Ian Louis Harris

Truth to be told, dear readers, most people who, like me, were brought up in non-religious, or, at the most, quasi-religious households, thought of the Bar Mitzvah as an event which would result in lots of super presents and a big party in your honour…

…with a religious ceremony inconveniently taking place between the presents and the party.

Hence, I felt the need to separate out the Bar Mitzvah itself for an Ogblog page, because I did put in the effort to do the thing properly. My parents would have expected nothing less.

I have written before about my Hebrew classes (cheder) experience, including my failed attempt to recuse myself from the Bar Mitzvah on the grounds of atheism, which Rabbi Ginsbury nipped in the bud – click here or below for that story:

Had I succeeded in recusing myself eighteen months or so earlier, I don’t suppose the presents and the party would have been forthcoming, so…thank you, Rabbi Ginsbury.

I still have a handful of the presents, in particular the gramophone records and books (things I never throw away), a letter writing box/set from Jacqueline and Maurice Swain (still with me but rather fershimmeled to be truthful), a rather splendid onyx chess set in Aztec style (from Monty & Vivienne Phillips, I’m pretty sure)…plus money, of course – I still have some of that – not the actual cash or cheques tendered at that time of course, although several people insisted on their money being converted into premium bonds and I will still have those actual bonds as I have never sold a premium bond.

I digress. Anyway, it wasn’t just me who thought the eating, drinking and making merry was the bigger part of the process. The invitation below, which stretches to ten lines, uses four of them to cover the religious service, then six lines to describe the ensuing libations, feasting and terpsichorean celebrations.

To an even greater extent, the surviving photographs are heavily oriented towards the celebratory events the following day, although this can in part be explained by the prohibition of photography in shule and indeed anywhere on the sabbath.

Dad was no doubt breaking multiple rules when he snapped me in my state of readiness on the morning of my Bar Mitzvah before we set off for shule.

I’m pretty sure I still have that yarmulke and it looks suspiciously un-fershimmeled given its vintage, unlike my writing case. I have clearly spent more time writing than praying in the intervening 50 years. Who knew?

Another breach of protocol, although this breach will not have been made on that Saturday, but some days earlier, was a recording of the passages I was to read and sing for my Bar Mitzvah.

The Bar Mitzvah is, in a religious sense, a coming of age ceremony, around the age of 13, when the initiate reads the weekly passage from the Torah (in my case a dollop of Deuteronomy) and that week’s chunk of additional Old Testament material (in my case an iota of Isaiah), along with some ceremonial prayers. All sung in Hebrew using some of the oldest musical notation known to man.

Having done that, the initiate is a fully fledged “man”, in the sense that their presence in the synagogue now counts towards the minyan – i.e. the quorum of ten adult males required for certain prayers.

The idea of a minyan is not to be confused with cute but despicable creatures, minions, who appear in several of my favourite movies. (I never did grow out of loving animated films).

Anyway, with the trigger warning that this sound file is less than special aesthetically, here is the recording of me singing my passages and prayers:

Ten minutes of unimaginable sound.

Had you asked me ten minutes ago what those passages were and what they were about, I’d have shrugged, other than the “dollop of Deuteronomy & iota of Isaiah” line.

But thanks to Mr Google (other AI-enabled searches are available), I can be far more specific:

On August 9, 1975, which was a Saturday (Shabbat), the weekly Torah portion read was Parashat Shoftim. 

This Torah portion is the 48th in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and is found in the book of Deuteronomy, specifically Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9. 

The main themes of Parashat Shoftim include:

• Guidelines for leadership and the appointment of judges, officers, priests, and a king.
• Laws concerning the integrity of the judicial system.
• Rules regarding prophets, cities of refuge for accidental killers, and false witnesses.
• Specific laws for warfare and the procedure for an unsolved murder case. 

Reading about that, fifty years later, I sense that “my” portion could come in handy given the conduct of many notable and notorious world leaders, and their hench-folk, in the modern era.

My Isaiah passage covers the late, prophetic stage of the “twixt the temples” exile:

Isaiah 51:12-52:12 is a powerful prophetic passage where God comforts His fearful people, reminding them He is their sole protector, not mere mortals (grass) or oppressors; He calls Jerusalem (Zion) to “Awake, awake!” to cast off shame and put on strength, promising redemption from exile (“sold for nothing”) and the beautiful arrival of good news of peace and salvation from the Lord, telling them to leave Babylon and be purified. 

Peace, salvation and purification sound like good ideas, as long as they apply even-handedly to all concerned.

Only mum could have taken photos that were THAT skew-iffy, so my guess is that dad couldn’t be bothered when we got home but mum wanted some more pics from the day.

Worse yet, on the “dad couldn’t be bothered” front, is that the negatives from the events of both days have all been lost. Given that dad was in the photographic business, that is bizarre. The negatives from several holidays around that time are also lost. My guess is that he lost a whole batch together – probably those he had taken to the shop in order to obtain extra prints for sending around to friends and family.

Talk about the cobbler’s children.

Anyway, scans of all 50-or so surviving prints from the Saturday & Sunday can be seen through this Flickr link, here and below: