Letters: Should a Jewish Tradition Be Tampered With?

Connect With Us on Twitter

For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.

"Bar Mitzvahs Get New Look to Build Faith" (front page, Sept. 4) was thought provoking and nostalgic. I remember the preparation for my bar mitzvah and how I looked forward to the end of Hebrew school. After all, where would you rather be after school: learning an obscure language with words you didn't understand or playing sports?

Nevertheless, I remember those prayers and the feeling of spirituality they gave me for the rest of my life.

I suggest that we keep the education and rituals and then allow more expansive activities once they are completed. Community service is one of those possible activities. After all, Jews are still fiddlers on the roof and should value tradition because if they forget that they are Jews, a gentile will remind them.

I did community service later in life by serving on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. I was embarrassed when I realized that I didn't know what the diaspora was when we went on a fact-finding mission to Eastern Europe and Russia. I knew by the time I got home.

STEVEN A. LUDSIN
East Hampton, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2013

To the Editor:

I am outraged by the proposed changes to the bar mitzvah. When rabbis forget that the success of the Jewish people has always been the pursuit of knowledge derived from Talmudic study and become focused on losing congregations, they have failed.

Reform Judaism tried to redesign Judaism, and it did not lead to more educated Jews. Our survival has been based on the study for knowledge. In the synagogue, it begins with the study of Hebrew, the language of our ancestors, the study of Torah, history, traditions and laws with discussion of ideas.

When we learn to express Jewishness based on solid Jewish education, our actions will be a reflection of our knowledge, and we will continue our heritage of working to make this a better world.

Three or four years are not enough Hebrew education. It is the responsibility of the rabbinate to advise our Jewish youth and their parents that Jewish study is a lifelong challenge, that it is our history and our dignity.

MICHAEL DIAMOND
East Hills, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2013

To the Editor:

Bar mitzvah boys are like CDs. The ritual recitation is sung to the candidate by his teacher, and on the day of the ceremony, the boy sings it back. With a CD, the song is sung once, but it will play back a thousand times.

With bar mitzvah boys, the ritual is sung a thousand times, but the reality is that in most cases the boy plays it back only once.