I was bar mitzvahed at gunpoint.
It wasn't like the Nazis or anything, and when I say gunpoint, it wasn't really gunpoint, it was more like knife-point, actually a plastic butter knife. My mom held out a plastic knife (Jews like disposable silverware) and said: “You're getting bar mitzvahed or no more spreading stuff on those bagels you like.”
My mom rarely threatened me with plastic utensils or any tools, though some would later say her cooking was a threat - to my developing palette and to society as a whole. My mom never met a spice she liked, from salt & pepper to any seasoning that would add flavor to a dish. And she especially hated ice in her water. But don’t get me started. Back to the bar mitzvah.
I did not want to go to Hebrew School on Sundays but it was required to get bar mitzvahed. Sunday was a day of football watching for me and then playing all sorts of sports in the backyard. It was for catching frogs and caterpillars, not catching a cold from “Warren the bedridden Jew” sitting next to me at Sunday school, who only left the house to go to Hebrew School on Sundays or occasionally to greet the Good Humor ice cream truck that came into the neighborhood.
The end game of Sunday School is this bar mitzvah thing, which requires a 13-year-old boy (or 13-year-old girl for a bat mitzvah, unrelated to the bats of Wuhan) to try to sing in Hebrew in front of a room full of people who were wondering if there were possibly anything else they could be doing at that moment.
And the bar is low for bar mitzvahs, right? What isn't better than sitting in a stuffy synagogue on a Saturday at 3 p.m.? Even sitting in a traffic jam. At least in traffic you can listen to anything you want on the radio - instead of listening to an awkward, nasal, teenage Jewish boy softly recite, without feeling, an out-of-tune language that's been gone for 2,000 years. Not to mention that musty, allergy-laden prayer books that are written backward with condensed Sitka Semi-bold type, without proper white space. Not exactly a joy ride.
And of course, I didn't want to be there either, but I was afraid of losing the ability to butter a bagel. I was 11 years old and the thought of going to another school, on Sundays, instead of watching the NFL pregame shows, for a religion in which I didn’t believe, seemed absurd. (I declared my atheism at age 10 after I found out that Moses couldn’t be real because there was a basketball player named Moses Malone, and Jesus wasn’t real because of the baseball shortstop Ivan DeJesus. My young brain couldn’t reconcile those things – not to mention finding out about Santa Claus a few years earlier.)
Absurd or not, I trudged through Hebrew School for two years, learned a little culture, but very little Hebrew, and made it to the big day. I wore my first suit that day. A blue-grey plaid cardboard lady killer (at least that’s what the rabbi said to boost my confidence) that was on sale at Artie’s, which was the cheaper precursor to TJ Maxx.
I hit the bar mitzvah podium with the confidence of Steve Jobs at an Apple Developer conference, only it turned out that I didn’t have the charisma that accompanies the black turtleneck. The rabbi’s encouragement wasn’t enough to compensate for my combination of nerves and lack of energy as I mumbled through the words, making the face my dog makes when she pees, hoping the low volume of my voice would cover up the butchering of the Torah I was doing as I recited the phonetic sounds that I memorized from this holiest of ancient scriptures.
The Torah is Hebrew for the “law” of God revealed to Moses (see my earlier point) and represents the first five books of the bible or what is known as the Old Testament. Apparently, God dropped only the first five episodes, like a Netflix series, saving the streaming of Season 2 for the new Christian network.
After the service, I went to a luncheon hosted by my parents and God (they split the bill, mom insisted) and in the eyes of the Jewish faith, became a man: A man in a cheap suit, boys, size medium. I actually didn’t become a real man until a year or so later when I kissed a girl for the first time and took out the trash. Not on the same night. Respect.
I thought becoming a young Jewish man would immediately get me a job in Hollywood but it turned out that it didn’t mean much in the real world, and I had to return to 8th grade in Holland, Pennsylvania, where the population was 99% non-Jewish and I was a four-foot eleven nerd. Understanding my non-status, I immediately asked my mom if I could get baptized, to go to the other Sunday School, and get confirmed as a Christian. I believe I said it was to increase my odds with the non-Jewish chicks. She threatened me again with the butter knife thing so I have remained to this day an atheist Jew, in my mind, the best kind.
*Figuratively speaking
Illustration by David Kellis + DALL-E
Hilarious Dave! One of your best.
Slightly disappointed that Aunt Sunny didn't make the cut.
Hysterical! Great one.