Be there now.

Why you should take your 12-year-old to shiva. Also, the most beautiful synagogue on Gramercy Park.

Happy Sunday!

In my last post, I talked about my love of This Is Where I Leave You, the book and the movie, and how it gave us the rare pop-culture depiction of the Jewish ritual of shiva. And I mentioned how I would have, in the follow-up newsletter, a shiva tale of my own. (By the way, if you were at the Brotherhood Synagogue, on Gramercy Park, in Manhattan, Friday night, you heard me give this talk already. So apologies if this is repetitive—and if it is, might I mention what a terrific synagogue you have? Not just the Quaker meetinghouse architecture—

—which, let’s face it, is more attractive than most synagogue architecture, which is generally hideous—I mean, here is my beloved but aesthetically challenged shul—

—but the people at Brotherhood! So friendly, so warm, such smart questions in the Q&A! And Cantor Isaac–what a voice! I hope to be back soon.) Anyway, here is the story.

You may have heard of the tradition of the “bar/bat mitzvah project”? This is the idea that in the run-up to a bat mitzvah (I’ll go with the girl’s event, as I have had three bat mitzvahs (proper plural bnot mitzvah) in my household, but no bar mitvzahs (bnai mitzvah)), the girl does some sort of do-gooder project, to make her entry into adulthood: raise money by running for the cure, collecting canned goods for a food pantry, making a quilt to give to a homeless shelter, etc. As somebody who has written about this age-old ritual, I have gone on record as saying I think the bat mitzvah project is a bad idea: it’s like a senior thesis, a capstone project representing the end of something, rather than a beginning, whereas becoming a bat mitzvah should mark the beginning of adult responsibility. You are no longer this

but this

So what I think we should do—and this goes for non-Jews, too, for anyone raising a child—is talk to them about what new responsibilities they have to take on after the ceremony.

One easy one for Jews is committing to going to shiva. Now that you are an adult, you are counted in the minyan, the quorum of ten, who have to be present to say the mourner’s prayer. If a new widow, for example, wants to say this prayer, the Kaddish, for a her departed husband, she needs nine other adults present—and that can include a newly minted 12-year-old bat mitzvah girl.

So when I heard a couple weeks ago that a man from our congregation had died, and there was a shiva at the widow’s house, I said to my 12-year-old, “Let’s go.” Did we know the departed? No. Did we know the widow? No. But it’s a nice thing to do. We could be of use.

And when we got there, was it easy to walk into this house of someone we didn’t know? It was not. As we pulled up, we both felt nervous. But we went inside, saw the people seated uneasily around the living room, which had been cleared of furniture, to make room for folding chairs. And wouldn’t you know … we were Jews #9 and #10. The presence of that 12-year-old meant that a widow (and the bereaved children) could properly chant the prayer for the dead. The new Jewish adult was just the Jewish adult who was needed.

This little true story makes a point that I try to drive home to Jewish youth, but which is relevant to all humans: sometimes you are valuable just for being. Sometimes all that’s needed is your presence—at a funeral, or a house of mourning, or a protest march, or a vigil. Sometimes all you have to do—all you can do–is sit by the person in their hospital bed. Just be.

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And by the way, WELCOME to the hundreds of you who have already subscribed to this newsletter (including, but not limited to, those of you who signed up as paid subscribers). My next move is to get a proper logo for this newsletter; much as I am enjoying relying on photos of myself and clip art of station wagons, it would be good to have a logo thats somehow merged my a) last name, which is the name of the newsletter, with b) my loves of corduroy/dogs/ice cream/station wagon/children/Judaism (or any of the above), c) came in a square and rectangular version, and d) was somehow simple.

Any graphic designers want to take a stab?

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