B’nai mitzvahs are an incredibly important day for any young teenager in the Jewish community. It’s when they officially enter adulthood, and likely the biggest birthday party of their life. And preparing for one is far from easy: from memorizing Torah portions to picking out dresses and suits, there’s a lot of pressure on prospective b’nai mitzvah kids.
But ultimately, most of the planning for the event itself falls to the parents of the b’nai mitzvah. And as with planning any big formal event, planning a b’nai mitzvah takes a lot of preparation and multitasking.
We sat down with some local families of recent b’nai mitzvahs to learn how they made their child’s special day the best it could be, and what advice they can offer to other parents planning their own child’s b’nai mitzvah.
The Brook Family
Ryan and Lindsey Brook came into the process of planning their son Asher’s bar mitzvah from a unique perspective. While Ryan Brook was raised in the Jewish community and had a bar mitzvah of his own at Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation, Lindsey Brook did not convert to Judaism until after she and her husband were married.
“This was only the fourth b’nai mitzvah I’d ever been to, because I didn’t grow up in the community,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of expectations, but I learned a lot.”
The family are members of Chizuk Amuno Congregation, with Asher Brook attending Krieger Schechter Day School. This turned out to be a boon when preparing for his bar mitzvah: because Hebrew immersion is such a large part of KSDS’ curriculum, Asher was already well-versed in Hebrew. Learning his Torah portion was a relatively simple process.
“Because he had that support around him through the synagogue and Hebrew immersion in day school, we weren’t worried about him learning [his Torah portion] because he grew up knowing Hebrew,” Ryan Brook added.
But this didn’t make planning the event proper any easier. The couple started two years beforehand, when Chizuk Amuno Congregation first assigned Asher his bar mitzvah date.
Lindsey and Ryan noted that one thing that helped the planning feel less overwhelming is that they did it in two separate phases, rather than staggering everything out over the course of a year. While this meant more work for them at the time, it also made the process feel less like a long ordeal.
“Two years ago, when we got his date, we really locked in our event planner, DJ, photographer, venue and caterer. Once we got those settled, we actually sat back until about six months ago,” Lindsey Brook recalled. Then, things started happening at a quicker clip — we had to get the invites out, the logo, do the tastings, plan the menu … once you have the big stuff locked in, you’ll only be doing a lot of planning when you’re four to six months out.”
They added that using a checklist was crucial, because it helped them lay everything out in an itemized fashion and ensure that they didn’t miss anything.
Asher Brook’s bar mitzvah was art-themed due to his interest in art. The tables were themed after some of his favorite artists, some of his art was on display at the venue and, since he also likes Pokémon, his parents commissioned an artist on Etsy to design a custom Pokémon card for the occasion.
“At Krieger Schechter, the kids go to b’nai mitzvahs almost every weekend, so it gets to be like b’nai mitzvah overload. So we wanted to make Asher’s unique and memorable by infusing personal touches,” Lindsey Brook said.
The Singer Family
When the Singer family started planning their daughter Eliza’s bat mitzvah, their experience was a bit different. For one, both parents had gone through their own b’nai mitzvah ceremonies when they were 13, one at an Orthodox synagogue and one at a Conservative shul. Now belonging to the Reform Temple Isaiah, they’d had a bar mitzvah for their eldest son a few years before, so they already had experience with the b’nai mitzvah planning process.
“Everything we did for my son helped us through the process for our daughter,” said Randi Singer, Eliza’s mother. “Though we did change a few things, since our son was now able to perform the aliyah.”
One of the more challenging parts of planning this bat mitzvah was actually the decorations. Instead of having a single, specific theme, the bat mitzvah’s aesthetics were based around Eliza’s various interests. Instead of hiring a decorator, the Singers made all of the table decorations on their own, with each table being themed around one of Eliza’s hobbies.
Randi Singer noted that attending other b’nai mitzvahs at Temple Isaiah was actually very helpful, because it helped her see how other families had planned theirs.
“I think it’s really important to reach out to your synagogue and see if they can connect you with other families who have previously done a [b’nai mitzvah], because they have a lot of great ideas and it can help give you a foundation to get started,” she said. “I also joined a DIY group for bar and bat mitzvahs on Facebook, which was helpful for [decoration] ideas. But it can get overwhelming, so it’s a good idea to connect with other people with past experience.”
The most important thing for her to keep in mind when planning her children’s respective b’nai mitzvahs was that at the end of the day, they were about the children. It can be easy for a parent to get caught up in their own role in the event because they are doing most of the planning, but a b’nai mitzvah should be about the person doing the ritual.
“Just take a breath, and remember that everything will come together in the end,” Randi Singer said. “And the full purpose [of a b’nai mitzvah] is for your child, not you and the rest of your family.”
