Why bar mitzvah at age 13

The spiritual alienation felt at 13 by Jane, a Los Angeles copy editor, came from a different source. Joe, a vice president of his Reform temple on Cape Cod, celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at age 45, 13 years after his conversion. Clearly it was time for me to take the next step. By contrast, Susan was already studying for her Bat Mitzvah at her suburban New York synagogue at the time she became Jewish. The bar mitzvah ceremony was developed as a public recognition of a legal and religious status, attained with or without the ritual.

In other words, a Jewish boy of 13 years and one day automatically became a bar mitzvah even if no public ceremony took place. While the beginnings of the modern bar mitzvah ceremony appeared as early as the sixth century C. By the 13th or 14th century, the custom of calling a boy up to the Torah was established as the way of recognizing entry into manhood.

The boy's father would then recite a special blessing: Baruch sheptarani mei-onsho shelazeh. Then followed a gala feast, called s'udat mitzvah "meal of celebrating the performance of a mitzvah" , to which family, friends, and sometimes the entire Jewish community would be invited.

As a result, the age of majority historically had different connotations for boys and girls. Over the past several decades, more adult women have had Bat Mitzvah ceremonies.

While they are technically obligated in the mitzvot at a younger age, these ceremonies are public affirmations of their place in the Jewish community which was denied to them when they were young.

While the age of majority is not designated as such in biblical literature, the age of 20 seems to be the standard for purposes both of taxation e. This age seems to apply equally to males and to females see Leviticus , albeit only for taxation. The age for moral responsibility seems to be the same.

In Numbers, God distinguishes those of age 20 and above, guilty of mutinous, faithless complaints, from "your little ones" and "your children," who alone will arrive in the Land of Israel as promised Numbers So the age of 20 marked the transition to adulthood in the biblical period, but no rite marking the transition is recorded there.

In my experience, many modern-day teens who gather for this ceremony have no idea what the word bar mitzvah means, nor how the ceremony they have come to observe evolved.

The term never once appears in the Hebrew Bible. But as an historian of Judaism , I know that rabbis and commentators have struggled with the question of why the age of 13 was actually chosen. After some debate, these Jewish scholars concluded by the 11th century that it must have been an orally transmitted requirement handed down to Moses when he stood atop Mount Sinai.

There, Moses received not just the Ten Commandments but also, according to Jewish tradition, all Jewish law, both written and spoken.