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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Bar Mitzvah simply means when a boy is 13 years old and reads from the Torah the first time before the assembled congregation--he joins the Jewish community.  That's it.  No parties, no celebrations, no nothing.  All the rest of it is bullshit that has been tacked on for social/cultural reasons which at this point only an insane person wouldn't recognize are completely antithetical to any notion of spirituality or meaning.

The only reason there is "years of schooling" is because the typical American Jew is "illiterate" in the Hebrew language and culture and has to be educated to a certain minimal level before going through this now-ostentatiously ridiculous ceremonial process.

Nevertheless the years of training is not actually a requirement.  [b]All that is required is turning age 13 and reading from the Torah before the congregation.[/b]

[/quote]

But you can't read from the Torah before the congregation without years of training. That's true for every Jew everywhere, not just American Jews. You can't just go up there and start reading, no matter how fluent you are at reading Hebrew and how much you know about Jewish culture(s).[/quote]

Wrong.

You ever hear of an adult bar/bat mitzvah class?

Or for people who convert (reform/reconstructionist)?

There's a few months of lessons.  Then there's a group bar/bat mitzvah.   No huge ridiculous obscenely expensive party is necessary.  No years and years of training is necessary.  As a matter of fact, there are older jews who never got the chance to go to religious school.  Sometimes if they are getting on in years, maybe have a fatal illness, they can get a bar/bat mitzvah just by basically saying a few prayers and going through a ceremony.  If they can't speak Hebrew and even if they don't understand what it means, they can use a phonetic transliteration.  All of these non conventional bar/bat mitvahs are every bit as valid as a kid's, if not very more so, since an adult who has lived through the trials of life may have more value to the service than some idiot spoiled kid who only cares about how much money they will get in presents and how impressed their friends will be.

It is absolutely INSANE to spend thousands or TENS of thousands of dollars on what is basically a glorified birthday party given by ego-tripping adults.   It has NOTHING to do with religion.[/quote]

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