Hilton Excerpt

Bar Mitzvah, a History
Copyrighted Material Rabbi Michael Hilton
Contents
List of Illustrations viii

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1. How Bar Mitzvah Began 1

2. How Bar Mitzvah Became Popular 35
3. The Spread and Regulation of Bar Mitzvah 54
4. Jewish Confirmation 74
5. Bat Mitzvah 106
6. Into the Modern Age 135
7. Current Issues and Trends 160
8. The Evidence Assessed 192
Notes 227
Glossary 261
Bibliography 267
Index 295
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Introduction
Laura Jean from Dallas, Texas, was twelve years old when she told her
parents in 2003 that she would like a bat mitzvah: “She loved bat mitz-
vahs: the singing was “inspiring”; the parties were exciting; the attention,
no doubt, was flattering. Why couldn’t she have one?”1 The problem was
that she was Methodist, not Jewish. But she went ahead anyway and held
a party for 125 friends and relatives. The writer who reported this story
commented: “In the United States, bar mitzvahs (for boys) and bat mitz-
vahs (for girls) get more attention than first communions, baptisms or
confirmation combined, even though Christians outnumber Jews 590 to 1.
They’re the summit, the zenith, the tops when it comes to teenage rites of
passage.”2 The popularity of the celebration has led to the phenomenon of
many Christian teenagers wanting a bar mitzvah in order to emulate their
Jewish friends. From 2004 onward in the United States there have also
been reports of “black mitzvah,” a party celebrated by African American
boys and girls. One blogger wrote of the so-called black mitzvah: “I love
the warmth and respect shown by the adults to these kids. They made these
young men feel special and I believe they will be successful in life.”3 The
suggestion is that the African American parents want to express the same
kind of pride in their children that they notice among Jewish families.
How did bar and bat mitzvah come to be so popular? What is it that
appeals to Jews with totally different beliefs and lifestyles from each other
and even to non-Jews? How did the ceremony start, and why is it that a
higher proportion of Jewish children celebrate it today than at any time
in the past?
The original ceremony, which was only for boys, was invented by fathers
for their own sons. Bar mitzvah, many books tell us, means “son of the
commandment.”4 But the first meaning of the term was “someone who
has the responsibility for carrying out a particular duty.” That is the way
xi
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xii introduction
the term was used in ancient times, before anyone had thought of cel-
ebrating a boy’s coming of age. The meaning of the term changed as the
ceremony became important; it came to mean a Jewish boy aged at least
thirteen and one day who from now on had the responsibility of carrying
out all the religious duties of a Jewish man. In the twentieth century bar
mitzvah changed its meaning again and came to refer to the celebration,
rather than the child. In English today this is what the phrase means, and
the child is called “the bar mitzvah boy” or “the bat mitzvah girl.”
If you attend a boy’s bar mitzvah today, you are likely to see some or
all of four traditional elements that have been combined into a single
sequence for the last four hundred years. First, during the synagogue
service the boy is called up to the Torah to say the traditional blessings
and, if he is able, to read or chant his own portion from the Torah scroll,
instead of the usual weekly practice of it being read by a skilled volunteer
or professional. In the main Ashkenazic tradition followed today in Israel,
much of Europe, and in English-speaking lands, the boy is called up for
maftir and haftarah on Shabbat morning—that is to say, on a Saturday
morning in the synagogue, after the whole of the week’s section has been
read and seven adult men called to the Torah, the bar mitzvah recites the
blessing before reading the Torah, repeats the prescribed last few verses
that have already been read, recites the blessing after reading the Torah,
and then reads the prescribed reading from the Prophets, with blessings
said before and after.5
The blessings recited by the bar mitzvah are the same ones said by
everyone called up to the Torah. Before the reading the boy says, “Bless
the Eternal whom we are called to bless.” The congregation responds,
“Blessed is the Eternal whom we are called to bless forever and ever.” The
boy repeats the response and then carries on, “Blessed are You, our Eter-
nal God, Sovereign of the Universe, who chose us from all peoples to give
us your Torah. Blessed are You, Eternal One, who gives us the Torah.”
After the reading the boy recites another blessing: “Blessed are You,
our Eternal God, Sovereign of the Universe, who gave us the teaching of
truth and planted eternal life within us. Blessed are You, Eternal One, who
gives us the Torah.” After the bar mitzvah boy has read from the Torah and
recited the second blessing, the boy’s father recites a five-word Hebrew
blessing: barukh she-petarani mei-onsho shel zeh, “Blessed be the One who
has freed me from punishment because of him.” This is the second tradi-
tional element of the ceremony. These words were first recorded fifteen
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introduction xiii
hundred years ago and later incorporated into bar mitzvah.6 In Sephardic
and some Ashkenazic communities the blessing is recited on the occa-
sion of the boy’s first wearing tefillin, leather boxes worn for prayer on
the head and arm for weekday mornings. Some traditions have not used
this blessing.7
A celebration meal or party held for the family and other invited guests
is the third element of the traditional ceremony. It is an essential part of
the celebration. Finally, the boy delivers a derashah at the meal, that is, a
speech explaining some aspect of Torah. This aspect of bar mitzvah still
exists in Orthodox circles but has long been in decline. Today it is more
common to hear the boy give a brief derashah as part of the synagogue
ceremony.
Other elements such as a special prayer for the occasion and a speech
and/or blessing given by parents and/or a rabbi grew up in the nineteenth
century and have become common practice. There are many other mod-
ern additions to the ceremony, such as physically passing the Torah scroll
from grandparents to parents to the child, symbolizing the handing on
of the tradition.
There are many variations in the way bar mitzvah ceremonies are per-
formed. In particular, an additional ceremony (or sometimes the only one)
may take place when the Torah is read on a Monday morning, a Thursday
morning, or on a Shabbat afternoon, in which case there is no haftarah
for the boy to read. On a Monday or a Thursday the boy will wear tefillin.
In many traditions, but not all, the boy will wear tefillin for the first time
on the occasion of his bar mitzvah. In many Sephardic and some Hasidic
traditions, the tefillin ceremony is regarded as the actual bar mitzvah,
and the calling up to the Torah on the following Saturday is secondary.
Why I Wrote This Book

I have stated that the bar mitzvah ceremony is universally popular among
Jews, but there have been curious exceptions. I never had a bar mitzvah.
The synagogues in the British Liberal movement had abolished bar mitzvah
completely and replaced it with what they called “confirmation,” a group
ceremony held for both boys and girls at the age of fifteen or sixteen. My
ceremony took place at Wembley and District Liberal Synagogue on the
Sabbath before the festival of Shavuot, Shabbat Bemidbar, May 21, 1966.
The confirmation class conducted the service, and we, the students, then
had separate family parties.8
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xiv introduction
By the time I began to train as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, London, in

1982, every Liberal synagogue had reintroduced bar mitzvah and, along-
side it, an identical ceremony for girls, bat mitzvah, both held at the age
of thirteen. The reintroduction was largely because of pressure from par-
ents, who managed to convince a number of reluctant rabbis that the tra-
ditional ceremony could still be meaningful. In my work as a student rabbi
in East London, my single most important task was to take family after
family through the ceremony; indeed, in the smaller and younger commu-
nities these events were their principal activity and reason for existence.
And yet, although universally popular among the parents, many children
began their bar mitzvah year motivated mainly by parental pressure and
the prospect of getting presents and having a party. It was my job and that
of the other teachers to try to ensure that by the time the big day came
around, the students’ understanding was a little deeper and their love of
Judaism enhanced by the process. I wondered if it had always been like
that—a ceremony driven by parents, like most things in children’s lives. I
wondered, too, about the incredible popularity of the ceremony and how
it began. This book is the result of my personal quest to find out. What I
discovered is a fascinating story, especially because of hundreds of years of
attempts by Jewish communities in Europe to limit the size and extrava-
gance of the celebration and at the same time to improve the educational
standards of the children. I came to realize that the dilemmas and ten-
sions that surround bar and bat mitzvah today are by no means new. It
was not so surprising after all that the ceremony was mainly driven by
parents because it had always been like that. Bar mitzvah was invented
by Jewish fathers for their own sons.
This history describes the origins and growth of the synagogue coming-
of-age ceremonies known as bar mitzvah (for boys), bat mitzvah (for
girls), and Jewish confirmation (for boys and girls). Before 1800 there
was only one ceremony, bar mitzvah for boys, and it was rarely heard of
outside Ashkenazic and Italian Jewish communities. I explore why con-
fusion exists about the date of the first bar mitzvah and the first bat mitz-
vah and offer my own solutions to the puzzle of the evidence. I trace the
growth, spread, and development of the celebration across Ashkenazic
Europe and beyond; most of the earlier sources come from France, Ger-
many, Poland, and Italy.
For the medieval period the sources refer to two elements of the cere-
mony, the blessing said by the father and the celebration meal. From the
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introduction xv
sixteenth century onward the sources also mention the readings and the
speech and, beginning in the seventeenth century, the bar mitzvah test.
Jewish confirmation was an invention of Reform Jews in Germany at the
start of the nineteenth century, and bat mitzvah is said to have begun in
1922, a claim that I examine in detail. I have chosen to emphasize those
sources that illustrate the origin of the ceremonies, their social and edu-
cational aspects, and particularly the tensions between the educational
and social elements, many of which are still relevant today. The individual
stories given are examples from the many thousands available to illustrate
the story of these very popular ceremonies. My emphasis has been on the
synagogue ceremonies, the family celebrations, and issues that affect them.
I have included Jewish legal aspects when they are relevant to the origin,
growth, or shape of the ceremony. Readers not familiar with Hebrew
terms will find brief explanations in the glossary at the back of the book.
Tensions between religion and culture, between synagogue officials and
families, between faith and practice, are not new. Understanding the his-
tory helps today’s debates about Jewish identity. Every bar mitzvah boy is
aware that he is taking his place in a long tradition. Today girls are also part
of that tradition. The popularity of bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah among
such diverse communities of Jews can best be understood by exploring
the history of the ceremony. The four traditional elements described ear-
lier include both religious ceremony and party, both parent and child. The
“people of the book” created a ceremony that has at its heart the read-
ing from its most holy book. Yet within the Jewish community there is a
wide range of views on whether it is the social or the religious aspects that
are more important. A Jewish family today could regard the ceremony
as marking a birthday, as marking an important transition on the way to
adult life, as an educational achievement, as a simple step along the path of
life in a religious community, as an excuse for a party, as a time for family
nostalgia, or in many other ways. The traditional elements allow for any
or all of these motives to be highlighted, explored, or even thrown out.
Ritual undoubtedly has the power to transform lives. But often it does
not. Not every bar mitzvah is a deeply meaningful experience. A wide
range of writers has explored this issue. Arthur Magida described his
own bar mitzvah as “being yelled at a lot and wearing a suit that never
stopped itching.” You did it because it is what you were born into.9 The
memoirs recounted in his book show that bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah can
be an unpleasant chore for the child. Undoubtedly, much of the celebra-
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xvi introduction
tion’s high profile has come from the hype and glitz of very lavish parties.
Many people never see beyond that. But thoughtful children are able to
see past the glitz and to realize that the most successful celebration is not
the most expensive but one that the child puts the most into.
For four hundred years there have been battles between families who
want the minimum educational import and synagogues who demand the
most they can get. Bar mitzvah began as an unusual ceremony probably
indicating a special degree of piety. As soon as it became popular, inevita-
bly there were those who wanted to cut corners. Regulations from Krakow
in 1595 limited the number of guests who could be invited to the party. No
doubt then, as now, there were families who considered the party more
important than the synagogue service. And within one generation of the
invention of the bar mitzvah speech, we find Leon Modena in Venice
supplementing his income by composing speeches for the boys. For the
less learned and less observant, the studying was a chore to be avoided if
possible. But the emotional content for Jewish parents and grandparents
has remained high. In Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the
Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah (1992), Rabbi Jeffrey
Salkin encouraged parents to devote time to exploring the meaning of
the ceremony, understanding the concept of mitzvah, and finding suit-
able charity projects.
This history makes clear that the tensions surrounding the ceremony
have had a real and important purpose in preserving and enhancing the
popularity of bar mitzvah. For those living in a non-Jewish environment,
bar mitzvah has played a huge part in the survival of Jewish life. Take away
the effort of learning, and the ceremony loses its sense of achievement,
its value as an educational tool on the path of Jewish life; take away the
hype, and the ceremony loses its luster in an age when celebrity status
often counts most of all.
Many accounts of bar mitzvah suggest that it has now become a bur-
den imposed on a reluctant child by families, communities, and rabbis.
That interpretation fails to explain why it is more popular now than at any
time in the past. The ceremony grew and became popular only because
people wanted it—there is nothing in the Torah or rabbinic law to say
that a child has to celebrate a bar mitzvah. It may be that children in the
past were just as reluctant as some are today. It is the parents and grand-
parents who so often shed tears at a bar mitzvah, and it may well be the
case that it has marked an emotional stage in their lives more than in the
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introduction xvii
child’s life. The older sources only tell us what was done, not how people
felt about it. But we can speculate. The origin of bar mitzvah was when
Jewish fathers began to thank God with the words “Blessed be the One
who has freed me from punishment because of him.” Whose feelings are
described here? The father’s, not the son’s.
The emphasis then was on the emotional experience of the parents, not
the child. Family tensions and feelings are built into the ceremony. Bar
mitzvah has provided an opportunity for parents and children, families
and community, to act out their relationships in a secure environment.
Rites of passage are imperfect but valuable ways of enacting meaning.10
Rites of passage are performances that help us make sense of our daily
lives.11 In our time many Jews have lost the monthly and seasonal rhythms
of Jewish life. But they retain the sense of a journey through life, in which
important steps can be marked and celebrated. Bar and bat mitzvah have
bucked the trend, growing in popularity even while other celebrations
have declined.
In a world in which family life has become difficult and often troubled,
such celebrations have taken on an added importance for many people.
By creating the myth of an unchanging tradition that can be passed on
in its entirety, bar and bat mitzvah require participants to act as if their
family lives were stable, in the hope of modeling and even creating per-
manence amid the fragility of existence. For a fleeting moment everything
in the world becomes as we would like it to be, and hopes and plans for
the future can be expressed, publicized, and celebrated. Some children
and parents begin the process with a degree of skepticism, but very few
emerge from it unmoved.
This book has been shaped and inspired by questions asked by students,
especially the many boys and girls whom I have taught and encouraged
through the time leading up to their own bar/bat mitzvah ceremonies.
Many of their parents, too, have awakened my interest about the origin
of particular customs. Among my past students are my own three sons,
Samuel, Jacob, and Benjamin, whose constant questioning and curiosity
have for many years led me on the quest for answers. To them, with great
affection, this book is dedicated.
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C ha p t e r O n e
How Bar Mitzvah Began
• The Bible records twenty as the age of majority, but in rabbinic times it
became twelve plus one day for girls and thirteen plus one day for boys.
• In the midrash, as Esau at the age of thirteen went off to worship idols,
his father Isaac was relieved of responsibility for him. Therefore, at that
age and onward, a boy’s father should say, “Blessed be the One who has
freed me from punishment because of him.”
• The synagogue ceremony was first recorded in thirteenth-century north-
ern France. The boy was called to the Torah, and the father added the
blessing. The ceremony may have been held before he left home for study
in the schoolhouse. One of the sources for the synagogue ceremony also
mentions that a father should make a party for his thirteen-year-old son.
Thirteen and a Day

Abraham’s father, Terah, kept a shop to which customers would come to
buy idols. When Terah was away, Abraham was left to mind the shop. One
day he took a stick, broke up the idols, and put the stick into the hand
of the largest one. When his father asked what had happened, Abraham
replied that the big idol had smashed up all the little ones. Terah said this
was impossible, and his son, Abraham, pointed out that his father had
revealed himself to be a fool who believed that man-made objects could
be worshiped. This story is not found in the Bible but comes from Jewish
literature known as “midrash.” Early versions do not say how old Abra-
ham was at the time, but later retellings say he was thirteen years old,1
suggesting that this age had over time become recognized as the age of
adult understanding.
There was no bar mitzvah in ancient times, no ceremony and no party.
Many modern customs are not as old as we imagine them to be; children’s
birthday parties, for example, were invented in the nineteenth century,
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2 how bar mitzvah began
yet many people assume they have always existed. Bar mitzvah is not a
modern invention, but it is not as old as people think it is; many Jews
and non-Jews imagine it has always been part of the Jewish faith. But in
the ancient world not only was a boy’s thirteenth birthday not celebrated,
but none of his other birthdays were either. In the Hebrew Bible the only
person who celebrated a birthday was the pharaoh who rescued Joseph
from prison.2 He would hardly have been taken as an example by the small
group of Hebrews who were destined to become slaves to his successor.
People had good reason to fear the birthdays of kings: in the story of
Hanukkah the desecration of the Temple by the wicked King Antiochus
is said by some to have taken place on the date of his birthday celebra-
tion, which he insisted was observed every single month.3 In the Christian
Scriptures King Herod threw a birthday party at which John the Baptist
was beheaded at Salome’s request.4
Ordinary people could not have held birthday parties, even if they had
wanted to. Although most people were aware of their age, precise dates of
birth for most people were simply not recorded. Even weddings originally
had no ceremony or party; the only ceremonial event connected with the
marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, for example, was the formal negotiations
between their parents. When he met her, Isaac simply “brought her into
the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac loved
her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.”5
It was Isaac’s birth, not his marriage, that provided a reason for a fam-
ily party. Abraham threw a party for Isaac’s weaning onto solid food as
a young child. The Bible gives no details of this party, mentioning only
Sarah’s jealousy of Abraham’s concubine Hagar and their son, Ishmael.
But the Hebrew words used to describe the party, mishteh gadol, are sig-
nificant. The word mishteh implies drinking rather than eating—what we
would call a “party” rather than the normal translation “feast.” The only
other mention in the Bible of a mishteh gadol (a big party) is the wedding
banquet of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus in the story of Purim.6 So,
not surprisingly, the rabbis elaborated the story of Abraham’s weaning
feast, imagining that he had invited all the great kings and chieftains of
the time. The medieval commentator Rashi (1040–1105) explained that it
was called “big” because all the important people of the time were there,
such as Shem and Eber and Abimelech.7
Unable to find any evidence for bar mitzvah in the Bible, some came to
believe that Isaac had been thirteen years old at the time of the party, that
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how bar mitzvah began 3
he had been weaned from his “evil inclination” (that is to say, acquired
his adult impulse to do good), and that this had been the very first bar
mitzvah party. In the minds of those who thought up this idea, the bar
mitzvah party was a more ancient practice than the synagogue ceremony
celebrating the occasion.
The Torah insists that parents have a duty to teach their children and
also mentions the son asking his father the meaning of the Passover offer-
ing and other laws.8 Apart from these details we know almost nothing
about how children were educated in biblical times. Even later, in the time
of the Romans, it is by no means clear that most boys would have been
able to read from a Torah scroll. The literacy rate among Jews in Roman
Palestine is thought to have been somewhere between 3 and 15 percent.
Culture and traditions were largely handed down orally.9 Until Jewish lit-
eracy began to flourish in the Middle Ages, bar mitzvah remained a cer-
emony whose time had not yet come.
Although people did not know their exact date of birth, they would
certainly have been aware of the changing seasons and kept count of
how many years they had lived. The Torah tells us that Abraham was
ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised. And, it goes on, his son
Ishmael was circumcised on the same day, and he was thirteen years old
at the time.10 At this point in the story Abraham has just been told by
God that Isaac, the son who is yet to be born, will be his true succes-
sor, rather than Ishmael. So, Ishmael’s circumcision was not regarded as
a precedent for the descendants of Isaac, and when Isaac was born, he
was circumcised at the age of eight days. The ancient historian Josephus
mentions, however, that the Arab peoples of his day circumcised their
sons at the age of thirteen.11 Rashi stated that Ishmael’s circumcision
took place on the very day he was thirteen.12 This comment was part of
a train of thought suggesting that age thirteen could mark an important
moment of transition.
Becoming an Adult at Twenty

When were boys thought of as adults? The Book of Numbers begins as
follows:
On the first day of the second month, in the second year following
the exodus from the land of Egypt, the lord spoke to Moses in the
wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying:
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Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its

ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You
and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty
years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms.13
Only men are to be counted in this census, and only those aged twenty
and above; this was the age at which they were able to go to war because
they would be strong enough by then.14 No other age requirement for
being an adult is mentioned in the Bible, even for marriage.
In the Mishnah, which gives us our first insight into rulings made by
rabbis, there are different functions assigned to various ages.15 Anyone
old enough to walk holding his father’s hand was not to be considered a
“child” when it came to making the three annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem:
Everyone has an obligation to appear on the festival pilgrimage, except

for a deaf mute, a mentally disadvantaged person, and a child . . .
Who is considered a child? Anyone who is too small to ride on his
father’s shoulders and to ascend from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount,
according to the School of Shammai. But the School of Hillel say:
anyone who cannot take hold of his father’s hand and ascend from
Jerusalem to the Temple Mount, as it says,16 “three foot festivals.”17
According to the School of Hillel, even young children just able to walk
were obligated to participate in rituals and abide by established rules.
In the Christian Scriptures the young Jesus is described as twelve years
old when he went to Jerusalem with his parents for Passover. We are not
told whether or not this was the first time he had accompanied them.
According to the story, as told by Luke, Jesus got lost, and it was three days
before his parents discovered him in the Temple precincts, in enthusias-
tic dialogue with the teachers. A few Christian commentaries and some
Christians today describe this as “Jesus’ bar mitzvah,” even though the
story itself has no such suggestion.18
Taking a Vow at Twelve or Thirteen

— Plus One Day
The first mention of the age thirteen in the first rabbinic book of rules,
the Mishnah, comes in a completely different context, that of taking a
vow. In traditional Jewish law the act of speaking a vow or an oath out
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loud gives it binding value.19 Jews are familiar with this idea from the Kol
Nidrei prayer recited on Yom Kippur eve, when God is urged to cancel
any vows or promises made to God in error. The Mishnah discusses the
question of the earliest age at which a girl or a boy could be considered
responsible enough to make a vow:
If a girl is eleven years old plus one day, her vows are examined [to
make sure she is old enough to know what she is doing]. If a girl is
twelve years old plus one day, her vows are valid. They examine them
for the whole of her twelfth year.
If a boy is twelve years old plus one day, his vows are examined.
If a boy is thirteen years old plus one day, his vows are valid. They
examine them for the whole of his thirteenth year. Before the req-
uisite age, even if they say “We know in whose name we have made
the vow” or “we have made the dedication,” their vow is no vow and
their dedication is no dedication. But after the requisite age, even if
they say “We do not know in whose name we have made the vow”
or “we have made the dedication,” their vow is indeed a valid vow
and their dedication is a valid dedication.20
Even though this text has nothing to do with having a bat mitzvah or bar
mitzvah, and even though the ceremony was invented many centuries
later, it remains to this day the foundation for the “correct age”—twelve
years plus one day for a girl and thirteen plus one day for a boy.
The Age of Puberty

The Mishnah goes on to describe the physical changes that take place in
a girl at puberty, thus making it clear that the age of twelve has been cho-
sen because this is when her physical development normally occurs. She
is therefore now able to take responsibility for her actions, as is a boy at
the age of thirteen. The phrase “plus one day” seems to have been added
simply to make absolutely certain that the correct age had been reached.
It can be found in bar mitzvah regulations even today.
The Mishnah mentions girls before dealing with boys. That is not sur-
prising, as this text comes from the section called Niddah, which deals with
menstruation and family purity. But it may also be because girls mature at
a younger age, so the Mishnah is able to proceed logically up the scale from
age eleven to twelve and then to thirteen. So, even though the ceremony
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of bar mitzvah for boys is much older than bat mitzvah for girls, the cor-
rect age for a girl can be found listed first, followed by the age for a boy.
The Presumption of Rava

Once the age of responsibility was established, it became a fixed law for
all girls and boys. Thus, there has been no need to quiz each child on his
or her physical maturity or intellectual ability. It is similar to the way we
may think of a child as being part of a particular school year, regardless
of the intellect or growth rate of that individual child. A general rule was
fixed, based on the majority, and it was then applied to everyone.
The Babylonian Talmud makes clear that this specific rule could be
applied to fix an age of majority for girls: “Rava said: a girl who has reached
the required number of years need not undergo a physical examination
since we can make a presumption that she has produced the marks of
puberty.”21 This rule became known as the “presumption of Rava” and
was applied to boys as well as to girls. It later became part of the rules for
bar mitzvah. The age of thirteen plus one day became a sufficient mea-
sure, without any test or physical examination required.
“Thirteen for the Commandments”

Another mention of the age of thirteen for boys comes from the well-
known section of the Mishnah known as “Sayings of the Fathers” (Pirkei
Avot) and follows a saying given in the name of a rabbi who lived in the
second century ce, Judah son of Temah: “He used to say: a son of five
years old for Bible: of ten years for Mishnah: of thirteen for the com-
mandments [mitzvot], of fifteen for Talmud.”22 The list suggests that
these are the best ages for boys to start learning about the particular sub-
jects. But none of the ages given here had legally binding status.23 They
were merely suggested ages rather than definite rules, for the passage
goes on, amusingly: “eighteen for a wedding, twenty for a job, thirty for
authority, forty for intelligence, fifty for giving advice, sixty for being an
elder, seventy for grey hairs, eighty for special strength, ninety for being
bowed back, and at a hundred, a man is as one that has died and passed
away from the world.”
Yet not all ancient texts are what they seem. Although the saying appears
in the Mishnah, it is in fact a later addition. The famous twelfth-century
scholar Maimonides (1135–1204) did not include this paragraph in his edi-
tion of the Mishnah and did not use it when drawing up his own educa-
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tional curriculum for the study of Torah. Some manuscripts even place
it in a different place.24
The paragraph that precedes this text ends with a short prayer,25 indi-
cating the original ending of the section. There is no clear evidence that
the saying was considered part of the Mishnah until the twelfth century.26
The whole chapter gives lists based on various numbers—the ten items
created on the eve of the Sabbath, the seven indications of a wise man, the
four kinds of student, and so on. The paragraph noted here, on “the ages
of man,” was modeled on the same pattern. The use of the word Talmud
apparently referring to a specific book or books proves that this paragraph
was written later. Talmud was a general word indicating “study,” but obvi-
ously one could not study “the Talmud” until after it had been written,
meaning no earlier than the year 500 ce.27 So, the famous saying “thir-
teen for the commandments” does not suggest that the tradition of bar
mitzvah existed in ancient times.28
But thirteen was nevertheless an important age. It is mentioned in rab-
binic literature as the time when the “impulse to do good” is acquired.29
It also came to be the time when a boy could be considered a man. In the
Book of Genesis we are told that Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, took
revenge on the people of the town of Shechem for the rape of their sister
Dinah: “Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, brothers of Dinah, took each
his sword, came upon the city unmolested, and slew all the males.”30 The
Hebrew literally means “they took each man his sword,” and that addi-
tional and unnecessary word man led to this comment: “Rabbi Shimon
son of Elazar said: They were then thirteen years old.”31 His comment was
taken up in an anonymous twelfth-century commentary, which discussed
the importance of the age of thirteen and added: “They introduce him to
the fulfillment of the commandments.” The Hebrew word used here for
introduce can also have a more physical meaning: “they bring him in.”32
Much more recently, in nineteenth-century commentaries, this story was
linked with the bar mitzvah ceremony and used as evidence that at that
time a boy becomes a man. Even though Simeon and Levi were aggressive
and vengeful, and even though their actions were condemned, the idea
that at thirteen a Jewish boy becomes a man has become part of modern
Jewish popular consciousness, so much so that to this day bar mitzvah
boys use the phrase “Today I am a man” in their speeches to their guests.
In North America, it has become the traditional way such a speech begins
and was particularly popular in the mid-twentieth century.33
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Since the 1950s some boys parodied the phrase by saying “Today I am
a fountain pen,” because for thirty years fountain pens had been popular
gifts for the occasion. At his bar mitzvah in July 1946 Barry Vine, of New
Haven, Connecticut, received sixteen fountain pens as gifts.34 Perhaps the
facetious “Today I am a fountain pen” was intended by bar mitzvah boys to
discourage well-meaning relatives from giving this little-appreciated gift.
More recently, the phrase “Today I am a man” was parodied in an epi-
sode of the tv series The Simpsons. In it the character Krusty the Clown
is the son of a rabbi, but he did not have a bar mitzvah as a child because
his father thought he would make fun of the ceremony. He decides to
learn Hebrew and have a bar mitzvah as an adult. During the preparation
period Krusty has to give up doing shows on a Saturday and is replaced
by Homer Simpson. The episode was called “Today I Am a Clown.”35
Reading the Torah

and Leading the Service
At what age did boys take an active part in synagogue services? The Mish-
nah tells us that a boy may read from the Torah and translate.36 It does
not state any age and does not suggest that this was a common prac-
tice. The Jerusalem Talmud raises the question of whether the boy really
understands what he is doing.37 By the time the question was discussed
in medieval Europe, it was common, as it is now, for a skilled leader to
do the actual reading and for others simply to come up and say the bless-
ings before and after.
A twelfth-century prayer book from France, the Machzor Vitry, rules
that a boy is permitted to read from the Torah;38 others insisted that at
least three men be called up as well.39 Rabbi Joshua Falk (Lvov, 1555–1614)
mentioned the practice of a boy being called up as maftir (an additional
call up to the Torah and reading the haftarah as well). But he objected
to boys below the age of thirteen being included among the first seven
men called up on Shabbat morning. The Mishnah Berurah, a rule book
commonly used today by Orthodox Jews, confirms this ruling, that a boy
under thirteen may only be called up for maftir.40
An exception is made on Simchat Torah, an autumn festival with many
colorful customs deriving from medieval Ashkenazic Europe, when all
the children in the synagogue can be called up as a group to the reading
of the Torah. But that very custom marks an exception, a special day of
rejoicing when the boys could be offered a taste of the life of an adult Jew.41
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It may well have been a substitute for the earlier practice of allowing
a boy to be called to the reading on an ordinary Shabbat or weekday, an
honor from which boys under thirteen have gradually been excluded, so
that the bar mitzvah boy comes up on his own for the first time in his life
at his own celebration. This ruling applies whether or not he actually reads
from the scroll or just comes up to say the blessings. Today it is common
for the bar mitzvah to be called up for maftir, an honor permitted even
for younger boys, but it is not a universal practice and was not the norm
when bar mitzvah first became popular.
Leading the Prayers

In the Jerusalem Talmud we find that a man should be fully grown—that
is, twenty years old—before leading prayers.42 During the medieval period
the age was lowered. The ninth-century Rav Natronai Gaon stated that
in an emergency someone younger than twenty could lead the prayers,
provided he had reached the age of thirteen and one day.43 The first full
Jewish prayer book, Seder Rav Amram, was written by one of Natronai
Gaon’s students. It quoted his ruling but went on to criticize the custom
of those places where a thirteen-year-old could be chosen to lead prayers,
preferring someone fully grown.44 Clearly, this was happening.
Most of the rules we use today about Jewish prayer come from the book
known as “Tractate Soferim,” originally compiled around the year 750 ce.
It states that a boy has to be at least thirteen to be included in the quo-
rum for a service.45 It goes on to say that the age itself is sufficient and
no physical examination is required. But this section of Soferim is now
thought to be much more recent. It is a huge complication in the history
of Jewish customs that we cannot simply accept the traditional dates for a
great deal of the evidence. In medieval times copying and revising a man-
uscript was every bit as effective as saving a new version on a computer
today; the older version has gone forever.46 The Machzor Vitry, a later
prayer book, rules that in order to lead the part of the service including
the Shema, a boy must be age thirteen and one day and have the begin-
nings of physical maturity.47
So, we have traced a fall in the minimum age from twenty down to
thirteen. But it seems that even younger boys were sometimes allowed
to lead prayers in medieval Europe. Although the general rule was thir-
teen, not everyone obeyed it. In practice it became quite common after
the Crusades for boys who had lost a parent to lead the Kaddish for those
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who had died and often to lead the last part of the service. Rashi’s prayer
book, discussing the end of morning service on Mondays and Thursdays,
states, “And the boy rises to say Kaddish.”48
Joseph Caro (1488–1575) wrote about this custom disapprovingly. A
child was not obliged to pray regularly and so could not lead the prayers
on behalf of adults. Caro mentioned that the custom of a boy leading
prayers had even spread to Spain, and he knew about it from the rabbis
who opposed it.49 And so he ruled in the Shulchan Arukh, as did his con-
temporary Moses Isserles for Ashkenazic Jews, that age thirteen was the
demarcation age and specifically that age alone was the defining moment,
regardless of physical maturity: “At thirteen years old . . . they can make a
presumption that he is like an adult . . . This is the custom and there is no
need to change it.”50 Similarly, Isserles added that the prevailing custom
was for a boy not to wear tefillin “until he becomes bar mitzvah, that is,
thirteen years old and one day.”51 Thus, we see that Jewish boys younger
than thirteen in medieval Europe were at times allowed to lead prayers
and read from the Torah, but both practices were gradually prohibited,
except for the remaining custom, still practiced in some communities, of
a younger boy being called up for maftir.
Keeping All the Commandments

Even in medieval Europe, not every rabbi thought that the age of thir-
teen on its own was sufficient to make it compulsory for a boy to perform
all the commandments. The earliest indication of its importance can be
found in an eleventh-century comment about the wearing of fringes on
the corners of a garment: “Just as a man has to perform this command,
so when he reaches the age of thirteen years and one day he becomes
obligated for all the commandments of the Torah.”52 The statement was
quoted with approval by the great commentator Rashi. Some claimed that
it showed a very clear definition of the age of majority.53 But nevertheless
the debate was not over.
Since that time there has been considerable disagreement among rab-
bis, some of them insisting on there being physical signs of puberty in the
boy, not just his arrival at the correct age. This issue came to be impor-
tant when the new idea arose of celebrating bar mitzvah by means of a
special meal.
We have traced a very clear change, from an age of male majority of
twenty in the Bible to an age of thirteen during the Middle Ages. The
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change reflects changes in Jewish history and life. The original age of twenty
was considered a suitable age to join the army; the new age of thirteen
was suitable for leading and performing rituals in the synagogue. Because
thirteen marks the onset of puberty, a modern writer has explained the
bar mitzvah age in rather discouraging terms: “The Rabbis treated all sex-
uality as fraught with danger. They evidently believed that the most dif-
ficult task of a grown-up human being (or at least a male) is controlling
the sexual urge: so to insist that all the mitzvot—commands or precepts—
were operative at puberty meant that the community was bracing itself to
govern those urges.”54 Some scholars have linked the popularity of bar/bat
mitzvah today to the fact that it takes place at puberty, a common time
for coming-of-age rituals in many societies, when young people can be
guided toward becoming adults supportive of the wider group and for-
mally inducted into a particular faith or culture.55
“A Beautiful Custom ”
The next pieces of evidence lead directly to the origin of the bar mitzvah
ceremony. Tractate Soferim contains a description of “a beautiful custom
in Jerusalem.”56 Boys and girls, we read, were trained to practice fasting
before the age when it became compulsory. They would fast for a half-day
at age eleven, a full day at age twelve, and “afterwards’” they were taken
round all the elders of the town to receive congratulations and a blessing.
The word afterwards could mean at the age of thirteen,57 and if so, it cer-
tainly indicates a marking of that age with congratulations. Even if this
text comes from the later part of Soferim, which reflects European prac-
tice, it could still be early evidence for celebrating the coming of age.58
One obvious stumbling block to linking this text to the history of bar
mitzvah is that girls are here included along with the boys. But far more
problematic is the likelihood that the text from Soferim as normally printed
is wrong. Some texts read that the story is not about children aged eleven
or twelve at all but about children aged one or two.59 It is easy to dismiss
this detail on the grounds that babies could not possibly have been trained
to fast. But it is not as impossible as it at first appears. The twelfth-century
northern French scholar Rabbeinu Tam criticized an overly pious prac-
tice of not feeding very young children on the fast day of Yom Kippur.60
For those who disagreed with him, inventing or finding a story that even
babes in arms would fast back in Jerusalem was a good way of encourag-
ing people to be more pious.
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The Origin of the Father’s Blessing

The foundation text for the father’s blessing later used at the synagogue
celebration of bar mitzvah comes from the book Bereshit Rabbah. The core
of this book has traditionally been thought to have been put together by
Rabbi Hoshaiah, who lived in the land of Israel in the third century ce.
The book was probably expanded and edited in the fifth century, and some
parts possibly even later. It is a commentary on the stories of Genesis, the
book that recounts the history of Abraham and his family. In Genesis 25:27
we are told of the twins Esau and Jacob: “When the boys grew up, Esau
became a skilful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man
who stayed in camp.” For thirteen years, says Bereshit Rabbah, the two
boys went to school. But from that age onward one of them, Jacob, went
to the house of study (“stayed in camp”), while the other, Esau, went to
houses of idolatry (“a man of the outdoors”).61
So, at the age of thirteen the twins Esau and Jacob made their own deci-
sions about their lifestyle. Therefore, comments Bereshit Rabbah: “Said
Rabbi Elazar: ‘A man must take responsibility for his son up to the age of
thirteen years, and from then on he needs to say “Blessed be the One who
has freed me from punishment because of him.”’”62 This means that up to
the age of thirteen the punishment for any misdeeds done by the son will
be inflicted on his father, but from then on the boy takes the blame on his
own, and the father cannot be punished for anything his son does. Rabbi
Elazar may have been thinking of Esau in particular. Esau’s father, Isaac,
he suggests, is entitled to declare, now that the boy is thirteen and mak-
ing his own way in life, that he as his father is not responsible for the mis-
deeds that will be done by him in the future and even by his descendants.
But Rabbi Elazar is not only thinking of Isaac and his twin sons, who
turned out to be so different from each other. He suggests that any father
should consider uttering such a blessing when his son reaches thirteen
or at any suitable time after that. Rabbi Elazar does not suggest a definite
time or occasion when the blessing is to be used. The phrase from then on
indicates that it is something a father might say at various points in the
future, particularly perhaps if the young man misbehaved. In the case of
Esau from then on could carry the implication of “for all time.”
Saying the Blessing Out Loud

“Blessed be the One who has freed me from punishment because of him.”
Perhaps some fathers, discovering this blessing in Bereshit Rabbah, may
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have said it privately or muttered it under their breath when their teen-
age sons got into trouble. But then one day someone decided it would
be a good idea to recite it out loud in the synagogue, in front of the con-
gregation. But on what occasion would one do this? If it were to be done
when a thirteen-year-old boy was called up to the reading of the Torah,
it would be a declaration to everyone present that the boy was destined
to grow up as a pious Jew, like Jacob, not as a good-for-nothing, like his
brother Esau. The first time this was done can be thought of as the very
first bar mitzvah ceremony, even though nobody called it a “bar mitz-
vah” at the time.
The Synagogue Ceremony

We have access to more knowledge about the origins of bar mitzvah than
was available to previous generations. Some of the first accounts of the syn-
agogue ceremony come from manuscripts first printed late in the twentieth
century which are examined here very carefully, in chronological order
from the time each one was written. The early accounts have a French
background and reveal that what we now call “bar mitzvah” became a
French Jewish custom in the thirteenth century.
In his book Sefer HaIttur Rabbi Isaac the son of Abba Mari of Mar-
seilles, Provence (c. 1122–c. 1193), wrote: “When he says the blessing on
the redemption of the firstborn, the priest says ‘Just as you deserve this
mitzvah, so may you deserve to fulfill all the commandments (mitzvot)
of the Torah.’ And there are places where, when he reaches thirteen, one
recites the blessing: ‘Blessed be the One who has freed me from punish-
ment because of him.’”63 The life cycle of a Jewish boy is under discussion
here. The prayer being quoted is that said for a firstborn son, in which
the hope is expressed that the boy will grow up to be able to fulfill God’s
commandments. At thirteen he is able to do so, and the father is then
free of his responsibility. This is the first evidence we have that the bless-
ing composed by Rabbi Elazar was actually being used; moreover, it was
not used by one particular person but is given as a general rule, and it
was not used for a boy at any time after the age of thirteen but now spe-
cifically at that age.
The text does not say that the prayer was said in synagogue or that the
boy was bar mitzvah, but there are suggestive associations. It does not
say here who actually recites the blessing—in Bereshit Rabbah it was the
boy’s father, but here it could mean any member of the family or anyone
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who knew that the boy had just become thirteen. Most likely, it was his
father, as we can see from our next source.
Rabbi Judah the son of Yakar, who was born in Provence in the mid-
twelfth century, made a similar brief mention of the custom. He had stud-
ied in northern France, which is where he may have heard of the new
custom. From 1175 he was known to be living in Barcelona, Aragon. He
wrote: “If someone has a son and he grows up to the age of thirteen, he
says ‘Blessed be God (ha-makom) who has rescued me from punishment
because of him.’”64
There are two variations—God and rescued—from the traditional text
of the blessing, perhaps suggesting that as the custom of using it became
more common, people remembered it wrongly or else deliberately varied
the words. The phrasing “who has rescued me from punishment” really
does make it sound as if the father thus becomes free of his responsibili-
ties for his son.
These two sources from southern Europe do not mention any synagogue
ceremony. But two sources from northern France do. One of them was
not published until 1973. Several manuscripts survive that give teachings
from Rabbi Yehiel of Paris, a famous scholar who defended Judaism in a
public disputation in Paris in 1240. At the end of his book of teachings, in
two of the manuscripts, there are a few pages giving an anonymous tiny
collection of Ashkenazic customs and rules entitled Horaot MiRabbanei
Tzarfat (Teachings of the Rabbis of France):
If someone has a son and he reaches the age of thirteen years, the first
time that he stands up in the congregation to read from the Torah,
his father should recite the blessing “Blessed are you, Eternal God,
who has redeemed me from punishment because of him.” And the
Gaon Rabbi Judah the son of Barukh stood up in the synagogue and
recited this blessing the first time his son stood up to read from the
Torah. And this blessing is obligatory.65
Figure 1 shows four paragraphs from the Oxford manuscript. Rabbi Judah
(Yehudah) the son of Barukh, sometimes given the title Gaon, lived in
Mainz and Worms in the middle of the eleventh century. This places him
in the second generation of Ashkenazic rabbis, after Rabbeinu Gershom
(c. 960–1040) but before Rashi (1040–1105).66
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Fig. 1. Manuscript account of the earliest bar mitzvah synagogue ceremony con-
taining a specific name (thirteenth century). Reproduced with permission from the
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Manuscript Opp Add 4° 127, fol. 62a. The
illustration shows the top half of leaf 62a, and the account is in the third paragraph,
numbered 314.
A Father’s Name Is Recorded

Despite being called “Teachings of the Rabbis of France,” the little col-
lection contains many rulings of German rabbis,67 indicating that Ger-
man customs were spreading to France. Here we have the first boy whose
father’s name is mentioned, along with the age of the child, the nature of
the synagogue ceremony (reading from the Torah), the role of the father,
a particular instance of the blessing being said, and a ruling for the future.
What it does not say is that the little ceremony necessarily took place close
to the boy’s birthday. And from the wording it was not necessarily the first
time the boy had read from the Torah, only the first time after his birth-
day that he had done so. As we have seen, younger boys sometimes read
from the Torah in synagogue at that time.
The wording of the blessing here has two changes from the traditional
wording. First, the introductory words “Blessed are you, Eternal God” were
added. This might appear unimportant, but it was an absolutely crucial
change for the history of bar mitzvah. A declaration or blessing that does
not include the name of God could be said as often as you wanted at any
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time. But a Hebrew blessing that included God’s name could only be said
in particular circumstances. By adding the name of God to the father’s
blessing and then stressing that the blessing is compulsory, the “Rabbis of
France,” whoever they were, were making a rule that these words should
only be said on the first occasion that one’s son is called to the Torah after
he reaches the age of thirteen. Unlike our first account, this one states
that saying the blessing was obligatory. This meant, in effect, that having
a bar mitzvah (as it was later called) was here thought of as compulsory
for the boy, so that his father could say the blessing.
The second change is strange. Instead of “Blessed be the One who has
freed me from punishment,” Rabbi Judah said, “who has redeemed me
from punishment.” The word redeemed brings to mind the “redemption
of the firstborn,” for which a ceremony is mentioned in ancient sources
and by our first medieval source, Sefer HaIttur.68 The new synagogue cer-
emony is here likened to a second “redemption.” Redeemed is a stronger
word than freed, suggesting the father has really been saved from dan-
ger. But this variation in the text of the blessing did not catch on, so the
phrasing “freed me from punishment” became the norm.
The European Origin of Bar Mitzvah

Only when the story of Rabbi Judah son of Barukh was published in 1973
did it become really clear that bar mitzvah had a European origin. The
simple story does not explain why this new custom began. Very little is
known about this Rabbi Judah, but one of the few reports we have about
him tells us that he used to fast for a second day after Yom Kippur. This
may seem extraordinary, but it was a known practice among the group
known as the Hasidei Askenaz, a pious group in twelfth-century Ger-
many, and among their French contemporaries known as the tosafists.
So, this new custom that we now call bar mitzvah may have started off
as another pious practice, a public acknowledgment by the father that his
son will be responsible for his own actions and do his religious duties.69
But is this report correct? Can we be sure that Judah was the first to do
this, if the only account we have was written two hundred years later?
We do not know, but what we can be sure about is that this little cer-
emony was recorded as a French custom in a collection of sayings added
by a scribe to a book by Rabbi Yehiel of Paris, who left France for the Holy
Land in about the year 1260.70 This first report was therefore before 1260
but not necessarily a long time before that. Until further evidence comes
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to light, the best way to interpret this evidence is to say that the synagogue
ceremony was first recorded in thirteenth-century northern France.
Avigdor the Frenchman

In 1996 another unusual text was printed for the first time, and it gives
us further information. It was published under the name of an otherwise
unknown Rabbi Avigdor Tzarfati (“Avigdor the Frenchman”). His report
of the same thirteenth-century French custom has not been noticed by
previous studies of the history of bar mitzvah:
In Bereshit Rabbah it says that on the day when his son was thirteen
Isaac stood up and recited “Blessed are you, Eternal our God, Sov-
ereign of the Universe, who has freed me from punishment because
of him.” And this is the ruling: it is a duty to recite this blessing over
one’s son when he is thirteen years and one day old, when he stands
up to read from the Torah, and one needs to stand over one’s son to
place one’s hand on his head, and to recite the blessing as expressed
here. And this is the French custom.71
Here for the first time it is ruled that the little ceremony should take
place on the exact day the boy reaches the required age. As the Torah is
not read in public every morning, it follows that the ceremony might
have to be postponed for one or two days but not longer. The instruction
is very precise.
This account of what was later called bar mitzvah adds the fascinating
new detail of the father placing his hand on his son’s head. This was a time-
honored Jewish gesture, traditionally done with two hands.72 Jacob had
placed his hands on the heads of his grandsons when blessing them, using
a text that was taken up by Jewish families.73 Moses placed his hands on
the head of Joshua, and this became a key text for rabbinic ordination.74
But this simple act has not elsewhere been connected with the father’s bar
mitzvah blessing until modern times, when it is sometimes done by the
father and sometimes by the rabbi.
Christians had introduced an individual laying on of the hands by the
bishop as part of the Roman Catholic confirmation rite in the twelfth
century.75 This practice was modeled on an account in the Christian
Scriptures,76 and its reintroduction by the Church in the twelfth cen-
tury followed the thinking of Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141),77 a scholar
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known to have studied the Bible with Jewish teachers.78 Hugh taught at
the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris.
Avigdor’s account suggests that the father’s blessing went back to Isaac,
who “stood up and recited it,” as if he had been attending synagogue with
his son Jacob. According to one account, Rabbi Avigdor’s own father was
called Isaac, and in his youth Avigdor had traveled with his father and
two teachers to Paris to witness the famous public disputation between
Rabbi Yehiel of Paris and the convert Nicholas Donin (1240).79 Perhaps
his own father had recited the blessing for him according to the ruling
preserved among the French customs. Perhaps, too, a party was held
afterward because Avigdor’s book is also an important source for that.
Thirteenth- Century France

The two earliest reports of the synagogue ceremony were both recorded
in French sources. One comes from a book of French customs, and the
other says explicitly that bar mitzvah was a French custom. Paris was the
largest city in Europe, and important centers of Jewish scholarship devel-
oped there and across France. Born in Troyes in 1040, the famous scholar
Rashi studied in Worms on the Rhine and traveled frequently between
the two towns. Following Rashi, the innovative twelfth-century scholars
known as tosafists were a group based in both countries. The best known
was Rashi’s grandson, Rabbeinu Tam (1100–1171). They adopted a very
distinctive approach to the study of rabbinic texts, refusing to depart from
tradition but finding skillful ways of adapting the texts to the time and
the culture in which they lived.
In thirteenth-century Normandy the age of thirteen marked a real prac-
tical transition in a boy’s life. An Oxford manuscript dated 1309 preserves
a rule book for the education of children.80 The third stage of the child’s
education is that of the perushim (separated):
The rabbis said, “A thirteen-year-old for [the performance of] pre-

cepts.” Their words are supported by [the verse], “I have formed this
people for myself, they shall relate my praise” [Isa. 43:12]. The gema-
tria equivalent of the word “this” (zu) is thirteen. They are worthy of
being counted in a quorum of the community and to pray, and they
can be counted among the numbers of the perushim. The father shall
take his son the parush and encourage him with good words, “You are
fortunate that you have merited to do the holy work,” and he shall be
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entered into the house that is designated for the perushim. The obli-
gation of separation (perishut) does not begin until he reaches the
age of sixteen. [The father] brings him before the head of the acad-
emy and he lays his hands upon him saying, “This is consecrated to
the Lord.” And he says to his son, “I am directing to here that which
you would have consumed in my house, for I have consecrated you
to Torah study.” And he will remain there for seven years.81
There is a contradiction here between the ages of thirteen and sixteen for
the boy going off to the house of study, but the quotations used support
the age of thirteen. This would mean the young man would remain in the
school until the age of twenty. It has been suggested that this rule book
comes from Normandy. Archaeological remains of what may have been
used as a boys’ high school (yeshiva) were discovered in the Jewish quar-
ter of Rouen in Normandy in 1976.82 Our text may well be linked to the
remains of this building in Rouen.83 One relevant point is that this rule
book also specifically mentions a “French custom.”84
At the enrollment of the boy in the high school, there was a ceremony
in which the father’s hands (or the director’s hands) were placed on the
boy’s head.85 This act echoes Avigdor’s account of bar mitzvah. So, this is
one place where the ceremony could have developed, with the first part
(which we now call bar mitzvah) taking place in the family town syna-
gogue before the boy left for school and the second ceremony taking place
on his arrival at the school. We now have not only a time and place for the
ceremony but also a possible reason for it taking place, as boys became
separated from their parents and went off to school on their own.86
Christian Cultural Influences

The culture in which the small Jewish communities of France lived was
a Christian one, in which Jews only survived when royal rulers and the
Church allowed them to. Attacks on Jews were frequent during the first
Crusade (1096–1099) and King Philip Augustus had all Jews expelled from
those areas of France under his control in the year 1182. In 1198, however,
they were allowed to return and resume their lives. But although life was
hard for medieval Jews, this does not mean that every Jew and every Chris-
tian hated each other; the small Jewish communities would never have
survived if Jews had been hated by all their Christian neighbors. Some
Jews studied with Christians and knew how they interpreted the Bible.
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There are many examples of Jews taking up Christian customs, provided

they were consistent with Judaism. When Avigdor described the custom
of the father placing his hand on the boy’s head, he may well have known
that this was also done in church. But because it was in the Hebrew Bible,
it was acceptable. It was precisely this kind of innovative approach that
allowed new rituals, such as bar mitzvah, to be developed and accepted.87
The recital of Kaddish by mourners was another new French custom
from the same period and was particularly associated with boys who had
lost a parent.88 So, a boy who had a father could celebrate the new cer-
emony later called bar mitzvah—while a boy without a father could take
part in another new tradition, that of saying Kaddish. It is easy to imag-
ine two friends, one celebrating and one mourning.
The poignant juxtaposition of the two innovations brings to life the
hazards and joys of medieval French Jewry. A boy would say Kaddish to
plead for mercy for the soul of his dead father, who had been righteous
and pious enough to teach his son. A father would say the bar mitzvah
blessing to give thanks for the righteousness and piety of his son, whom
he had taught and who was now responsible for his own actions. The
two innovations mirror each other. One was a sad way, one a happy way,
of marking the separation of a son from his parents and the transfer of
responsibilities in an era of danger and persecution.
Bar Mitzvah in Medieval England?

Over two hundred manuscripts left by the tosafists have never been pub-
lished, so there are very likely further early accounts of bar mitzvah wait-
ing to be discovered.89 Because of the closeness of the Norman French
and medieval English Jewish communities, it is quite possible that bar
mitzvah was also celebrated in thirteenth-century England, though we
have no local evidence.90
I have described how the spread of bar mitzvah may have been linked
to the high school in Rouen, with the recital of the blessing by the father
in synagogue implying a wish that the son would go on to further study,
like Jacob in the midrash from which the blessing was taken. Rouen has
been described as a model for the medieval London community. King John
of England proclaimed the Jew Jacob of London “king of the Jews” in a
document he issued at Rouen in 1199. But within a few years King John
lost control of Normandy, and thereafter Jewish links were not so close.
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Bar Mitzvah, a History

Copyrighted Material Rabbi Michael Hilton

List of Illustrations viii

1. How Bar Mitzvah Began 1

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Why I Wrote This Book

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By the time I began to train as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, London, in

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How Bar Mitzvah Began

Thirteen and a Day

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Becoming an Adult at Twenty

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Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its

Everyone has an obligation to appear on the festival pilgrimage, except

Taking a Vow at Twelve or Thirteen

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The Age of Puberty

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The Presumption of Rava

“Thirteen for the Commandments”

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Reading the Torah

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Leading the Prayers

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Keeping All the Commandments

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The Origin of the Father’s Blessing

Saying the Blessing Out Loud

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The Synagogue Ceremony

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A Father’s Name Is Recorded

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The European Origin of Bar Mitzvah

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Avigdor the Frenchman

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Thirteenth- Century France

The rabbis said, “A thirteen-year-old for [the performance of] pre-

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Christian Cultural Influences

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There are many examples of Jews taking up Christian customs, provided

Bar Mitzvah in Medieval England?

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