11/26/11 Bar Mitzvah

Mavel Tov. I went to my first ever Bar Mitzvah. Because it was my first, I was able to use it for a cultural event. As an honors student I need to get these cultural events. It was quite fun.

For starters, I didn't understand anything. It's all in Hebrew, and I don't speak Hebrew. I picked up that we need to stand when the ark is open and sit when it's closed. Their chanting is cool as well. I wonder if it's comparable to our singing. They had books that gave the Hebrew words in roman characters. I think they're kind of equivalent to Hymnals. It was cool seeing my scout friends up there saying the prayers and reading, even though I had no idea what they were saying.
Now for the really fun part. I had to wear a kippah, or yarmulke in Yiddish. It had musical notes on it and my friend's name on the inside. It kept falling off, and so did my dad's and brother's. My brother kept making jokes about how our family was a bunch of gentiles. Yeah it was funny. There was the fun thing where we throw candy at the new man to wish him sweet future, or sweet something good. It was fun pelting the new man with Hershey kisses. I also ran into an old friend from high school. He's a year older than me, so I haven't seen him in a real long time. It was cool seeing him. We did some catch up, but weren't able to do much.

After the ceremony, I went to zeldamaster93's house and we watched X2 - X-Men United. We watched it on VHS. VHS is cool. It was great being home.

Before I went to the party after the ceremony, I saw my god father, his family, and camping friends. We didn't stay long because we had to get to the bar mitzvah party. I caught up with some scout friends and tried rock climbing. It was fun, but since I have no upper body strength, I didn't get up far. They had peperoni pizza and other things, but the really surprising thing for me was the peperoni pizza at a bar mitzvah. Something about mixing a Jewish boy becoming a man, and pork just doesn't seem to match up. There is this candle lighting ceremony for all the Bar Mitzvah man's family and organizations to be there with him lighting candles. I asked his brother in a joking matter "I thought there were 8 candles" as a joke to Hanukkah. He said something like "it changes with seasons, sometimes there's 8 sometimes there's 12." I didn't expect to be a part of the ceremony, but they called up all scouts. I them went up to say congratulations.

Now for the really fun part, the chair dance to Hava Nagila, as is customary. The new man was a bit scared, but it was really fun. I asked his parents, and him "so when are we going to do the chair dance?" The new man was nervous, his mom was indifferent, and his dad said "we need to get on that." Well we put him on a folding chair, and all his friends picked him up all to Hava Nagila. The chair collapsed on our hands once, but we all turned out fine. The guy almost fell off, so then I took it on myself to make sure I pushed him back onto the chair. We left shortly after that. They had a picture to sign, so I said, "Mazeltov ya Schmuck, JK [Pokematic]."

My god father and his family staid over at our house. More about that in tomorrow's blog. Later.