Alex Botwin
September 21, 2013
When I first started my Bar Mitzvah experience, I was not sure how difficult is was going to be. My brother Sam had his Bar Mitzvah two years ago, so I had some idea about the process. What I didn’t know was that “I” actually had to do all of the work. Over the last year and a half I have written more than I thought I could and produced the work you heard today. This was a long and sometimes difficult process, but now at the end as I look back it was all worth it.
Throughout this journey I have learned many interesting things about myself, my family, Jewish history and what it means to be a Humanistic Jew. The papers took a lot of time to write. I had to balance school work, soccer, baseball, football and just being a 13 year old kid. My parents and my mentor Susan helped motivate me, they encouraged me, and sometimes when that didn’t work they would just nag me until I did it. They also helped by reading and editing my papers for me.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this process was getting to interview people. For someone who is a little shy this was very difficult, but in the end very rewarding. I first had to interview my family in order to better understand my family history and then when I was writing about soccer I had the opportunity to email and Facebook with Lior. I learned many interesting things about my family that I never knew and I found out many things about being a 13 year old boy in Israel talking to Lior.
When doing my hero paper on Sandy Koufax someone used the word “Mensch” to describe him. I looked up the word in a Yiddish to English dictionary and it gave me the following definition “Mensch” – an honorable and decent man. He has lived his whole life with honor and dignity and it is something that I aspire to do in mine.
In preparing for today I got to work with family friend Dave Hall. Dave had helped Sam with his Bar Mitzvah and he was glad to help me with mine. Dave helped me with my pronunciations and on keeping a nice even pace during my reading. So, how did I do Dave?
There are many people I want to thank for helping me through this process. First, I would like to thank my mentor Susan Ryan for all her meetings and emails. You helped me a lot and gave me many good ideas for my papers and projects. I would also like to thank Isabel Kaplan for editing my papers and giving me such great advice. I would especially like to thank Rabbi Peter for getting me in touch with Lior which led me on my journey with how soccer builds bridges. I would also like to thank Aram and Rick for singing and playing these great songs. I feel privileged to be part of The City Congregation.
I would like to thank my parents for helping me through this Bar Mitzvah process. I know I wasn’t always willing and agreeable, but neither of you ever gave up on me. Thanks for finding this great place to have the service and party and putting it all together. I want to thank my grandparents for helping with the family history; it will be something I will have forever. One other person who I need to thank is my brother Sam. After Sam’s Bar Mitzvah and listening to his long, long paper on Masada I knew I had to make mine much shorter. Thanks for going first. I also especially want to thank my Aunt Marcelle, who I interviewed before she died a few months ago. I know she would be proud of me today.
I am very proud of this entire process and hope all of you enjoyed it and found it interesting. I know that it was very different from what most of you are used to. I would like to thank all of you for coming today and celebrating my Bar Mitzvah with me.
