The Bar Mitzvah

Last Saturday my dear friend K. went to a bar mitzvah. The bar mitzvah service was held in a small, orthodox synagogue. Most of the congregants are old Ashkenazy men from Eastern Europe who survived the Holocaust. They are generally a somber lot who take the business of prayer quite seriously. The synagogue has a reputation for being particularly traditional and humorless.

The shul was fairly crowded. There were the regulars who prayed at the synagogue on a daily basis. There was the Shabbat crowd that showed up every week for Saturday services. The bar mitzvah boy’s family was there. All of the bar mitvah boy’s school friends were there. There were even parents of friends of the bar mitzvah boy there. (That was how K. was in attendance being the mother of one of the bar mitzvah boy’s close friends.) The synagogue was full of the devout and full of well wishes for the bar mitzvah.

After the bar mitzvah boy read his torah portion and the rabbi completed the service, the mother of the bar mitzvah boy, in an uncomfortably progressive move, went to the front of the shul to make a speech. She directed her words to her son.

"If you are going to smoke marijuana, I want you to make sure you smoke only the good stuff. Make sure you know who you get it from. And make sure that you are in a safe place when you do so. . ."