Rituals
Bar / Bat Mitzvah
Initiatory Rituals
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Origin 1200 to 1922
The Jewish coming-of-age rite marking the age of religious responsibility: thirteen for a boy (bar mitzvah, son of the commandment) and twelve or thirteen for a girl (bat mitzvah). It emerged in the medieval period, though the underlying age of accountability is older. On the Sabbath after the birthday the young person is called to the Torah for the first time, often chanting a portion and the prophetic reading (haftarah), and may lead parts of the service and give a teaching. Celebration and gifts follow. Thereafter the young adult counts in a prayer quorum and is bound to keep the commandments, taking a place in the community.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Origin PeriodThe bat mitzvah dates from New York in 1922 1 Place of OriginMedieval Ashkenazi Europe (the bar mitzvah); New York, United States, 1922 (the first bat mitzvah) 1 Historical OriginThe bar mitzvah as a formal public ceremony is a relatively late development in Jewish practice, becoming a fixed synagogue custom only in the medieval period, while the parallel bat mitzvah for girls did not become widespread until the twentieth century. 1 Attributions
PurposeMarks the age at which a Jewish child becomes obligated to observe the commandments in their own right, called to read from the Torah for the first time as an adult member of the congregation. 1 Practice
Who Performs ItThe candidate undergoing the rite 1 ObligationOptional and voluntary 1Tradition: Judaism Optional: the obligation arrives with the birthday, and the ceremony marking it is custom rather than law FrequencyOnce, or at a turning point in a life 1 Solitary or CommunalPerformed by a gathered group 1 Meaning
Literal MeaningTranslate as son of the commandment and daughter of the commandment, marking the age at which Jewish law holds a person responsible for observing its commandments in their own right. 1 Function
Stage of Life Marked Text
Source TextThe Shulchan Aruch sets out the age of religious majority, thirteen for a boy and, in later authorities, twelve for a girl, at which a child becomes obligated to observe the commandments in their own right, the legal threshold the ceremony marks. 2 Learn More
Coming of Age into Obligation
Bar mitzvah (son of the commandment) and bat mitzvah (daughter of the commandment) mark the age at which a Jewish child becomes responsible for keeping the commandments, thirteen for a boy, twelve or thirteen for a girl. The status is automatic and arrives with the age; there is, strictly, no ceremony required to confer it. What developed, from the medieval period onward, was a public marking of the transition: the young person is called up to the Torah for the first time (an aliyah), often reads from the scroll or chants the prophetic portion, and is thereafter counted in a prayer quorum and bound by adult obligation.
The bat mitzvah is much more recent as a public rite, emerging in the twentieth century and observed very differently across the Jewish spectrum, from a full Torah reading in liberal communities to a quieter recognition in Orthodox ones. Beneath the party that now often accompanies it, the meaning the tradition assigns is narrow and precise: not that a child has grown up, but that a person has entered the community of the commanded.
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.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Tefillin obligation traditionally falls on adult men and begins at bar mitzvah.
A yad is often the object a family donates to a synagogue to mark a bar or bat mitzvah.
Belongs to Tradition
Kept in Breslov Hasidism. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
This body admitted women to the Torah reading and to the rabbinate, and its Bat Mitzvah is identical in form to its Bar Mitzvah.
Kept in Haredi Judaism, where the halakhic standard is the strictest and the most stringent opinion is ordinarily followed. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
Kept in Hasidic Judaism. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
A coming of age ceremony is held in which the young person presents a piece of research on a Jewish subject of their own choosing.
Kept in Modern Orthodox Judaism, alongside full engagement with secular study and with the state. A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
A boy becomes obligated at thirteen and reads from the Torah. A girl becomes obligated at twelve, and the manner in which that is publicly marked varies widely across this body and is not a Torah reading.
The Bat Mitzvah in its modern form began in this movement's founder's congregation, with his own daughter, in 1922.
This movement gave the Bat Mitzvah its equal form, and its congregations were the first in which a girl read from the Torah exactly as a boy did. It also created Confirmation, at sixteen, which exists in no halakhic body.
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