100 YEAR LATER - THE FIRST BAT MITZVAH
This Shabbat is a milestone.
One hundred years ago, a 12-year-old named Judith became the first girl to have a bat mitzvah. Her father, Mordechai Kaplan, was the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism and did not think it was fair that only boys had a coming-of-age ceremony in Judaism.
Judith’s ceremony was a step towards equality, but not equality itself. Unlike boys in her congregation, Judith read from a printed book of the Torah rather than the scroll. And instead of standing on the raised bimah (stage), Judith stood at its base. She later recalled being less enthusiastic than her father about the Bat Mitzvah; like any young teen, she worried about what her peers might think. “That was enough to shock a lot of people,” she later recalled, “including my own grandparents and aunts and uncles.”
Still, her Bat Mitzvah was revolutionary. Her Bat Mitzvah set the stage for Bat Mitzvah to become a cherished tradition and eventually for women to become rabbis and take a far greater leadership role in Judaism. Until that time, girls became “adults” at age 12.5 and boys at age 13, according to the Talmud. But, while boys had a formal ritual for bar mitzvah, there was not an equivalent ritual for girls. But, because of Bat Mitzvah, far more girls got a thorough Jewish education than before.
It took several decades for Bat Mitzvah to become more universally accepted and incorporated into Jewish life. By the time I turned 13 in 1981, there was no question that I would Bat Mitzvah. But, even a generation before, it was far less commonplace.
It is hard to imagine Jewish life without not having Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. Honoring both girls and boys equally seems like a given. But it is actually a relatively new phenomenon in the comparatively long history of Judaism. Often, we look at our moment in time as normative. But, in actuality, we are just part of a long, evolving history.
Bar and Bat Mitzvah is continuing to evolve. In fact, today, there is a new debate about equality and B’nai Mitzvah. As our world becomes less binary and the line between genders becomes more blurred, a discussion had begun about the names “bar” and “bat” mitzvah. Literally, these phrases mean the “son” and “daughter” of the “commandments.”
Many feel there isn’t really a reason to distinguish between genders. Especially in liberal Jewish communities, boys and girls, women and men are treated the same. In addition, more and more young Jews are choosing gender-blending and gender-queer identities for themselves.
Several alternatives to “Bar Mitzvah” and “Bat Mitzvah” have been suggested:
Be Mitzvah (be a good thing or a commandment)
B-Mitzvah
Zera Mitzvah (seed of mitzvah)
Simchat Mitzvah (celebration of mitzvah)
Brit Mitzvah (covenant of mitzvah)
B’nai Mitzvah (gender-neutral plural)
The Mitzvah (again gender-neutral plural, but in English)
Mitzvah (simple but the focus is on the idea of commandments, rather than the child)
Which will become the accepted name? Only time will tell. Perhaps in 100 years, we will have the answer!