My bar mitzvah was an event for the ages. Picture a night at Shooters, with a greater percentage of Jews, less sexual harassment, and, of course, all attention directed solely towards me.
Maybe I should back up. A bar mitzvah is the ritual event in Jewish religion and culture that marks a boy’s transition to manhood, typically occurring at age 13. Girls have an equivalent known as a bat mitzvah. They’re typically accompanied by big parties with ostentatious themes. These events are a prevalent part of our society—you don’t have to look far to find the “Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy” skit on SNL or the “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” song from 30 Rock. Even at Duke, this ritual plays a role in our campus culture. Jewish Life at Duke hosts an annual b’nai mitzvah celebration to give students who didn’t have the chance to receive a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony the opportunity to do so here. When I meet other Jewish students, we bond by sharing our bar mitzvah themes (for what it’s worth, mine was Apple-themed, and I invited Steve Jobs). And now, as a college sophomore, I want a second bar mitzvah.
I’ve already explained that my first bar mitzvah was great. But at 13, I didn’t know what it meant to be a man. To be honest, I still don’t think I know what that means. I refuse to partake in athletics, my favorite movie is Legally Blonde and I don’t think my voice ever dropped. Other than my facial hair, I’m the antithesis of manhood. With all the wisdom of the two gender studies classes I’ve taken, I understand the artificiality of socially constructed definitions of masculinity and how dangerous these ideas are to people of all sexes and genders. But I like to think that Duke has taught me some things about adulthood more broadly that I didn’t know at 13. Duke, and the American college system in general, promises us a transition to our mature selves. At college, I balance food points, but don’t know how to balance a checkbook. Maybe, then, an enormous party in my honor can push me over the threshold of adult responsibility.
And of course, in the face of renewed anti-Semitism, present even at our beloved academic institution, what greater act of resistance is there than the defiant reclamation of my proud, Jewish identity in the form of a multi-thousand dollar party?
Here’s how I envision my day:
At 9:00 a.m. my family gathers for pictures. My cousins are late, but we make a few good jokes about photoshopping them into the photo album.
At 10:00 a.m. services begin. Rabbi Elana delivers a sermon, and I read from the Torah. I look out into the audience and see my mom crying, and my little brother playing on his Nintendo Switch. I scan the room and find my Duke friends with notebooks in their laps, finishing Econ problem sets and planning to ask my relatives if they know of any internships in finance. Towards the end of the service, I chug the ritual glass of wine which years ago I could only stand to sip.
Noon hits, and my hungry guests change into their second outfits. They head to cocktail hour at the reception; the theme is a mix of Duke basketball and Broadway musicals. The table settings alternate between pictures of Zion Williamson and Bette Midler. Over the next few hours, we dance to the DJ’s selection of bar mitzvah staples; classics from Earth Wind & Fire, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Black Eyed Peas and Journey are interspersed with contemporary hits from Cardi B and Post Malone. We unanimously elect to cut an aunt or two off from the open bar after a particularly rowdy dance-off to “Gangnam Style.”
By 5:00 p.m., as the party disbands, I start to feel something, beginning in my gut and rising up through my chest. A heat, a warmth, now ascending. It lingers as it reaches my head. Maybe it’s the glass of wine I drank at services that morning, the checks I have yet to open from my bubbe and her friends, or the fulfillment of the rituals my ancestors perfected, but I… well, I feel alive.
Later that night, I lie on my bed in my dorm room. I think about the readings I have left for my American literature class, how I’ll handle them the next day. That feeling, still, expands like a balloon or our national debt within me. I look up at the ceiling, blinded by the fluorescent light and filled with boyish wonder. Is this what it is to be a man?
Maybe my “second bar mitzvah” doesn’t need to be a flashy event, and coming of age is a gradual process of self growth that different cultures symbolize through rites of passage. In a way, I have my second bar mitzvah every day as I learn how to operate in this world a little bit better, understanding my role in the society I find myself in. Or, conversely, maybe only extreme extravagance can mark my Jewish Jabberwocky hunt and cement me in adulthood.
Either way, you’re all invited. I’ll take checks in multiples of $18.
Jordan Diamond is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs on alternate Thursdays.
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