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

A: BACKGROUND

5. Coming-of-Age in Judaism – Which Age is This?

How does Judaism view the universal features of transition?
How does it shape the ceremonies that accompany the young adolescent through this critical period?
And what does Judaism have in common with the sort of ceremonies that are outlined above?
Where it differ from them – and why?

Viewing Jewish practices in terms of the wider perspective will enhance understanding of the significance inherent in the coming-of-age process, and of the coming-of-age ceremony within Judaism.

Before talking about the ceremonies themselves, it is important to address the age of transition, which is very clear in Judaism: for boys it is the age of thirteen and for girls, the age of twelve.

• The choice of these ages as the time representing change is significant, in and of itself.

There are a number of real considerations behind this kind of choice:

• Different cultures mark the transition at different times, which is not surprising, simply because the actual changes associated with adolescence do not take place at one time in the life of the individual, but take place over a period of several years.
• Moreover, different individuals experience the changes at different ages, a source of anxiety for many, as previously suggested.
• Therefore, any culture that wishes to mark the transition has to decide whether or not to pin it to a particular physical phenomenon (puberty), or to other landmarks.

• There are advantages in doing this: the child will be most ready if their own individual changes are taken into account when a ceremony is arranged.
• However, it is very difficult to do this in the wider group, because many of the changes are gradual and unclear (especially for boys).
• Moreover, to pin external recognition of change on individual “progress” might increase the anxiety of the individual, by introducing a competitive element at a time when this could prove painful and embarrassing. No boy will be likely to welcome a ceremony which will invite public scrutiny of his physical changes and leave him with the feeling that he is “faster” or “slower” than his contemporaries in matters of physical growth.
• The dominant, although not the exclusive, tendency in Judaism has therefore been to mark the change without any relation to the real changes that might, or might not, have taken place in a specific individual. There is, in a sense, according to Judaism, a specific cut off point that occurs at a specific age: twelve for a girl and thirteen for a boy.

There is also a counter-tendency in Judaism that has seen that the change can be marked earlier, if the child is ready for it. According to this approach, certain children are ready earlier and, if this is the case, they should assume the responsibilities associated with maturity at an earlier age. However, over time this opinion has taken second place to the dominant opinion that views the objective age of thirteen as the time of transition to a different role within the community.

• As far as the figures twelve and thirteen are concerned, it is worth noting that both are significant numbers, in Judaism specifically, and in the ancient world as a whole.
  • In Judaism, the Bible has many references to the number twelve (twelve tribes, twelve spies, twelve Minor Prophets etc.).
  • Twelve appears as a significant number in many cultures, connected either to the number of months in a year and to the number of Zodiacal signs, or to its significance as the first multi-divisible number (2x6 and 3x4).
  • In Judaism - along with other ancient eastern cultures - thirteen was regarded as a positive number and has continued to be perceived this way, although it has become known as an unlucky number in many western cultures. There are a number of positive associations with the number thirteen in Judaism: the thirteen attributes of G-d, thirteen Principles of Faith etc..

It is certainly possible that the positive associations with these special numbers are among the considerations for setting the critical turning point at the age of twelve for a girl and thirteen for a boy.

• Our major sources for interpreting these dates as the turning points are found not in the Biblical literature, but rather, in the Rabbinical layer of Jewish literature; they relate to intellectual, moral maturity, moral perception and responsibility.

Here are two significant sources from the Mishnah, one rabbinic text and a Midrash.

Firstly, a famous quotation from Pirkei Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers) referring to the life of a man.

He used to say: At five years old one is fit for the Scripture, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the fulfilling of the Commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the marriage canopy, at twenty for pursuing [usually understood as pursuing a calling], at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty to be an elder, at seventy for grey hairs, at eighty for special strength, at ninety for bowed back and at a hundred a man is as one who has already died and has passed from the world.
Mishnah Pirkei Avot 5:21

Without considering some of the esoteric implications of the later benchmarks in this source, here are a clear set of dividing lines for a man’s life. Within them, thirteen is considered the age for the fulfilling of Commandments - a very significant step in life that we shall shortly consider.

The second source, also from the Mishnah, is relevant for girls and boys alike. The issue in question is what age a person must reach, in order to be held responsible for any vows that they have made.

A girl eleven years and one day – her vows must be examined [to see if she understood the significance of what she was doing]. If she is twelve years and one day her vows are valid...
A boy twelve years old and one day – his vows must be examined. If he is thirteen years and one day old, his vows are valid…
When they are younger than this, even though they say, “We know in whose name we have vowed it”… their vow is no vow. But when they are older than this, even though they say, “We know not in whose name we vowed it”… their vow is a valid one…
Mishnah Niddah 5:6

A clear differentiation is made around a person’s responsibility for acts performed over the age of twelve for a girl and thirteen for a boy. More than this: thirteen is considered the age when a boy is capable of taking moral responsibility for his own actions. Up to this point he has not had the moral capacity to do this. This also appears in the Rabbinic work, Avot de Rabbi Natan.

The impulse to evil is thirteen years older than the impulse to do good. It begins growing with a child in the mother’s womb and comes out with him. If the child is about to profane the Shabbat, it does not deter him: if the child is about to commit an act of unchaste behaviour, it does not deter him. Only at the age of thirteen is the impulse to good born in a child. If then he is about to profane the Shabbat, it warns him: “You fool! Scripture states, ‘Everyone that profanes [the Shabbat] shall surely be put to death.’ ”. If he is about to take a life, it warns him: “You fool! Scripture states, ‘Whoever sheds a man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ ”…
Avot de Rabbi Natan, 16

The Midrash (the imaginative, non-legal layer of Rabbinic literature) reinforces this trend for boys by explaining that a number of significant acts connected with the Torah occurred when the protagonist was thirteen years old.

• Abraham rebelled against his father’s idol worship at the age of thirteen;
• Jacob started a lifetime of study at the same age (while his brother Esau turned to idol-worship at the same point);
• In the Biblical story of Dinah in Bereishit 34, Shimon and Levi, two sons of Jacob, took up their swords to avenge the rape of their sister at the age of thirteen.

Thirteen for a boy and twelve for a girl are thus seen as the beginning of the age of responsibility, the age of maturity, the age of significant acts.