Benjamin Bottner
October 11, 2014
Before the ceremony ends I need to consider and thank all of the people who made this possible for me. I want to first thank Jane Bottner, my mother, who went through all the fights, and arguments, and sweet times with me to help make this Bar Mitzvah a reality. Thank you Mom!
I would like to thank my mentor, Ben Lieman, and his wonderful helping hand in guiding my papers both big and small. Ben was always there for me– always willing to lend a hand and lift my load.
Let me also thank my cousin, Carolyn Petree! Thank you for making this wonderful video with me that we all saw at the end of my big project paper. From playing our Mario games, to walking on the beaches of Florida, I have to say with a cousin like Carolyn you will never be bored. Even when we were working on the small hard parts of the video, we still had a fun time.
Also a big thank you to my good friends Auden Wilson, Laure Sullivan, and Paul Wilson for helping me with tweaking and downloading the movie. I know you are very busy and I appreciate what you did for me.
I would like to thank Aram for the wonderful music you played today. I remember you as my song leader in KidSchool, and I’m glad I can hear your cool style this time at my Bar Mitzvah.
Now, last but not least I’d like to thank Rabbi Peter Schweitzer and Isabel Kaplan who made the Bar Mitzvah program possible. Peter and Isabel (who is not here), you know I’m quirky, and think outside of the box. You probably know I don’t like learning things that are meaningless to me. This Bar Mitzvah program was anything but meaningless. Thank you for supporting my mother and me as we took our journey through the Bar Mitzvah program, giving us help, and nudging us along the way, and probably feeling somewhat proud that another family was completing the Bar Mitzvah program. Isn’t that amazing? Thank you so much.
My Bar Mitzvah means a lot to me or else I wouldn’t have done it. But it also means much more. My Bar Mitzvah meant work – lots of it. It meant I had to sit down and do a couple of hours of work weekly. And let me be frank – it wasn’t always a labor of love.
The Bar Mitzvah also meant learning about things I didn’t know before. A great example is Janusz Korczak. Would I have known as much about his story and what he did if I didn’t choose him as my role model/hero? I don’t think so. If I hadn’t done this Bar Mitzvah, I don’t think I would have learned as much about my family’s deep history as I did. It gave me an appreciation and understanding of who they are, what they did and the values they hold.
My Bar Mitzvah also meant making connections. I reached out to relatives I didn’t know and that opened up more family connections and shed light on the fact that my family and chickens have a connection. Whenever I would tell people about my project on Jewish chicken farmers, someone often would say, “Oh I have family who were in the chicken business too.”
Little did I know that the Azerbaijani song, Jujalirim or Little chick would later on have this important meaning and connection to my Bar Mitzvah project.
As much as I had to say about Jews and chicken farming, I needed to edit out a lot of what I wrote so you would not be going bonkers listening to me babble on about this subject. One thought I had to cut out and I want you to take away is that actually agriculture is an ancient Jewish job and many of our holidays are based on the agricultural cycle.
Many cultures/societies have a coming of age ceremony. Because we are Humanistic Jews, we have a different coming of age ceremony then other types of Jews, such as Orthodox or even Reform. I like the Humanistic Bar Mitzvah ceremony because I got a taste of my Jewish heritage, and I also got to be creative, and decide what it was I wanted to write about. Humanistic Judaism also ties into my school, and their values. So, hey all of you fellow Community Roots students, you also follow a humanistic set of values.
This is my second speech I have given at Baku Palace that connects to my identity. Four years ago I came back from a visit to my home country, Azerbaijan, and I gave a speech here with my friend Sabina Shifrin about our experience visiting our birth country and the Baby House we spent the first two years of our lives in. Now I’m fulfilling another milestone in my life standing in front of all of you confirming my identity as a Humanistic Jew.
Thank you all for being here today!
