Bar Mitzvah at the Wall
Ribicoff, Peter
BAR MITZVAH AT THE WALL PETER MBKOFF The subdued morning light filters through haze revealing structures of Jerusalem stone, church spires, mosque domes, ancient and modern synagogues. "I try to...
...As we return across the plaza to our table, we are once again overwhelmed by well wishers...
...brother-in-law Ayouch who has just arrived along with his wife, Fiby, and my mother-in-law, Sultana Ha-ziot, all originally from Morocco...
...No longer a practicing rabbi, he now teaches sociology at Haifa University...
...It sounds fine...
...Finally we are ready to go...
...Unfortunately, the entire family is not together...
...His voice is clear and strong...
...The color resembles the tan-yellow of desert sand but the consistency is different, solid rather than shifting...
...Finally, Jacob and I are face to face...
...He speaks no English but introduces himself to us in Hebrew as Baruch Leibman...
...As we walk back across the plaza, we pass other such ceremonies...
...Jacob continues to chant, swaying back and forth gently, his execution flawless...
...Zvi Hoffman categorically refuses my offer, pointing out that he is an employee of the Israeli Ministry of Religion, that the Wall and all Bar Mitzvahs held there are under the Ministry's jurisdiction, and that it is government policy not to accept payment for such things...
...I explain that only four men are with us, Jacob, Gene, Ayouch, and myself...
...This is the most tranquil time of the day...
...Chassidim in their caftans and sidecurls, devout men in somber clothes and full beards, soldiers in uniform, men dressed for business, for leisure...
...You know, Dad, the first time I walked across the plaza with the Torah and everyone came from all sides to kiss it, I felt that the Torah was carrying me...
...Jacob and I stand side by side, both of us immersed in the enormity of this moment...
...Scattered worldwide, we maintain our continuity, our identity, throughout time and history and all because of Torah and its collection of law and history, legend and wisdom, faith and truth...
...He explains that he works for the Ministry of Religion, that his job includes helping to organize Bar Mitzvah ceremonies at the Wall, and that ours is all set...
...They will not take the money...
...The holy city stretches across hills and valleys toward the horizon...
...I watch Jacob's face, serious...
...Jacob is entranced...
...A breeze stirs the scrubby clumps of bush-like vegetation growing from the cracks between the giant stones...
...Jacob is smiling, but in a daze...
...Mercedes, Jacob, Judith and I go down to the lobby to meet them...
...With exuberance and tenderness, reverence and awe, they touch the Torah with their prayer shawls or their hands...
...Nearby is a short, thin Israeli boy...
...As the four of us—Jacob, Baruch Leibman, Gene Weiner, and I—proceed across the plaza, men approach us from all sides, to kiss the Torah that Jacob holds...
...He resembles a railroad conductor from turn-of-the-century Europe...
...Below us, traffic is beginning to fill the streets...
...One by one, the aliyot are given out, and then, the Torah reading has come to an end...
...The day has begun...
...Doves, white and brown, flit playfully from branch to stubby branch, sometimes gliding down to peck at the ground before soaring off...
...Yet, it seems symbolic to me that money should change hands at such an occasion...
...men whose faces bear every ethnic strain of every land that Jews have wandered through since Abraham left Ur of Chaldees...
...It is my Peter Ribicoff teaches writing skills at Fordham University in New York City and is working on his third novel...
...It seems a dream...
...A few figures and vehicles move along the quiet streets...
...At once I am filled with regret, the only sour note of the day, that the barrier had to exist between us...
...The cacophony of prayer swells and subsides, punctuated at intervals by fervent wails...
...A fence divides men from women in accordance with custom...
...Now he is speaking to us in an intimate little cluster, an oasis of calm in the midst of the frenzy and excitement of Bar Mitzvahs being held all around us...
...The first aliyah is given to me...
...It was Gene who made the necessary arrangements at the Western Wall and met with all of us three days ago as well as last night in order to go over the last minute plans...
...It is time to return the Torah to its ark...
...Monday morning, June 28, the first day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz: By five o'clock in the morning the sun has chased away the darkness, and my wife Mercedes and I are awake...
...It has been my intention to make a cash payment for the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and I now attempt to do so...
...Now Baruch Leibman is beside me again, tapping me on the shoulder, smiling, pointing across the plaza, beckoning me to come...
...There is no gathering of the clan, no elaborate reception, no singing or dancing or entertainment...
...We are greeted by a short, stout man with a long, gray-white beard and twinkling eyes, wearing a blue hat with a peak on it, blue trousers, and a blue coat with a brass badge of the Israeli Department of Religion...
...At each pause someone is called up to the Torah to bless it...
...At once, we are surrounded by people, gently guided to our table by Baruch Leibman, more than enough for a minyan...
...We can now begin the Bar Mitzvah ceremony...
...Now / want to embrace my son, but I cannot get near him...
...Zvi Hoffman tells us not to worry, Baruch Leibman will arrange a minyan...
...I try to recall my own Bar Mitzvah, but I am rooted to this place, this moment, and I am unable to go anywhere else either in time or in space...
...It is now time for Jacob's Bar Mitzvah speech, and this relatively secluded corner provides privacy and enables the women of our family across the barrier to hear...
...At last, I have a chance to speak a few words to Jacob...
...Finally, we move down into the corner where the fence meets the Wall...
...He agreed, and offered a number of helpful suggestions to us over the past year...
...The skepticism on the faces of the men in the minyan begins to fade...
...Each stone is massive, almost a wall in itself...
...He speaks of the significance of this place, and of its promise for peace, and concludes: "As the son of an Ashken-azi Jew and a Sephardi Jew, of Jews who lived under Christian influence and those who lived under Arabic-Moslem influence, I hope that my Bar Mitzvah may symbolize the future where the religions and peoples of the area will be brought together to live in peace together...
...My son is lost in prayer, his first independent act as a man, as a Jew...
...We are hugging and kissing, weeping with joy, laughing with excitement...
...Well, what did you think of it...
...others hold tiny, pocket-sized ones...
...Jacob answers immediately...
...his eyes, wide and shining...
...It is cool on the plaza...
...Our table is ready...
...Mercedes feels it, too...
...Inside the synagogue, Jacob passes the Torah back to me...
...We reverse the procedure we followed in bringing out the Torah, and once again, as Jacob carries the Torah back across the plaza, erect and confident and proud of having completed the most difficult part of his Bar Mitzvah ceremony so successfully, men flock from all directions to kiss the sacred scrolls...
...I begin to smile with pride...
...He, too, is awake...
...Then he directs me to hand the Torah to Jacob, who takes it in his arms, leaning it against his shoulders...
...Men are also wearing t'fillin in order to fulfill the Torah's injunction that the words of God's covenant with Israel be worn as "a sign upon your hand" and "for frontlets between your eyes...
...He tells us that a reading table has been reserved for us and that Baruch Leib-man, an usher at the Wall, will handle all the details...
...Finally, Jacob and I, along with Gene Weiner, return to the office and thank Zvi Hoffman for the arrangements, and we explain how smooth and successful and meaningful the entire ceremony has been...
...We agree with pleasure...
...Some men hit their foreheads against the Wall, beating their chests with their hands...
...We are surrounded by praying men of all ages and backgrounds...
...The entire plaza, the whole Wall itself, is part of our prayer...
...He does not look ten years old, but he is evidently past thirteen and can be counted in the minyan...
...Men from the minyan, men coming from across the plaza, all embrace him in a joyous frenzy...
...Many are past thirteen, but were unable to hold ceremonies in Russia...
...heads covered by broad brimmed black hats, fedoras, peaked caps, skull caps of satin, cotton, wool, denim, polyester, embroidered, knitted, machine tooled, hand stitched, plain...
...And I can feel the spirit of God, the force of His presence, ever increasing as all that I see and hear and touch around me converges into crescendo...
...We walk from the cool, dark, quiet synagogue into the plaza which is still in shadow but bursting with life...
...We begin the walk back toward the cars...
...The formal, prepared portion of the ceremony completed, we approach the Wall, to offer silent, personal prayers...
...Men are draped in their tallitot, which they have wrapped' around themselves in a variety of ways, encompassing various combinations of head, neck, shoulders, arms, and upper torso...
...Fifty young men from the Soviet Union have arrived to become Bar Mitzvah...
...Baruch Leibman seems to know him...
...I want to speak, but my throat is clogged with emotion...
...I tiptoe out into the hallway and tap lightly on the door of the next room where Jacob and Judith are sleeping...
...Then Judith answers as well...
...Some seem to be tourists, like us...
...I kiss him on each cheek, tears forming without restraint...
...Still others are Orthodox, very devout Jews praying rapidly, who watch us impatiently, almost disdainfully, as we proceed through the prayers and rituals, for we are novices here...
...It is a few minutes after seven in the morning and the Western Wall is in shadow...
...Near this fence, running parallel to it on the men's side, is a row of large slanted tables...
...I recite the prayer...
...Each service seems to reflect a different method and custom...
...Some of the scrolls have elaborate filigreed crowns of gold and silver with bells and jewels...
...Some stand stock still...
...Some use enormous prayer books...
...Some books have frayed cloth covers and yellowing pages while others gleam with embossed covers and crisp pages...
...Zvi approaches, a man in his forties with a bushy blond mustache and curly blond hair, dressed in a plain blue polo shirt and lightweight brown slacks...
...The sun is still low in the sky...
...In a polyglot of accents and pronunciations, some are wailing at top voice, others are droning mechanically, still others are whispering tenderly, some are mumbling inaudi-bly, some cry out in grief-stricken voices, others sing joyfully...
...Leibman asks if we would be so kind as to save one aliyah for a young man from America who is to be married the next day...
...We can see more and more people walking along the sidewalks...
...He will preside at Jacob's Bar Mitzvah...
...Then after I read from it, and I walked back to return it to the ark, I felt that now I was carrying the Torah...
...I repeat the Torah prayer and replace the Torah inside the ark beside the others...
...We follow, and are now ready to recite the morning prayers and the special prayers offered when a Bar Mitzvah boy officially dons tallit and t'fillin for the first time...
...I am following Weiner dutifully, but I am submerged in the sea of prayer around me and cannot identify with the prayers of our small group alone...
...Clusters of men are gathered around some of them, and in the midst of each cluster stands a boy reading from a set of Torah scrolls unrolled on the table...
...I look at the men whom Baruch Leibman has steered our way...
...Jacob, however, clearly knows the entire portion for the day and is pronouncing each word precisely, chanting with the proper melody and intonation...
...He chants each word precisely, pausing between each section...
...Leibman nods in the direction of an enormous ark...
...He asks us if we have a minyan...
...I am in a daze, a trance, unable to see and sort things clearly, the expressions around me are so overwhelming, the ground is sacred...
...At any rate, we do have a minyan...
...Gene Weiner, who has also stayed overnight at this hotel, arrives in the lobby...
...Jacob practices chanting his Torah portion once more just to make sure he still knows it flawlessly...
...We are all pelted but Jacob is the particular focal point...
...The final blessing is recited...
...We all walk together to our table enveloped in an invisible but tangible tallit, where Jacob places the Torah tenderly on the wooden surface after the outer wrappings have been removed...
...From across the fence, in the women's section, comes a hail of hard candy...
...Men are clutching him, welcoming him, wishing him mazel tov...
...All around me is the sound of prayer, of praise...
...We say our preliminary prayers...
...As I stand beside the Torah, first chanting the blessing and then listening to Jacob read the ancient text, I try to recall my own Bar Mitzvah, but I am rooted to this place, this moment, and I am unable to go anywhere else either in time or in space...
...In the distance, yellow fields with green and brown fruit trees dip and rise, emerging from the rapidly dissolving misty dawn which envelops the city...
...Others simply have come to the Wall to pray, either as part of a regular routine or for some specific personal reason...
...Now Jacob steps forward to recite the speech he has prepared for this occasion...
...I throw my arms around him...
...Jacob is with me and so is Gene Weiner...
...He then presents Jacob with an elaborate certificate, hand lettered in Hebrew, attesting that Jacob became a Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz in the year 5736...
...No act could mark a more appropriate beginning, no more fitting place be found...
...We look out across the city, our arms around each other, scarcely believing that we are in Jerusalem at dawn on the morning of our son's Bar Mitzvah...
...Baruch Leibman hands me a medium-sized Torah with a faded maroon velvet cover beautifully embroidered in gold...
...We are hugging each other, holding each other fast...
...The phone rings...
...We all join in...
...They had expected a youth from the United States to make only a symbolic, superficial rendering of a few lines from the Torah...
...And how they pray...
...He escorts us to an empty table, the one closest to the Wall, assuring us that he will deliver a minyan to us in time to conduct the ceremony...
...We look out our hotel window across the rooftops of Jerusalem...
...Simultaneously, Jacob is overwhelmed by total strangers hugging him, kissing him...
...Jacob chants the blessing prior to reading the Torah, and then he begins the portion, using a traditional pointer to keep his place on the parchment scroll...
...A man has merely to wander from group to group until he finds people praying in a manner that makes him feel comfortable...
...teenagers, young men, middle-aged and elderly men...
...The mystical mist of early morning wraps Jerusalem, and me, in a spiritual veil...
...Here in Jerusalem, Bar Mitzvah is possible...
...A year ago I wrote and asked him to "come out of retirement" for Jacob's Bar Mitzvah...
...We drive off in two cars, arriving at the Wall through the Dung Gate and parking in a cleared, dusty area...
...The prayer shawls are silk or linen or cotton, some with black stripes, some with blue, some with purple...
...Others are fully encased in wooden boxes which have been hand-painted in the Byzantine manner...
...Abe Ribicoff, my father, halfway around the world at this moment, is unable to be here and for that there is a special sadness, an empty place...
...At the same time, we are greeted with the traditional sound of exaltation made by Jewish women of North Africa at joyous events, a high piercing call made by moving the tongue rapidly inside the mouth while crying at top voice...
...There he asks for Zvi Hoffman, through whom he has made all the arrangements...
...Gene is an old friend from New York, an ordained rabbi who made aliyah with his wife and two children in 1969...
...He has done some reading, some research, about the Wall...
...Gene Weiner begins to read prayers in Hebrew...
...They left their home in Natanya at 4 a.m., he says, and drove straight through to Jerusalem...
...Sultana Haziot is happy at this moment...
...But here is Mercedes, Judith, Sultana...
...Jacob puts on his tallit and his t'fillin...
...His fingers, trembling as they reached for the Torah, are now still as he holds it secure against his chest...
...instead, therefore, I make a gift of tz'dakah...
...We introduce him to Mercedes' family...
...I hope that my Bar Mitzvah may symbolize the future where the religions and peoples of the area will be brought together to live in peace together...
...Gene guides Jacob and me to a small office at the back of the square, opposite the Wall...
...For me it is the perfect amalgam...
...The Bar Mitzvah is over...
...It is a traditional Se-phardic custom, symbolic of the sweetness and joy wished for the future of the Bar Mitzvah youth...
...Of the 30 grandchildren she has, Jacob is the only one of the 21 boys to have had his Bar Mitzvah at the Wall...
...Jacob gives me an answer which we will both long remember...
...Some sway back and forth in rhythm with their chanting...
...We walk the length of the plaza and enter the synagogue, a room filled with praying men...
...A few men even nod approvingly...
...He reaches over and pulls back its curtain, revealing dozens of Torahs, more than I have ever seen in one place before, Torahs of various ages and sizes, Torahs covered with velvet, with satin, with silk, and embroidered in gold, in silver, in brilliant threads of many colors...
...Some, recognizing our lack of familiarity with the prescribed routine, leave and head for another, more adept, group...
...Entire kibbutzim have come to watch the simultaneous Bar Mitzvah of all their thirteen-year-olds...
...But there is rejoicing all around us, and so we all feel part of the celebration...
...At last, we are reunited with the women...
Vol. 3 • December 1977 • No. 2
