They were applauding not only for me but also for themselves and for the new generation of Jews represented by all my friends who were with me.
We paused at another photo. There was my father and several other men holding me aloft on a chair, each holding a leg of the chair. I remembered my amazement as I was paraded above the crowd and people danced around me.
At the time I assumed this celebration was my family’s way of congratulating me on becoming bar mitzvah. Now I realize it was more. They were congratulating themselves for enduring and living, and thanking Hashem that they had survived and were now living in a land where they could proudly proclaim their Jewishness at my bar mitzvah.
Only twenty-five years earlier they had lived through what seemed to them like the twilight of the Jewish world – and now that world had been reborn in a bright sunrise with Jews in America thriving and the young state of Israel still basking in the glory of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Looking at the photos, I realize how remarkable my bar mitzvah was. But on further reflection, I see that all bar mitvzahs are remarkable.
Our Haggadah tells us that “In every generation they rise up against us to destroy us, but Hakodesh Baruch Hu saves us from their hand.” Truly, every bar mitzvah is a victory – and a testament to Jewish survival.
