BackTHE BIG DAY
By Bat Mitzvah Ellen Feldman
March 20, 2005
I felt trembly all over, and whenever I picked something up, I dropped it. It started right before I had to say the vaychulu prayer on Friday night after the service. When I got some dessert, I had a problem eating it; I kept on dropping food and utensils. I figured it was normal to feel that way the evening before my Bat Mitzvah.
The trembling stopped when I started doing Israeli dancing. I almost managed to forget what was going to take place the next day.
It took me a really long time to fall asleep that night. I was both excited and nervous. More excited than nervous, at least up till then. So many things could go wrong! What if I couldn’t remember a word of anything and fell over in a dead faint?
My worries were not based on nothing. In fact, things started to go wrong from the moment we all got up. First, we all slept in. We ate breakfast very hurriedly and got dressed. Then, one of my friends turned up at my house. She seemed to think that that was where my Bat Mitzvah was taking place. Well, we took her along.
I practiced my Torah portion in the car. My voice wasn’t working properly. Then, we got lost on the way to the synagogue. I sighed. It was one thing after the next. Looking up at the clock, I saw that the service had started half an hour ago Luckily, my dad found the way back to the synagogue. We were going extra fast – too fast. We were heading towards a cliff at full speed – my dad hit the brakes, but it was too late.
I was falling, falling, falling…
I woke up with a jerk, and sighed with relief. It was only a bad dream. I wasn’t hungry, but my mom made me eat breakfast anyway. After that, I practiced my Torah, Haftarah, and prayers. I was too nervous to do anything else. I must have paced my room a million times while practicing. I didn’t make any mistakes in my Torah portion when I went through it. Unlike in my dream, my voice did come out. I changed into my outfit and did my hair.
Practicing was the only thing that could ease my nervousness. Actually, satisfy is a more proper word to describe my situation than ease. Except that it didn’t satisfy me. It just made me want to practice more and more. It was an unquenchable thirst.
When the time came to leave, I took my Hebrew folder into the car. I practiced. I did some more last minute practicing by myself in the sanctuary when we arrived, interrupting only to see a secret passage that Michael discovered. Time was slipping by at an enormous speed.
It was time for photos. My mind was completely elsewhere the whole time. I couldn’t stand doing nothing. I had to do something that would take my mind off of what I was about to do. When I mentioned this, Ben suggested that we play the country game. I was glad for something intellectual to do, but found that I couldn’t concentrate. My friends started arriving. My nerves were mounting to their peak.
From then on, I felt almost as though I was in a trance. It felt like a very vivid dream.
I was signing my name on my Bat Mitzvah certificate.
I was saying hi to all of my friends in the sanctuary.
I was sitting between Michael and my dad in the front row. We were singing Ma Yafe Hayom.
NO – Now we were singing Hiney Ma Tov. I’d have to go up. I didn’t want to.
NO – Cantor was making the signal for me to come up. I went up. I felt like I was in a dream. Then, I snuck a smile at Sky, one of my friends. She smiled back. That felt really good. Then, I smiled at Jenny, too. I caught Felicia’s eye. Soon, I found myself smiling and grinning at everyone. This wasn’t so bad after all.
Or maybe not. We finished Hiney Ma Tov. Then, Cantor and Rabbi Cohen went.
I gulped.
Then I opened my mouth.
I took a deep breath and began to sing.
The words came out by themselves. I felt like I was reading to God, and I can’t explain it, but I felt God’s presence the entire time. There were times before when I thought that I felt God’s presence, but this was different. God was there and I knew it.
I kept on smiling at friends and family the entire time. Finally, I got to sit down. Cantor was singing Sim Shalom. I drank water from the cup next to me. It felt wonderful. I realized my face was burning. I drank the whole cup.
When it was time for silent meditation, Cantor asked me if I needed to use the restroom after all that water. No,I said. I didn’t. Rabbi Cohen started talking about oral and written Torah. Cantor told me that this would be my last chance to go to the restroom. This made me need to go to the restroom after about a minute, so I did.
I did not drop the Torah, which had been the #1 fear on my list. As I walked around the sanctuary with the Torah, I grinned at all of my friends and said “Hi” to everyone. Just a piece of advice, don’t drink so much water, Alyssa told me when I passed her.
Then, I realized that now I would have to read from the Torah. Uh, oh. Reading in front of everyone was different from reading in my room. My heart was beating fifty times faster, for one thing. For another, everyone was looking at me. I couldn’t believe it I didn’t mess up
Then, I read Haftarah. Actually, I did enjoy reading my speech. I read, "I was waiting for this day for a very long time, because in my mind I had a picture of becoming an adult on this day. But today, there was no big bang when I was suddenly transformed into an older, more mature, person." At that moment, I got a sudden impulse, which I couldn’t resist, to say, BANG! Some people who hadn’t heard my speech before thought that I had planned this beforehand.
The remainder of the service and the party were really fun.
When I was in bed on Saturday night, it was the first time I was in a quiet place since my Bat Mitzvah was over. Something inside of me changed that day, and I don’t completely understand it. Although there isn’t a big bang, there is something inside you that grows up exactly when you become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah.
I thought I would feel terrible when my Bat Mitzvah was over, because I was looking forward to it for so long. I had been counting months for years, and I counted days for the last month and a half. I even added up the hours about a week before. Actually, I don’t feel terrible, and that surprises me. I do feel slightly sad that it’s over, though. I have to get something new to look forward to. I lost count of the days until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out in all the excitement of becoming a Bat Mitzvah, and the time is ripe to count again.
It’s 118 days, and that’s from March 20, in case you want to count too.