My family and I belong to a Manhattan synagogue with a large congregation, which, despite its numbers, is a welcoming place because of its character and the manner of its rabbis, cantors, teachers, and others who make it run. For the past five years, they have guided my daughter, Elena, to the upcoming weekend and her bat mitzvah. Last night my wife, Elena, and I met with the head rabbi for a bit of a pep talk and to review our roles during the Friday night and Saturday services—at the end of which he surprised us with the suggestion of another ritual. To me, its appeal is more universally parental than Jewish, so I share.
Our rabbi asked me and Rebecca to write a letter to our daughter. He’ll read it (vet it for typos; just kidding, Rabbi), pass it along to Elena, and then, Saturday night, after all the services and festivities are done, she is to open it, read it, and discuss it with us.
This makes a lot of sense to me, as a kind of serious and loving end note to the day and a beginning note for the rest of her life. The rabbi’s one request is that we include in the note our thoughts and hopes for how she’ll continue to make Judaism an important part of her life.
We haven’t written it yet, though I can’t imagine that our hopes and wishes for Elena will be all that different from what any parent would say to their child. Because there are so many families in our synagogue, Elena will be sharing her bat mitzvah with two other children—and she and other two have spent a lot of time together working on their respective and shared contributions. Lately, all three families have been together to go over their roles, and the thing that has been most notable to me is not the children’s different styles, but how all of them seem so deeply connected to their families.
As much as I know this weekend—and my role as a parent—is to help guide my child toward being a wonderful, resourceful, and independent adult, of course I hope it’ll always be important to her to maintain a great relationship with us.
Even as a teen!
Eric Messinger is Editor of New York Family. He can be reached at [email protected]
