Taught Teacher

This past Friday night, I was invited to an adult B'nei Mitzvah for the mother of my best friend. I arrived at temple expecting your run of the mill service, maybe a little longer than usual, but, overall, nothing out of the ordinary.

Instead I received one of the greatest lessons that I could ever have learned. As my friend's mom read from the Torah and performed the ceremonies necessary to becoming Bat Mitzvah, I saw a great lesson. I saw this mother giving her son the greatest gift she could possibly give. She was, in fact, having this Bat Mitzvah to coincide with her mother's birthday, as a sort of gift to her mother. She also was giving a gift to her son, whether he realized it or not.

This woman, who, after the fact, said that she was immensely afraid of speaking in front of a group, was showing her son, who, incidentally had just been elected president of the temple's youth group, that learning Judaism does not stop after you are 13 years old when the traditional bar mitzvah time occurs. It does not stop at 18 years old when you graduate the high school program. It does, in fact, continue into adulthood and for the rest of a Jewish life, continually pursuing education and learning. The fact that this mother was able to teach her son that she was still learning and that he too had to continue to pursue his Judaic education, was something that I found incredibly meaningful, and possibly the most exciting part of the event.

Life lessons seemed to be on a two-for-one sale, because I learned something else that was really important to me. The group of adults who were officially becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah that night all had something in common. They were all nervous. And they all had reasons why they had put this off for many years. One was afraid of public speaking, another didn't want to take time away from her family. All of them did it, however. They all stopped making excuses for their own fears or insecurities and did something that they are all proud of. I was incredibly moved seeing someone who wanted to accomplish something overcome their fear and do it, throwing caution to the wind on those things that scared them.

Without even knowing it, these four members of the community taught me something with their learning. The student became the teacher without even knowing it.