A speech worth reading
On Saturday, my daughter Lucy became a bat mitzvah. In her own words, why she decided to embrace her religion when being Jewish in the United States is more complicated than it's been in a while.
This weekend, my daughter Lucy read Torah in a synagogue in Beacon, a New York town about 60 miles north of Manhattan.
This process is known as being bat mitzvahed1 and marks adulthood for Jews. A bat mitzvah is no longer a child and is accountable for her actions. (In theory, anyway.)
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(Paying the bills is still up to me, though…)
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The temple where Lucy was bat mitzvahed was not fancy. It’s a simple brick building that houses a small congregation founded in 1921. Still, like most congregations these days, the synagogue now has security for its services — a regrettable consequence of the conspiratorial antisemitism that too many well-known media figures on both left and right now embrace.
Lucy’s mom is not Jewish, although I am, so Lucy made a choice to embrace Judaism as her religion.2 I was happy she did, though I didn’t pressure her to do so; religion and faith are the ultimate personal decisions.
Lucy didn’t grow up reading or speaking Hebrew, so she had to study hard to learn the passages she read this weekend — from Exodus and Numbers. She did, and she did a great job. But I am most proud of the speech she gave. She wrote it by herself. Even more impressively, she wrote it in longhand. She knew what she wanted to say.
Most of Unreported Truths readers are not Jews. But I wanted to share Lucy’s words with you anyway. And not (just) because I am so proud of her. They explain some of the more positive aspects of Judaism at a time when too many commentators focus relentlessly on its negatives. They offer wisdom about what makes leaders great.
Most importantly, I hope they can inspire us all — whatever our religion — to stand for what we believe in, even when it’s unpopular.
Maybe there’s hope for the next generation after all.
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(She’s more than a logistics coordinator, she’s an inspiration!)
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(EDITED ONLY FOR LENGTH AND MINOR SPELLING/COPY EDITING FIXES)
Hi everyone.
Thank you all so much for being here to support me today.
About three years ago I started going to Hebrew school here. It was then I realized that I definitely wanted to have a bat mitzvah.
Having a bar or bat mitzvah is a tie of passage for young Jews across the world, so it felt important to me that I continue a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years.
To me, what is most meaningful about my Judaism is the sense of community that it brings me. For many Sundays of the past three years I have sat in this temple… and discussed the fundamentals of Judaism — tzedakah, or charitable giving; chesed, acts of kindness or compassion; tefilah, a relationship with God.
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My Torah portion talks a lot about Moses’s relationship with God, more specifically how Moses needs God’s help to command the Israelites. God is only willing to do so because of Moses’s other decisions and sacrifices.
In retrospect, some of Moses’s decisions were harsh and rash, but in the end would make life for the Israelites better as they would have God’s guidance through Moses… [God] teaches Moses how to forgive and be kind to the Israelites. Most of all, God gives Moses the chance to redeem himself and the Israelites after the original tablets have been broken [because the Israelites prayed to false gods in the form of a golden calf].
Through Moses, we learn that to be a good leader you must show your people love and kindness, you must be able to make hard decisions for them, and you must sacrifice yourself for them. Most importantly, you must be forgiving.
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(SPEECH! SPEECH!)
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I’ve lived in the Hudson Valley my whole life, and I’m really grateful to have [done so]. But there aren’t many Jews up here3. So choosing to be religious at all makes you stand out a little bit.
I truly believe embracing my Judaism has made me a better person. It’s taught me to suffer a little, like on Yom Kippur [the Jewish Day of Atonement, when Jews fast and apologize for their sins], it’s taught me to be patient [and] to be grateful for the life I have… most of all, though, it’s taught me to show love and kindness to the people around me, especially when they are suffering…
I would also like to express my happiness and hope of a potential peace deal between Israel and Gaza that will lead to the return of the hostages and an end to the war in Gaza!
Ultimately, what I’m really trying to say is that I’m proud to be a Jew in a world where, sadly, Jews are often stigmatized and discriminated against - and I am so grateful to be celebrating with you all today!
Boys are bar mitzvahed, girls are bat mitzvahed.
For those of you familiar with the technicalities here, Lucy was indeed immersed in a mikvah several years ago, which makes her ritually Jewish even though her mother is not Jewish. But my understanding is that a child’s mikvah conversion “doesn’t count” as an adult unless the child also actively accepts it after the age of 13, ideally with a bat mitzvah. I’m sure someone will explain to me I have some detail of this issue wrong.
This is surprisingly true, at least north of Westchester County (which abuts New York City) and outside certain heavily Orthodox towns west of the Hudson River.
There is a Chapel of the Four Chaplains in Philadelphia dedicated to a Rabbi, a Priest and two Protestant Ministers who gave up their seats in a lifeboat to lower ranking soldiers during the sinking of the USS Dorchester in 1943. They were last seen arm in arm as the ship disappeared beneath the icy North Atlantic waters. My great Uncle was Clark Poling, one of the Chaplains. It was originally dedicated by President Eisenhower on the Temple University campus but was forced to move when Temple secularized. If the USS USA sinks, it will be because of secular progressives. Jews and Christians should at least go down together.
https://armyhistory.org/no-greater-glory-the-four-chaplains-and-the-sinking-of-the-usat-dorchester/
Congratulations Alex- you are doing a great job as a dad!