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Becoming a Jewish Adult

The path to adulthood is full of twists and turns. From celebrating a bar/bat mitzvah to leaving home for the first time, this is a journey fraught with new freedom, new responsibilities, and an abundance of complex emotions. We offer blessings, prayers and rituals that help parents and children use a Jewish vocabulary to describe this journey—and to experience it as richly as possible.

Photo by Jordan Cassway

Cup of Life Ceremony

A beautiful alternative to a candle-lighting ceremony [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Tags: candle lighting

Welcoming Ceremony for the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebrant

Following the synagogue service, a minyan of community members conveys what membership in the community entails. [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Bat Mitzvah Battle

A mother's poem describing her experiences with divorce as they affected her daughter's Bat Mitzvah [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Tags: divorce

Remember Us Project

The goal of the Remember Us Project is to have each Bar or Bat Mitzvah student remember one individual child lost in the Holocaust. [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Tags: Holocaust

To Touch an Eternity

Poem marking the occasion of a child's Bat/Bar Mitzvah [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Tags: tallit

Mother's Prayer

A mother's prayer on the occasion of her daughter becoming Bat Mitzvah [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah, Covenant & Naming Rituals

Everything Possible

A beautiful song, a lullaby, about fully accepting our children and offering them complete freedom to become themselves. [more]

Found In: Bar / Bat Mitzvah, Welcoming & Raising Children, Leaving Home, Parenting Day-to-Day, Graduation, Gender & Sexual Identity

Transition Ritual

An opportunity to join with others and be witnessed in any life transition, both external and internal [more]

Found In: Month of Elul, Conversion, Gender Transitioning, Becoming a Jewish Adult, Endings & Beginnings

Tags: handwashing, LGBTIQ

Lechi Lach

"Lechi lach to a place that I will show you/Lech lecha to a land you do not know…" —song by Debbie Friedman, z"l based on God's words to Abraham to seek his destiny. [more]

Found In: Covenant & Naming Rituals, Torah Portion: Parashah, Becoming a Jewish Adult, Traveling, Choosing & Affirming a Jewish Life, Endings & Beginnings, Growing Older, Everyday Holiness

Tags: Debbie Friedman, Lekh Lekha

Ki Orech Yamim: wishes for a long life

From Proverbs 3:2 [more]

Found In: Welcoming & Raising Children, Becoming a Jewish Adult, Shabbat