The folks from Moving Traditions bring you @13, a six-episode podcast series that is pitch-perfect for parents and preteens going through the sometimes confusing, likely emotional, and certainly triumphant process of planning and becoming a Bat or Bar Mitzvah.
In episode 2, “Being Incredibly Nervous” we question the very existence of the sacred, stressful, enlightening, nerve-wracking, Torah chanting, candy-throwing, hora-dancing process. We also learn about how today’s preteens are experiencing the pressures of this rite of passage, and we hear some good advice about guiding them as they take a seat at the quasi-adult table.
Producer: Michele Siegel (Slate, New York Times/WBUR, WNYC)
Host: Sara Ivry (host of Vox Tablet)
“The Bar and Bat Mitzvah is a time of both fitting in and standing out. It’s a time of performance but also figuring out how to be authentic within the ritual or performance.”
Rabbi Tamara Cohen
“Friendships, friendships, and friendships. It’s the class they are paying most attention to.”
“Back in the 13th Century, Maimonides posed a simple question which I think should be at the heart of Jewish education for teens: What are you innate qualities as a human, and how can you grow?”
“The point of a bar / bat mitzvah is that it’s the beginning of an adult Jewish life… after my son or daughter does this, how does Jewish life become big, and new and interesting? What doors does this open up?”