Bar Mitzvah

I'm going to be talking to one of the rabbis (don't yet have an appt) at Temple De Hirsch.  I want to ask about the torahs and reverse engineering it is way too hard.  Now, that the holidays are largely over, I thought it might be a good idea to show my face at services.  So I went this morning, tunrs out to be a bar mitzvah which was delightfully modest.

Plus, of course, a great performance by the bar mitzvah boy.

They held it in the chapel rather than their main sanctuary.  About 40 people there total.

What's in the chapel?  The artifacts from the old sanctuary of course!  So the huge bonus for me (and it felt touching and emotional) was to see the aron kodesh and the torahs and the pulpit used for its given purpose.  Not just to be remembered or admired or preserved  but to be used.  Just as bar mitzvah boys used it 100+ years ago.  The bar mitzvah chanting from the torah, the rabbi assisting, the family beaming.

I loved it.

Don't know what it meant to the family.

Picture I took with my phone.  Out of focus.  The bar mitzvah in the center flanked by his parents and grandparents who gave the torah blessings.