Joey's Bar Mitzvah: It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time

JOEY’S BAR MITZVAH: IT’S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME

Joey at twelve is a mythical creature, half man – half boy. He has begun studying for his bar mitzvah – and I cannot believe that he is almost thirteen. A part of me cannot picture him on the bima reading from the Torah before a whole congregation. This is, after all, a child who still cannot sit through a service.

During a Saturday morning service, he slips out for a bathroom break, and fifteen minutes later I spy him through the glass windows behind the bima, racing through the courtyard with his friends. He is an elfin sprite leaping the shrubbery and diving for cover. He makes me laugh.

Yet, this same boy is studying to chant – not just read- long passages in Hebrew. The Torah is a handwritten scroll with no vowels. He must also learn the Haftorah, which is the Hebrew commentary. When you read from the Torah before the congregation, an expert follows along to ensure that you do it right. There is no room for “almost good enough.” There is no self-indulgent backslapping for “trying.” Then once completed, the bar mitzvah candidate must give the congregation some thoughts and his own interpretation of the Torah portion.

It is in this exercise of serious intellectual study and rote learning that the man he will become emerges before me. I imagine the moment when the congregation of his friends and family will count my adolescent son as an adult before them. And isn’t that what every teenage male wants? Treat him like a man and he will become one?

Yet, a paradox exists here. What thirteen-year-old boy could possibly be called mature? Surely, puberty does not equal manhood. The bar mitzvah ceremony tells me otherwise. It is time for him to step away from his parents – to become a man in his own right.

And he is becoming that man. Amidst all his boyish energy, a delightful young man is emerging. He is developing such sensitivity to others. “How was your trip?” he asks Michael when he comes home from a long business trip, looking haggard. He questions me about my parents, whose health has not been good over the last few years. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he will say as if he alone can save the world. Every night, he calls out to brother from his bedroom down the hallway, “Are you asleep? Are you asleep?” -- unable to bear the thought of being the last to fall asleep.

A bar mitzvah is more than a ritual. At its best it is a sacred ritual. The ritual propels change and growth. His community of friends and loved ones expect this of him. Dare I say, we demand it of him? And as he prepares, I think he experiences his own change. Maybe even at a deeper level as well – a relationship with God. The bar mitzvah, as it is meant to be, both centers him in his relationships and propels him forward.

Lest I wax too poetical, the joy is mostly his. The burden of planning the party is mine. Meeting with caterers, the DJ, the decorator, the guest lists. Over and over I tell myself “It’s not about the party. It’s not about the party.” And yet everything on my to-do list is about “the party.” I am starting my own bar mitzvah chant. It goes: It’s not about the budget. It’s not about the budget.

Over indulgence on the bar mitzvah is the stuff of legend. Here are a few just for context:

The infamous Harvey Cohen bar mitzvah was held at Miami’s Orange Bowl. The spectacle featured a 64-piece band, waiters dressed as referees, the rabbi attired as Howard Cosell and the electric scoreboard spelled out “Happy Birthday, Harvey”.

At a high-end bar mitzvah in Universal Studios, the USC marching band led guests from the reception room to the dining room. The bar mitzvah boy made his entrance to the background accompaniment of a 15-piece gospel choir. At the end of the party, guests received album covers emblazoned with the boy’s face.

And yet, just last week I was meeting with a decorator discussing how I envisioned an entrance draped like a circus tent. Throw in a few mimes strolling through the pre-event area pretending to sip champagne. I’ve had my moments, trust me.

I have been pouring over menus, torn between the stuffed flounder or the pinwheel chicken or the beef medallions for a child who only eats peanut butter. And if I didn’t think about that occasionally, I would completely lose myself in the idea of “the party.”

On Sunday mornings he trots off to study his bar mitzvah lesson with his tutor. When he returns, the quiet of our house breaks wide open when he enters. He swings through the kitchen door, rattling a paper bag steaming with hot biscuits. “It’s Mickey Donald’s biscuit time! It’s Mickey Donald’s biscuit time!” he sings in rap parody. He has cajoled out of Michael a trip to his favorite restaurant.

Joey does a little dance, twisting his yellow and red Echo sneakers in a gyration on the hard wood floor. His jeans stop just above his ankles, revealing white socks. He hops and slides, bumping his boyish hips into me at the refrigerator door. His collision perfected, he suddenly dives for his biscuit and crams it into his mouth. He eats standing by the counter, too riff with energy to sit on the stool.

As he chews, the rubber bands of his braces pull taut at the back of his mouth. Quickly, he gulps, swallows and then extracts the bands. In his haste to eat, he has forgotten them. He swipes the glass of milk from me before I can put it down. Then he upends the glass to his mouth, draining it. A loud belch follows.

“Come on, Ben, he yells to his younger brother who is still mid-bite. Flinging the door open, he starts to sing, “It’s peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time!”

The thing I really want to say is this: How blessed I am for all this “Peanut Butter Jelly Time.”