CHAPTER THREE - Adolescent Issues and Coming-of-Age Ceremonies

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

34. Parental Responsabilities – Parental Blessings.

About an hour.
Type: Deductive interpretations of landmarks and blessings

• Open up the subject of the changing relationship between parents and children.
  Ask the group if their relationships with their parents changed around adolescence. If the answer is yes, the participants should try and define the nature of the change, or what was involved.
• Allow participants some time to reflect privately on what has happened to the relationship between themselves and their parents over the last few years. If possible, they should make a list of plus and minus points, reflecting the positive and negative aspects of the change from their own point of view.
• Bring the following rabbinic quotation to the whole group:

  Rabbi Levi said: It is like the case of a myrtle and a bramble that used to grow one on the back of the other but as they grow and flower one gives forth its scent and the other gives forth its thorns. In this case, two boys go to school and come from school, but when they are thirteen years old, one goes to the study house and the other goes to houses of idol worshippers.
  Rabbi Elazar said: A man must look after his child for thirteen years and after this he must say, “Blessed be He who has acquitted me of the punishment for this one i.e. my son who is now Bar Mitzvah.”
  Bereishit Rabbah 63

• Analyse the source text:
  • What is the connection between the first part of the quotation and its continuation, in the line from Rabbi Elazar?
  • What does the last part mean? (Explain only that this has become the traditional blessing for the Bar Mitzvah in most Orthodox synagogues.)
  • Ask the group for reactions to the latter part. Now explain the meaning behind it (please refer back to the analysis in the first part of this chapter).
• Ask the group if they can identify with the source text in any way:
  • Does the idea of the parent (the father in the quote) removing responsibility from the actions of the child (the son in the quote) strike any chord in them? If so, in what way? If not, why not?
• Bring one, or both, of the following pieces from Martin Buber and a Chassidic source.

  “Like an eagle who awakens the young in his nest, he will glide down to his young, so did He spread His wings and take him, bearing him along on his wings.” (Devarim 32:11)
  In the nest are nestling the young birds that only recently have sprouted wings. But they do not yet know how to rise up and fly. And here comes the eagle and awakens the nest. He encourages the youngsters to fly, and glides above them with a light beating of the wings. Then he spreads his wings and sets one of the young birds on his wing and carries him skywards, throwing up and catching him: in this way, he teaches him to fly.
  Martin Buber

Rabbi Leib said: “When a child is taught to walk, his parent holds his hand at first; then he allows him to walk alone but stands nearby; then he goes further and further away from him, until at last the child becomes accustomed to walk steadily on his own feet. In the same fashion, the former Bar Mitzvah boy should have his teacher’s close attention at first; then he should be permitted to lead himself more and more.”
Chassidic source

• Which, if either, of these sources speaks to the members of the group?
• What are they both attempting to say?
• Do they reflect the reality that the group members know from their own background? Yes or no, and in what way?

• In pairs, the members of the group now write a parental blessing that they would like to see in the Bar Mitzvah ceremony.
• Come together and share the blessings, explaining what lies behind each blessing.