Right now, at this very moment, part of me wishes I were 13
again. I fully acknowledge the masochistic implications of such a
statement and recognize that it romanticizes the youthfulness every
person not named Michael Jackson eventually loses to adulthood, but
I just can’t shake the feeling. As George Orwell famously
observed, autobiographical writing must offer embarrassment because
it vouches for truth, and so I surrender the admission that I
secretly wish I was born in 1993 so I would be or would turn 13
this year.
That way, I could have a bar mitzvah. As the son of a Jewish
father and a Christian mother, I never fit in with organized
religion, in large part because orthodox Jews look to their mothers
for religious authenticity while cultural Christianity tends to be
patrilineal. Though my family history is immensely interesting,
involving a Bolshevik-revolutionary author, the inventor of the
Trachtenberg mathematical system and the U.S. president commonly
credited with freeing the slaves, it has never struck me as one
particularly interested in any synagogue or church.
When I turned 12, my parents left it up to me to decide whether
I wanted to have a bar mitzvah, and I never got the feeling they
really cared either way. I probably could have persuaded them to
throw me a quinceañera when I turned 15, had I been a girl.
When I realized I cared as little as they did about religious
affiliation, I dropped the idea and that was that.
After seeing the trailer for “Keeping Up With the
Steins,” I realized I made a mistake. The film, which opens
Friday, revolves around one Jewish family’s attempt to throw
a bar mitzvah party for its son that can compare to that of a rival
neighbor’s, which, judging from the trailer, involves a yacht
bigger than the Titanic and costs half a million dollars. The movie
satirizes bar mitzvah culture, focusing on the elaborately gaudy
parties parents throw for their children after the religious
ceremony. It also comes mere months after the release of “Bar
Mitzvah Disco,” a coffee-table book featuring photographs of
bar and bat mitzvah parties from the 1970s and ’80s.
Needless to say, the combination of preteens, dress clothes and
a corny DJ playing hits such as “The Electric Slide”
and “Y.M.C.A.” makes for easy comedy no matter the
decade. In 1997, when I actually was 13, I went to dozens of these
parties, and at this point, only two stand out in my memory. One
family actually did rent out a yacht, and another created a
1950s-diner-themed party, at which The Drifters (at least the ones
still alive) performed. Because I wasn’t competing against
them, I actually enjoyed those parties, even learning the
“Macarena” dance in the process.
With the sudden attention that lavish bar mitzvah parties are
getting, coupled with the success of TV shows such as “My
Super Sweet 16,” I can only imagine what my bar mitzvah party
could have been like. Technically, I’m still eligible to have
one since I’m a religious free agent, but somehow the
necessary goofiness that accompanies such events no longer applies
now that I’ve already established the foundation of taste I
will carry with me forever. I’m comfortable enough with
myself that the whole point of having a bar mitzvah party, in which
a 13-year-old pretends he’s an adult, is lost. There’s
a reason wedding photos are not usually socially awkward.
Though I haven’t yet seen “Keeping Up With the
Steins,” I have no doubt it will climax not with a lavish
party but with a scene of realization in which the superficialities
are put aside to recognize a spiritual connection with Judaism and
family. Meanwhile, I will only think about my bar mitzvah that
never was.
Turning 13 now and influenced by the astounding
commercialization of adolescent birthdays, a hypothetical preteen
Jake Tracer would probably have a bar mitzvah. While I rejected it
for the right reasons in ’97, I would accept it for the wrong
reasons now. The drive to grow up more quickly by competing with my
peers would have appealed to a younger me. Unfortunately, I
don’t think I’d be any more adult because of it.