The boy who almost didn’t become a man

Zachary Johnson at his Bar Mitzvah on Oct. 11, 2003 at Congregation Schaarai Zedek in Tampa. For most people, turning 13 years old is nothing more than induction into teenhood. However, for Jews, it’s a far more important and wildly more nerve-wracking year. It is that age in which Jewish boys and girls become men and women. That age in which we wear awkwardly fitting suits and read an ancient manuscript through changing voices and blemish mottled faces in front of our friends and families. It is one of the most pivotal moments in a Jew’s life.

As best I remember, when it came time for me to begin my Bar Mitzvah training in 2003, I was unsure of whether I wanted to go through with it at all.

I knew that most of my non-Jewish peers were very jealous of their Jewish friends and classmates. Why? Because if a Bar or Bat Mitzvah meant anything, it meant a lot of money. Yet, the economics never swayed me one way or another; my Jewish identity was solidified enough — why did I have to spend so much time and effort studying and slaving over my Hebrew and Torah portion? Do we always have to follow all traditions to a tee? Was stacking my Hebrew studies on top of my normal schooling really worth it? This teenage naïvete built up over time, but I never mentioned my sentiments to anyone. Not even to my parents who had already begun the preparations.

But as the planned day loomed closer, I panicked. I was gripped with the fear of failing in front of my family and friends — of being unable to read Hebrew, unable to speak with sincerity. I was certain that my half-hearted preparations were going to haunt me in the end. I had to find a way out.

So, one day, as my mother was busy finalizing things with the synagogue and planning my afterparty and giving orders to caterers and booking a DJ, I confronted her and laid all my cards on the table.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said.

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to have a Bar Mitzvah anymore.”

She looked me straight in the eyes, pupils dilating, and said, “No.”

Setback.

“Mom, I’m serious,” I urged. “I don’t want to have it. I’m not going to have it.”

“Zachary,” she said, her speech slow and calm, “you’re having this Bar Mitzvah.” Now I was scared.

“Look,” I tried to reason, “It’s not something I want to do. It’s a lot of work and I’m just not passionate about it and I’m not even that Jewish and you’d save so much money if I just didn’t have one and there’d be nothing to clean up and I don’t care about not getting any gifts.”

My mother tilted her head and wrinkled her brow — a sign as unmistakable as the suffocating black clouds that fill the sky before a storm. I was about to get it. Guilt.

“Fine, Zachary. Fine. I just want you to think of all the boys and girls in the Holocaust who died, who were murdered without even getting a chance to have a Bar Mitzvah.”

Oh, jeez. “Mom, but —”

“And they wanted to! Do you think they were thinking about parties and money? Were they thinking about all of their friends and dancing and carrying on? No! They just wanted to do this one thing and here you are like an ungrateful putz spitting on their graves.”

“And what would your grandparents think? And the rest of the family. Do you know how much work your father and I have put into this? How much planning?”

That was it. Not another word from me. “I’m sorry I said anything. I’ll have it. Fine, I’ll have it.”

I slinked defeated into my bedroom, where I heard her call my father and explain to him, with careful exaggeration, my insolence and ungratefulness.

My father is not Jewish and let almost all of the responsibility of my Bar Mitzvah fall upon my mother. This wasn’t because he didn’t care — he was just as supportive as my Jewish kin. For 15 years, he drove me to Sunday School at Schaarai Zedek. He was simply more unknowing of the importance of everything.

But understand this: I have never looked back upon this moment and wished my mother had let me forfeit the Bar Mitzvah. I’m thankful she stood up to my adolescent whining because the amount of work and time I put into preparing for my Bar Mitzvah was a critical lesson not only in discipline, but also in public speaking and integrity. No one could force me to study my Torah portion. I had to take it upon myself to be my own disciplinarian, and to make sure that the studying happened. Looking back on my former self, I can see that this was an integral part of becoming a Bar Mitzvah — taking responsibility for your actions.

I spent the rest of the time leading up to my Bar Mitzvah studying Hebrew, practicing my speaking, and completing my mitzvah project. Soon enough, my Jewish scholastic endeavors paid off. I was able to wrap my tongue around every symbol, enunciate every syllable, and able to do all of it with as much confidence as can be contained in a 13 year old.

I still held a secret grudge against my parents for forcing me to go through with this ritual. The months I spent studying were for the sake of others, not myself.

And then came the day of my Bar Mitzvah. Yes, the day of days. One memory in particular stuck with me. I was waiting off to the side of the bimah, out of view, before my service began. I tightened and loosened my grip on my prayer book, rolled my head around on my shoulders, and wiped my other clammy hand onto my pants. The rabbi, who stood waiting with me hidden behind the curtain, said nothing. He was like my co-host; there to help guide me through the motions. I was supposed to deliver this long and arduous performance with him by my side. He looked at his watch and then to me and then back at his watch. I stared down at my oversized shoes. So much for a pep talk. But a few moments later, he spoke. “Zachary,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and carefully held it out to me. “It’s from Italy,”

I took the pen from him and studied it. It was a beautiful thing, blue like the water just above the ocean floor, and had inlaid motherof pearl stripes running laterally down its sides I uncapped it and saw that it was, of course, a fountain pen. I held the pen in my hand and examined it on each side. “It’s very nice,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

I gave the pen back and he restored it to his pocket. Why had he shown me it? To offer some ease of mind? I stared for a moment at his face, trying to read a signal. This might have been the pen he received on his own Bar Mitzvah. He licked his lips and almost imperceptibly sighed; it was not a sigh of boredom, no, nor a sigh of annoyance. It was the same kind of sigh one gives after finishing a big bowl of matzo ball soup. He was content. He had led many the same way in which he would lead me today. I was another boy that would take part in this ritual that all Jews shared. And it struck me — the pen didn’t mean just one thing, but everything. Though I would be reading from the Torah in mere minutes, I would be the only one writing my own future. No God, no Torah, no tradition would dictate how I would live my life. My morals and my decisions were my own.

“It is time,” I heard him say. Still in thought, I was guided to the podium where I opened my prayer book, welcomed the congregation, and asked them to stand for the first prayer of the service. I stared at the page and all of the confidence I had built up in the preceding months vanished. I didn’t know what I was looking at — it was incomprehensible. The page of Hebrew became a map of hard dashes and squiggles. These characters that I have looked upon since childhood were suddenly foreign. But the longer I stared at the text, the more my perception of it changed. It became something mysterious, something beautiful.

As the sounds and words began to reform in my mind, I felt strange. Out of place. Like a phony. I would have been much happier spending that Saturday morning doing anything else. I thought back to what my mother said. Was I really spitting on their graves? Now I was having a moment, realizing the meaning of everything, the importance of the day. I was just beginning to have an existential epiphany, realizing all of the mysterious lessons my Bar Mitzvah had taught me, when the rabbi gently patted me on the back. I had been staring at the page for an inappropriate length of time. I pushed the thought aside and started with the service.

I still felt peculiar, up there on the bimah, standing behind a podium and leading a service, my service, in front of so many of my friends and family members. My voice did not sound like my own when channeled through the microphone in front of me. My actions felt mechanical, rehearsed (which they were), and vaguely insincere. But still.

When I looked to my parents in the front row, I saw the tears in their eyes; I saw the big smile pressed on my grandmother’s face as she watched me wear my late grandfather’s prayer shawl and yarmulke. I looked out over the sea of faces at my friends, who were transfixed by my reading, my speaking of this strange language. The pride from my congregation was palpable. They were so proud of me, and with that thought alongside the fear of erring before them, I swept my yad across the Torah with no error, finished the service, and was given many a “Mazel Tov!” to remember.

But my Bar Mitzvah wasn’t just about keeping a tradition alive, nor was it about doing something to please my family in exchange for a party and gifts. And it certainly wasn’t about becoming a man, for I still had a long way to go and many mistakes to make before I could be a man. It was about realizing that you are connected to the people around you, be it your family, who are crying watching you read from the Torah; be it the strangers you help for nothing in return when doing a mitzvah project; be it the rabbi and congregation to whom you are an extended member of one Jewish family.

A Bar Mitzvah is a time to learn about yourself, and to see that your actions affect everyone, and to embrace the wisdom of Judaism that is somehow learned — even when it’s not taught.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zachary Johnson, son of Robert and Ellen Johnson of Tampa, is a senior majoring in editing, writing and media at Florida State University, and was a summer intern at the Jewish Press.