Deconstructing Harry's Bar Mitzvah

I went to 28 Bar/Bat Mitzvahs during the 1988-1989 Bar/Bat Mitzvah season. This horrified my mother who quickly tired of buying me new dresses from Contempo Casuals and writing $18 checks to children she’d never heard of. I was neither popular nor cool but while trying to figure out my 13 year old identity, I’d managed to befriend half the planet. Looking back, it seems 28 is an unusually high number of Bar/Bat Mitzvahs to attend considering I didn’t grow up Crown Heights or Jerusalem. For every social circle I infiltrated in the West Valley, there was always a Jew – or 3.
The various clicks in junior high were not as intricately divided as they would be in high school. In junior high there were three groups – the Nerd Herd, the Popular Kids, and Everyone Else. In high school, the three groups would be subdivided and broken up (stoners, honors class stoners, jocks, future poolmen) and unlike the Indian caste system, one could elevate themselves to a higher form of human.
Bar/Bat Mitzvahs (BMs from now on) are held on Saturdays. In the morning, we were shuttled into a synagogue where depending on how religious the family was, we were forced to sit still and not giggle for a half hour anywhere up to what seemed like the rest of puberty. The BM boy/girl would step up to the bima and (poorly) read aloud from the Torah and then proceed to sing aloud in a language no-one in the room understood. What we all did understand was the cracking voice and the off-key singing that would earn this child the right to call themselves a woman or man (for the next 12 hours) and a lavish party in their honor that when all was said and done would result in horrific pictures forever capturing the most awkward time in a person’s life.
When the Torah was put away, the party began. The daytime parties were always tame. Even at that age, we knew it just wasn’t right to freak someone on the dance floor while the sun was still out. The Salisbury steak was always over-cooked. The BM’s family wasn’t as cute. There was a band, not a DJ. The really popular kids didn’t even bother showing up. But friends were extremely loyal at that age and we tried our best to show our appreciation by pretending that we were having a great fucking time and no, we didn’t just see your Great Aunt slip and fall while lighting candle number 7. What ambulance? Don’t worry, this is the coolest party ever!
I was convinced that any kid who was able to have their BM party at night was filthy rich. Cotton candy machines, not one – but two photographers, comedians serving appetizers, sketch artists drawing caricatures of kids partaking in their favorite hobbies - how could they afford such luxuries? While the adults got liquored up at the open bar, the kids got drunk on the evening’s prospective drama. By the time the second plate of chicken satay made its way around the room, someone was in the bathroom crying while a huddle of poofy dresses stood in a corner discussing the person in the bathroom crying.
Once the party got started, the rest of the night’s events fell into place like clockwork. The BM’s family marched in one at a time to the tune of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” They always looked so functional, so happy. They were immediately placed onto chairs and lifted into the air while the rest of the party was called onto the dance floor to clench sweaty strange hands and dance the Horah. The probability of getting stuck having a friend on one hand and some strange middle aged man on the other was high. The chance of not getting stepped on repeatedly was nil.
If the DJ was good, after the Horah, he immediately switched over to “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” This got the kids riled and sent the over 15 crowd back to their seats. Having endless amounts of energy, the hormonally challenged, acne spotted tweens controlled the dance floor for the remainder of the evening only taking a short break when the call for the old people came on with The Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” The middle aged crowd would flock to the floor and jiggle around to “Twist and Shout” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” while the kids went outside and chased each other.
Next came the candle lighting ceremony. Favorite relatives and favorite friends were called up in clever rhymes to light their very own candle on the BM’s birthday cake. ‘Uncle Moishe, I heard back in the day you used to snort coke off of my mom’s floor, please come up and light candle number four.” I attended a distant cousin’s Bat Mitzvah in Manhattan one time. When my dad and sister and me were called up to light our candle, they played Klezmer music. Everyone else who was called up lit their candle to Mr. Wendle or Bel Biv Devoe. I was pissed.
Once the dinner portion of the evening had passed, the kids were beckoned back to the dance floor. By this time, the girls had taken off their shoes and replaced them with scrunch socks. Pepsi Cola Seven Up began and girls partnered up with cute boys and took turns sliding onto each other’s laps. The inevitable limbo contest followed. There was one very limber girl who won the limbo competition every time. Little did she or the rest of us know that this is where she would peak in life, under the limbo pole.
The rest of the night was a blur. Carpool came to pick you up sometime after the DJ started to shut down. They usually got you home in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of SNL. A night of excess and glamour was left as a memory to be cherished forever only to be repeated the following Saturday. Hopefully Saturday night.