Tag Archives: bar mitzvah

Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah Bike-A-Thon for Matan

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“Changing Gears… Changing Lives”

We are so proud of Jacob of Scarsdale, New York for celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in such a meaningful way!  Jacob chose to hold a Bike-A-Thon for his friends and family.  Matan helped him set up his own online registration and even created Jacob’s own fundraising page.

If you are interested in holding an event to benefit Matan in honor of your child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah, please contact us at info@matankids.org or post a comment here and we will be in touch with you.

Thank you, Jacob, for allowing Matan to be a part of your special day.  Mazal Tov!

Repairing Our World

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“Okay, here I go!” our son Mickey said.

He  stood at the bimah,  beaming a mega-watt smile at the fifty gathered friends and relatives who had come to celebrate this bar mitzvah day with him.  He had just finished reciting his parshah, in transliterated Hebrew, a passage from the book of Numbers that contains the Priestly Blessing heard weekly in synagogues around the world. He was ready to read his d’var Torah.

“Shabbat Shalom!” he began, reading carefully from the large index card I had typed for him the night before.

“Amen means complete, and I just finished my Torah portion. Amen!

“The part of the Torah I just read is the Priestly Blessing.  It is our oldest and most important blessing, and it wishes for all people to have peace.

“This is very exciting for me and I am so proud to lead everyone here in prayer and song and to read from the Torah.

“I want to give special thanks to my teachers Ms. Cosell, Shana, Stacy from Matan and Rabbi Angela; to my brother Jonnie, and to my parents.

“I love you.”

Our neighbors Nancy and Chuck passed one soggy Kleenex back and forth between them, finally sending my eight year old niece to the ladies room to bring back more tissues. She returned with a wad of rough brown paper towels which made their way up and down the aisle. We were completing a journey that had started 12 years earlier, when Mickey’s first speech therapist at Blythedale Children’s Hospital had gently suggested the possibility that he might never speak at all.

But here we were.

For years, we danced with the idea of a bar mitzvah. Thirteen is a milestone for all Jewish children, and I was determined that our son would take part.   I knew he could learn a few simple prayers and songs; he has amazing memory skills, not uncommon for children with autism.  But Hebrew was out of the question.  Mickey grappled with speaking and understanding the most rudimentary English.  Still, I wanted him to have the experience of preparing for his bar mitzvah, to mark that passage, whatever it would be, just as his older brother Jonathan had done.

Initially our temple hadn’t known what to do with our child. We attempted religious school when he was nine, putting him in a class for much younger children. But even that proved too academically rigorous and language-laden.  He lasted three sessions.

“The Torah says you’re supposed to teach your children,” I said to the director of the religious school. “It doesn’t say some of your children.  Isn’t it a sacred obligation to teach all our children?”  Although we could instruct Mickey about holidays and observances at home, it felt important to us that he have the experience of learning within a community.

With that in mind, my husband Marc and I met with the senior rabbi at our synagogue to express our hopes and frustrations.  He steered us to the Center for Jewish Life. Physically separate from the main temple, the CJL is an intimate and airy light-filled meeting house with 12 foot high ceilings and wonderful acoustics.  It offers a more private worship experience, and is usually reserved for small life cycle events – a baby naming, a bris,  an oneg shabbat – unlike the large,  imposing and formal sanctuary where we had celebrated Jonathan’s bar mitzvah four years earlier.

Each Saturday morning we took Mickey to Sharing Shabbat at the CJL, a spirited, family-centered service suffused with song, that was designed for younger children. At first Mickey was reluctant; it was new and unfamiliar, and he insisted on carrying his collection of small plush Nintendo characters,  jamming Mario and Luigi in opposite pants pockets and bringing them out whenever it was time to sing.   Sharing Shabbat was led by the aptly named Rabbi Angela. She truly had the voice of an angel as she guided the children in song and prayer with her guitar.  Mickey loved the small sermons and stories she told. “She’s a nada-rator,” he would say. “Like Martin Sheen.”  He meant “narrator”, somehow equating Angela’s tales to his favorite Eyewitness Animal Video Series.  Angela was kind and welcoming.  I knew that she, too, had grown up having to field insensitive questions; as the daughter of a Korean Buddhist mother and a reform Jewish father, she knew firsthand about feeling marginalized from mainstream Jewish life.  Angela was trained as both a cantor and a rabbi, the first Asian-American to graduate from the rabbinical program at Hebrew Union College.  We began to talk with her about how we might shape Sharing Shabbat into a bar mitzvah service.

Still, we worried. What if a large crowd unnerved him? What if he panicked in mid-speech, declaring, as he often did, “That’s it!  I’m out of here,” and bolted?  We shared these fears with Angela.

“You know, a thirteen year old child doesn’t have to read from the Torah,” Angela said. “It’s not mandatory.  Turning thirteen just means that he has earned the privilege.  We can do this however you feel most comfortable.”

To help him prepare, Angela sang all the Torah blessings, songs, prayers and parshah into a tape recorder for Mickey.   Each night that spring Mickey would lie in bed listening.  Often I would linger outside his door, loving the crystalline purity of Angela’s voice singing him to sleep.

Traditionally, a bar mitzvah child in our congregation undertakes a mitzvah project, something that helps others.  It is part of our ethical heritage of Tikkun Olam, repairing, or healing, the world.  “No gifts,” we told everyone. “Please take whatever you would have spent and give it to the National Alliance for Autism Research.”  Astonishingly, in the weeks before the bar mitzvah more than $40,000 from friends, family and congregants poured in.

Several days before the event, our family met with Angela to rehearse in the CJL.  We invited our friend Ellen to be the appreciative “audience” so that Mickey could practice in front of others.  It was an uncommonly warm day in early June; I fanned myself with a prayer book.  Angela flipped on the air conditioning, and turned to Mickey.  “What should we sing first?” she asked him, and before she could even take out her guitar, he said,”V’Shamru!” and launched in, confident and unselfconscious. He sang every single verse.  In Hebrew.  We were stunned.

“Mickey! That was wonderful,” Angela said.

“I had no idea he knew that,” I said.

We sang several more songs, and then Angela took the Torah from the Ark. The silver spindle ornaments tinkled and jingled as she placed it in the arms of our 17 year old son Jonathan. She asked him to practice carrying it slowly throughout the room.  Mickey trailed him, grinning as he clutched the tail of Jonathan’s shirt.  Ellen grabbed my hand, and I realized that we were both wiping tears.

It was beautiful and blazing that Saturday morning when workmen arrived to set up a tent in our back yard.  Inside the house, Marc and I dressed Mickey in a blazer, French blue shirt, red foulard tie and gray pants.  Just like a typical family, we joined grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins at the synagogue an hour before the service to pose for family portraits. “Today would have been my dad’s 80th birthday,” Marc said.  Tenderly, he draped Mickey in a white and gold tallis, a prayer shawl that Mickey’s great grandmother had brought from Israel fifty years earlier. The room was radiant with mid-morning light as it filled with the people we loved most.  As Mickey returned to his seat between us and each of us hugged him, Angela began speaking. She  talked about the significance of the Priestly Blessing, the ritual and meaning of this day, the privilege of working with my son.   What I remember most, though, is the welter of feelings: the palpable longing that my own mother might have lived long enough to reach this hard-won happiness with us, even as I felt the communal embrace that drew in my husband, my two sons and me, and held us fast.

In her achingly lovely voice, Angela sang Lechi Lach –literally, “let us go forward”, a modern song that is based on God’s words to Abraham to seek his destiny:

Lechi lach to a land that I will show you
Lech li-cha to a place you do not know
Lechi lach on your journey I will bless you
And you shall be a blessing, you shall be a blessing
You shall be a blessing, lechi lach.

“Michael Gabriel Carter,” said Angela, looking at him, “You are a blessing, to everyone in this room.”

“Thanks! You too!” he said, in such a chipper tone that everyone laughed.

“May God bless you and keep you,” said Angela.  “May God shine upon you, and be gracious to you, may God lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace,” she said, concluding the service, and the room erupted in applause.

Mickey raced over to my elderly father. “Grandpa! I did it!” he said. “Are you proud of me?”

We crossed the hall into the airy room beyond, to tables heaped high with buffet platters, and vases bursting with sunflower bouquets. My cousin Mark, who had already had the pleasure of seeing the first of his own three children through a bar mitzvah three years earlier, pulled me aside into a bear hug.  “That,” he said, ”was the best bar mitzvah I have ever seen.”

It was a journey of faith and healing for us all.  And there was joy.  Different than my wedding day, or the day I sold my first short story; different too than the births of either of my children, both born beneath the glare of a surgeon’s spotlight. This had a texture all its own.  For one beautiful, blazing day in June, we were a normal family.

–originally published by “Modern Love Rejects,” http://bit.ly/nP0qQu

 

The King’s Speech

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Written by Matan Executive Director Dori Frumin Kirshner, this article was originally published in the New Jersey Jewish Standard.

If you have not yet seen the film “The King’s Speech,” don’t wait any longer.  I think it should be a requirement.  Without divulging more details than necessary, “The King’s Speech” depicts the real life experience of King George VI, who struggled with a significant speech impediment during the time before he became king.  His wife finds him a speech therapist who labors with the future King for years.  The film succeeds in bringing to the screen the tremendous conflict between this potential personal agony and his predestined duty.

Before viewing the film, I was not aware that any of Britain’s Royalty had struggled with anything more than infidelity.  It makes perfect sense, though, that some percentage of a dynasty would face certain challenges.  The Learning Disabilities Association of America reports that at least 15% of the population has some form of a learning disability.  The CDC’s research tells us that 1 in 110 individuals – and 1 in 70 boys – is diagnosed with Autism.

ADHD, dyslexia, and Asperger’s, all part of our 21st Century lexicon, have been part of the human story long before we had terms with which to label them.  Early on in the Book of Shemot (Exodus), God tells Moses that he is charged with leading the Jewish people out of Egypt.  In turn, Moses (loosely translated) responds, “God, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t speak so well.  I have a stutter and being a public figure might not be the right job for me.”  God tells Moses, “Yes, I am aware of that because I created you this way.”  In other words, God was remarking, “I see all that you are capable of, not simply the things you struggle with.”  Because God recognized Moses’ unique abilities and did not define him by his disability, that is how the Jewish people came to view him as well.

Moses and King George VI demonstrate that learning differences and challenges need not be obstacles to achievement and success.  But what was it that allowed these two great leaders in history to overcome their struggles?  As it turns out, their formula for success is neither complicated nor expensive and can be summed up by 3 main components.  Each leader required:

  1. the unconditional support of his family
  2. an adept champion or therapist who was ready and able to intervene
  3. his own willingness to accept his imperfections without permanently diminishing his determination.  Even royal and Biblical icons are not  perfect.  None of us is.

And yet, all too often in Jewish education, we turn away children – and potential future leaders – because of learning differences.  What would our history be if Moses had been denied his role or King George had not reigned because of an impediment?  What kind of community are we if children who learn differently are met with rejection or indifference?  If at least 15% of people struggle with some sort of learning issue, can the Jewish community afford the price of apathy?  What will become of these 150,000 American Jewish school-age children and their families?

Every time we fail to meet these students and families with the integrity, professionalism and support necessary, we’re essentially saying, “You’re not worthy of a Jewish education.”  In fact, it is our failure, not theirs.  And, it is indefensible.

To be sure, this kind of inclusion demands support – financial, human, educational, and more.  Yet, those are mere details once the greatest impediment to change is no longer an issue – that of attitude.  In the world of special education, and religious special education in particular, the keys to success are built on creating an environment where parents, teachers, counselors and clergy embrace all learners with support and encouragement.  Qualified and compassionate educators who are sensitized to different learning styles will create unique curricula and develop unbreakable bonds with children while meeting individual needs.  If we actually truly believe we are all created in the image of God, this should not be so hard to implement.

Whether the story is told by Spinoza or Spielberg, on the pulpit or the Big Screen, about leaders of religions or nations, Jewish or gentile, every person has the right to learn.  Our job is to ensure that even those who learn differently can do just that.  If it necessitates removing obstacles or building bridges, changing curricula or sensitizing teachers, our past models and frankly demands that we provide opportunities to learn – math and holidays, Hebrew and English, piano and Bar Mitzvah – for all people.  With the proper support, determination and belief, individuals with special needs will surpass your expectations.  The real question is, can we surpass theirs?

February is the month where Oscar nominations are announced and Jewish Disabilities Awareness is addressed.  While I am not a movie critic, “The King’s Speech” gets two thumbs up and is worthy of an Oscar nod.  One for being a great movie, the second for reminding us that education is not only for the “typical” and elite – but for ALL who want it.

Dori Frumin Kirshner is the Executive Director of Matan: For Every Child.  For Every Community.  The Gift of Jewish Learning.

 

I Am a Person Just Like You

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My name is Jacob Artson and I am a person just like you.  I am part of a wonderful Jewish family, I go to our local public high school where I am in regular English and social studies classes, I play sports, I love to travel, I enjoy hanging out with my friends, and I care about making this world a better place.  The only difference between you and me is that I have lots of labels attached to me like nonverbal, severely autistic and developmentally disabled.

It is true that I have many challenges, but there are lots of myths and misconceptions about autism out there.  Many purported experts claim that individuals with autism are not interested in socializing.  This is totally ridiculous.  I love people, but my movement disorder constantly interferes with my efforts to interact.  I cannot start and stop and switch my thinking or emotions or actions at the right time.  This can make being in a big group very lonely and that is the worst thing about autism.  So next time you see someone like me at your synagogue or at your event, remember that they probably feel really lonely and you could be the person to make their day by smiling at them and letting them know that they exist.

Another myth is that the majority of people with autism are mentally retarded.  In fact, our bodies are totally disorganized but our cognitive skills are intact and our minds are hungry for knowledge.

Every person alive is encumbered by challenges and blessed with gifts.  I used to think that my ratio of challenges to gifts was higher than most, but now I realize that my challenges are just more obvious.  I have learned that autism can have its advantages.  For example, I get a VIP pass at Disneyland and I get to kiss all the beautiful counselors at camp and pretend I don’t know any better.  On a serious note, not being able to speak means that you spend lots of time listening.  In fact, much of what I know I’ve learned from listening to conversations that other people didn’t think I could hear, or listening through the wall to what the teacher in the next classroom was saying.   People often ask me how I became such a good writer. The answer is that my inability to speak gives me lots of time to contemplate and imagine, and it also forces me to hear everyone’s perspective and think about it because I cannot interrupt or monopolize the conversation like people who have oral speech.   In the autism world we say that not being able to speak doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to say.  In my experience, the converse is also true – just because you can speak doesn’t mean that you have anything worth saying.

Since I have been asked to write about including people with disabilities in the Jewish community, I want to share with you the ways in which autism has affected my participation in Jewish life.   My family has been my greatest support from the day I was diagnosed.  My amazing twin sister Shira is my best friend, hero, chief source of entertainment, and fashion consultant.   My Ema is my rock and has never let autism be an excuse for failure.  My Abba has been my spiritual guide and is also really fun to be with.  Even though I know they love me, they have carried a tremendous burden and I always feel guilty about that.  Unfortunately, the Jewish community has not always helped ease their burden or mine and often has exacerbated it.

I have found great support in God and Torah.  Our people’s wisdom has helped me through difficult times and guided me as I strive to become a productive member of society.   My bar mitzvah was special because everyone there accepted and celebrated me for exactly who I am.  I wrote a siddur commentary and everyone in attendance took turns leading the prayers and reading my words.  At the end of the service, everyone came up on the bima for Adon Olam.  I will carry in my mind and heart forever the picture of everyone there smiling at me.  I had wonderful experiences when I was in a Jewish preschool and later kindergarten, even though my teachers had never had a child with autism in their class.  What made those experiences successful was the way the teachers modeled inclusion for the other kids.  They treated me as a person made in God’s image and not as different in any way. In kindergarten, I had amazing peers.  They were mostly Persian and inclusiveness is engrained in their culture.  They tried all year to get me to interact with them even though I was usually too excited to focus.  I’ve also had wonderful buddies from The Friendship Circle, attended several Jewish camps, participated in a Jewish musical theater program called The Miracle Project, and prayed at Koleinu, a service at Temple Beth Am for kids with special needs.

But there have been obstacles as well. Believe it or not, there is a hierarchy even within programs for kids with special needs.   Because many Jewish programs in my community are geared for so-called “higher functioning” children, the first reaction is often that I am too disabled to attend.  So whether I’m invited seems to depend on the particular director that year or whether my parents decide to complain and fight for me to participate.   Most of these programs could easily accommodate people like me with a little attitude adjustment.   My family’s efforts to include me in synagogue life have also been a source of great stress.  When I was younger, I went to synagogue every Shabbat but the other kids ignored me.   My synagogue started a Shabbat morning service for kids with special needs and that gave us a community of sorts, but now I am a teenager and need to find my own place.   I was invited to speak at IKAR, a small synagogue in our community, where I was welcomed just like any other member.  I was not given ice stares when I got too excited, so my family joined.  The kids there say hi to me even when they are not getting community service credit for interacting with me.

The public schools and secular programs I have attended have been much more welcoming and are built on a model of mutual respect rather than pity.  The Los Angeles public schools are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic, and they too seem to have a culture of inclusion.  The kids at school treat me like family and pull me into everything they do.  I go to a secular camp for autistic kids in Aspen every summer and everyone is welcome there.  We do cool things like go tubing and kayaking and I am able to participate in everything because I know they will work with me where I’m at.  In my secular inclusive sports program, Team Prime Time, the director has taken the time to allow for sharing on several levels, so the kids all respect me for my intelligence and understand how hard I’m working to make a basket or kick the ball.  I have also been part of their new volunteer training and have spoken about autism at school, but I have never been invited to participate in volunteer training for any Jewish program I have attended.

So here is a final thought I would like to leave you with:

The best peers and aides I have had didn’t have any special background.  It doesn’t actually take any training to be a leader who models inclusion.  It just takes an attitude that all people are made in God’s image and it is our job to find the part of God hidden in each person.

I used to get very upset and offended at the idea of being someone’s  mitzvah project or community service project.  But now I see that I also have a role to play in helping create the messianic future. It is easy in our affluent society to become dazzled by the material opportunities and  privileges that we have been born with.  But I have had to struggle from the day I was born to do many things that other people take for granted. Because of that, I have experienced God’s love in a way most children have not. So maybe we are each other’s mitzvah project because I can help them see the glories of the world that they have never noticed, and they can teach me how to look like other kids. All in all, who is getting a greater benefit?  In the end, together we bring God’s glory to all of humanity.

 

An Interesting Thing Happened on the Way to Rockmitzvah

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Rockmitzvah was really an accident… an accident waiting to happen.  One late evening four years ago, Marc Jacoby was scouring the Craigslist Community pages and fell upon a family in search of a real rock and roll band to perform, with their child, at a Bergen County Bar Mitzvah.  Marc got in contact with the mom, and unbeknownst to any of them, formulated the plan for the first Rockmitzvah.  The family made the trek to a warehouse in Yonkers, where Marc and his rock and roll buddies rehearsed and jammed on a regular basis.  When they all descended upon the cavernous and dusty venue, history was made, a contract was worked out, and a 13 year old man-child made plans for a true rite of passage — to rock out on stage with real touring, major label musicians.

After the event was over and the band was driving home, Jim Weingast, drummer and business manager of the ensemble, coined the term “Rockmitzvah”.  Jeff Reich, bassist and daytime attorney, trademarked the name to be shared by the partners, which included a fourth mentor, Cliff Mays, guitarist, vocalist, composer and educator.  A concept was born, and it has been quite a journey over the last four years.

Rockmitvah’s sole purpose is to integrate the bar/bat mitzvah child, and their friends and family, into the actual performance during their simcha (celebration).  The child is a star for a day, and friends and family members participate musically in a unique event which simply complements the tradition and meaning of this momentous day in the life of a Jewish family.

Because every family is different, and every child is unique, every Rockmitzvah is a custom fit.  This is why Matan and Rockmitzvah fit so well together – and why families with children who face learning challenges seem to be uniquely attracted to the wholesome and intimate entertainment model afforded by Rockmitzvah.  We are proud to be partners with Matan.

For more information about Rockmitzvah, contact 914-419-3610 or visit www.rockmitzvah.com.