just as mindless.
Well, it’s an interesting fact that the Gospels make no point about saying WHEN Jesus was born and the Church didn’t even think it was important enough to celebrate for the first couple hundred years. The Gospels consider it sufficient just to mention what king and what Roman governor were in power at the time. Now the death of Jesus is recorded in the NT not only as to the day but the exact hour.
Forgive me if this comes across wrong, I don’t mean to offend (“I have many Catholic friends” — which apparently is a phrase intended to allow me to say anything now), but (the famous “but” that comes after “I don’t mean to offend”) I find that Catholicism sometimes plays up death more than life — e.g. the significance of Jesus’ death, when you die you will only go to heaven if… etc. Or at least plays it up more than Judaism does — where we try to focus on what we are supposed to do while we are here. All our post-life stuff is pretty toned down, relatively speaking.
OK, now that I’ve told you how I feel, couched in sensitivity, I’m going to go back and write more posts where I do try to offend the other readers of this blog. After all, that’s the whole point of the ecumenical double standard on a satire blog.
That’s not a double standard. It’s an “equal-opportunity offender” standard, LOL. Anyone and everyone can and will be somewhat offended here at Frum Satire, LOL. Or your money back!
Well, notwithstanding all that Jesus says about how we are to live in THIS world, there is no question the Christianity focuses on the next world. This is the “big message” (the “gospel” or “good news”) of Christianity — that this world is not just one big huge awful joke in which we strive to achieve things, form relationships, build things up, only to deteriorate and die and dissolve into dust (or alternatively where we just get to suffer horribly physically and/or mentally only to die young or be killed by the Nazis or what have you) but that there is an enternal life of the soul which does not die. Isn’t this, after all, the biggest wall that every philosophy hits? What does it all mean if we all just end up dead anyway? If that’s true, then the whole way we think about life is a bad joke. But Jesus said “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the fullest.” Christianity is not anti-life — not at all — it just views “life” as a much larger concept then the brief biological processes that take place on earth.
So interesting, Catholic Mom!
Although it’s not traditionally Jewish, there is a Kabbalistic reason for recognizing a birthday:
chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/93614/jewish/Looking-Beyond-Landmarks.htm
The article, and the other articles it links to, offer suggestions on how to “celebrate” a Jewish birthday that are lovely — but they definitely don’t jive with what your average non-Jew would consider celebration. For example:
~ Spend some extra time praying, focusing on meditating and concentrating on the words of the prayers.
~ Say as many Psalms as possible. Ideally you should complete at least once of its five books (Psalms is divided into five books).
~ Study the Psalm which corresponds to your new year. This is your age plus one — e.g. Psalm 25 if this is your 24th birthday. Click here to study it online. This is also the Psalm which you should try to say daily until your next birthday.
~ Take some time out to contemplate on your past year. Consider which areas require improvement, and resolve to do so.
~ Learn some extra Torah on this day.
~ Study a Chassidic idea and repeat it at a gathering in honor of your birthday.
~ Partake of a new fruit which you did not yet taste during this season and recite the Shehecheyanu blessing.
I would be surprised if ANY observant Jew could find fault with the benefit and appropriateness of doing these things.
Excellent points Mahala, I love this. But as an observant misnaged, and a snarky guy who is always up for a challenge I was able to find fault in this one: “Study a Chassidic idea”
Interesting. I didn’t notice that.
don’t shut down your blog, OfftheD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is a weekly pleasure for me to read what interesting things you have to say about psychology and therapeutic methods of combating depression among other things
Thank you! I’m really happy you got something out of it. But I’ve pretty much said everything I can think of about the nature of depression, and I didn’t get much feedback about it from everybody. If you have a specific thing you want me to talk about though, I’ll open it back up to discuss it.
I just happened across this article looking to see if Bar Mitzvah had PAGAN origins, specifically in Kabalism, Mysticism, Illuminati, “lucky 13”. We would be what you may call Messianic Hebrews. Meaning we have Hebrew ancestry, we believe YasHuWaH was the Messiah. We were the believers BEFORE Constantine established the Universal Church and forced everyone on the Julian Calender or die. We do not follow the Talmud (Rabbinical Law), Just strictly the TORAH. We do believe the New Testament lines up with the TORAH, not necessarily from Greek Translation. The 13 party makes me a little leery that it is yet another “Babylonian” practice that the Jewish people picked up while in captivity (passover egg), they gave it a Jewish name and now its a Tradition. In our New Testament we read in Mark 7:7, of Men keeping the traditions of men OVER the doctrines of YHWH. In TORAH a man is not a man until 20. Most Europeans have Hebraic Ancestry, and in the 1840’s it was documented that Norwegian Girls on average did not even get their period until 17. Which made the gap of sexual maturity and marriage much less. So considering a girl an Adult at 12 or a boy a man at 13 is not fall into the Judea-Christian belief that the strong protect the weak. Possibly just giving the boy an oppurtunity to “live” and the girl allowed to be married. Sadly the little I have read from the TALMUD is very disturbing, having Goyim prostitutes, having a wife as young as 3, mistreating your Goyim neighbors, A rabbi sucking the blood from a babies penis during a circumcision. ALL of this is strictly FORBIDDEN in the TORAH. This group of people seem to be so far removed from TORAH, yet to the world they claim to be the chosen people of YHWH. I have to say I feel that perverting traditions with the Doctrines of YHWH is an abomination, no different that the scattered Israelites enjoying Astoreth celebrations while celebrating Messiah as the Passover Lamb, spiritual adultry.