A Medieval Rite, a Twentieth Century Addition

Nothing in the Torah or the Talmud describes a bar mitzvah ceremony. What the Talmud fixes is the age of religious majority, thirteen for boys, at which a person becomes obligated to keep the commandments whether or not any rite marks the transition. The ceremony built around that legal threshold, calling the thirteen year old to read from the Torah in synagogue, is a medieval development, first attested in sources from the fourteenth century in the Rhineland, and it grew over the following centuries into the celebration familiar today, complete with a festive meal that in some communities now rivals a wedding in scale.

The bat mitzvah for girls has a far shorter history: the first public bat mitzvah on record was held in New York in 1922, organized by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan for his daughter Judith, using a shortened version of the boys' ceremony. Its spread since then has been uneven and remains a live point of difference between movements. Orthodox communities that mark it at all typically keep it separate from the Torah service that defines the boys' rite, some marking it instead with a public address, while Reform and Conservative congregations have largely equalized the two ceremonies. The word mitzvah, meaning commandment, names an obligation acquired automatically at the birthday; the ceremony is a human addition marking a moment the law does not itself require anyone to observe.