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After discussing the pre-history of the bar mitzvah ceremony, this chapter analyzes four basic components of the ceremony before the year 1800: the Barukh sheptarani blessing; the aliyah to the Torah; the se’udat mitzvah (festive meal); and the derashah (sermon given by the bar mitzvah boy). The bulk of the chapter is devoted to six major changes that transpired after the year 1800: from bar mitzvah to Confirmation and back to bar and bat mitzvah; the origin and development of the bat mitzvah ceremony; the transformation of the elaborate derashah prepared by a teacher or rabbi to a much simpler devar torah prepared by the bar or bat mitzvah boy or girl; the transformation of a simple se’udat mitzvah into an elaborate party; the adoption of the Ashkenazic bar mitzvah ceremony by Sephardic and Oriental Jews; and the secular bar or bat mitzvah ceremony or party.

Stuart Schoenfeld’s essay traces the rise of the bar and bat mitzvah in American Jewish life and consequently the growing significance of the age of thirteen in the lives of American Jews. He argues that in the twentieth century, especially, bar and bat mitzvah provide a place where American Jews perform their identity among family and friends. He begins his story with the Bible, demonstrating that both the age of thirteen and bar and bat mitzvah themselves are actually not to be found in the Bible. He then traces the emergence of the age of majority, and eventually thirteen itself, in the Mishnah and other legal and theological writings. Schoenfeld demonstrates the ways that the bar, and eventually bat, mitzvah began to be celebrated by ever greater numbers of people over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Americans increasingly debated the form and significance of these celebrations, especially when they seemed to serve little religious purpose. One of the consequences of the immense popularity of bar and bat mitzvah and its meaningfulness for American Jews is the growing disjuncture between thirteen as a significant life marker for Jews and its lack of significance in the wider world, where other ages are more important as indicators of a transition to adulthood.

This chapter describes the experience of Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Abigail Pogrebin, mother and daughter, while accepting Judaism and passing through the phase of their bat mitzvahs. Letty—pioneering feminist, a founder of Ms. Magazine, author of several books—worked on everything from Free to Be You and Me, that seventies paean to gender equality, to Deborah, Golda, and Me, her sometimes brutally honest memoir. And Abigail—a former producer at 60 Minutes and a writer herself—is the author of the bestseller Stars of David, in which celebrities discuss what being Jewish means to them. The chapter also describes their journey laden with family issues: resentments and confusion and a certain paternal arrogance, with three generations approaching Judaism in ways healthy or borderline sociopathic, with feeling accepted, betrayed, marginalized, and accepted again, on their own terms and in their own way. In the end, with much thought and great determination, each Pogrebin ended up at a very happy destination.

Part I of this book places the act of reading Torah in a religious, historical and cultural context. Chanting is an inherent part of Jewish tradition. Special sections of Torah are read on various holidays. I describe the various rituals that frame the Torah service and examine the ways in which worshippers directly experience a connection to the Torah scroll and the other ritual objects that make up this ritual performance. Most Jews learn how to read Torah for their bar or bat mitzvah. I discuss the experiences of students who read Torah during this rite of passage and the power of this ritual as a performance of Jewish identity.

This chapter examines strategies where individual Jews employ digital technology to sustain and transmit musical traditions of Torah and haftarah trope, a core element of contemporary Jewish worship. While these examples focus more on personal agency than institutional sustainability, they underscore new approaches to integrating meaningful ritual into the lives of these liberal Jews. Even as certain contemporary Jews have moved away from traditional structures of learning and authority–synagogues, religious schools, rabbis, and cantors–they have developed and supported innovative means to transmit the music performance of biblical chant used in bar/bat mitzvah celebrations in a way that sustains traditional rituals while empowering their personal style of Jewish expression and identity.

I return to teaching at the GSB and begin a job as director of the joint MA degree in degree in education and business. I change the title of my business school class from Women and Work to Work and Family and every year the percentage of men in the class increases; in 2012, 40 percent of the students are men. I publish two articles applying feminist economics to education and a book analyzing the merits and pitfalls of interdsiciplinarity. The book is titled Interdisciplinary Conversations: ChallengingHabits of Thought. Jay’s two sons marry and we have five more grandchildren. The Clayman Institute celebrates its 35^th anniversary and Jay and I celebrate our 20^th wedding anniversary. But I also mourn the deaths of close friends, my favorite aunt, and, most of all, my sister, Alice Amsden. MIT holds a memorial for Alice. The passing of so many transforms me with a renewed understanding of the preciousness of life. I decide to retire from full-time teaching, take stock of the changes I have helped to bring about, and explain how much more there is to be done before women and men participate as equals in the work world and in their families. I highlight the joy I have in becoming a grandmother, celebrating my 65^th birthday and just a few weeks later finally having the Bat Mitzvah I missed when I was 13. In my Bat Mitzvah sermon, I talk about the relationship between Judaism’s teachings and those of feminist economics.

Chapter 2 introduces me as a 9 year-old, fascinated with my grandfather’s morning prayers. I portray my mother, (who works full-time as a school secretary), my dad (a salesman in the men’s clothing industry), and my grandmother and her sister, (who are illiterate), and show the powerful love of Judaism I absorb from my grandfather (a waiter). My excitement about attending synagogue services is crushed when I am 12 and my mother tells me I’m no longer permitted to sit downstairs in shul with my grandfather. I boycott services that day, and then, when insult is heaped upon injury and I’m denied a Bat Mitzvah, I quit Hebrew School and refuse to attend the Bar Mitzvah of a classmate. My feminist sensibilities take root.