Letter to My Daughter on the Friday Night of Her Bat Mitzvah, Dina Barrish

Letter to my Daughter on the Friday Night of Her Bat Mitzvah

Dina Barrish

ear Amanda, D

For about three years now, all you’ve been thinking about is tomorrow. Tomorrow is the nerves; tomorrow is the pride; tomorrow you put on the dress we devoted hours to choosing. Channel your months and months of preparation, and approach the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah. Tomorrow culminates your Jewish life thus far.

The issue with anticipating tomorrow, however, is that we forget today. So for just this moment, I want to pause, take a step back, and remember where we are. Specifically, Amanda, where you are.

You stand beside me, surrounded with the love of family and friends the night preceding your Bat Mitzvah. You are about to embark upon the journey of Jewish adulthood — about to exist in the most sacred of covenantal relationships with God, Torah, the Jewish people, humanity at large, and, especially, yourself. I would be remiss, then, not to take advantage of this precious “sanctuary in time,” as Heschel would say — this inhale before your release into the covenantal community — to impart a mother’s wisdom and destine you for a life of happiness and fulfillment. I want to equip you with the knowledge I’ve amassed from deep study of Judaic texts: my understanding of what it means to be human, craft a just society, and the nature of the relationship between the individual and the community. I want you, as my daughter, to embody all the value this religion has to offer, and I wish that you perpetuate this sacredness throughout your life.

First and foremost, I’d like to recognize the principles of Judaism that you inherently manifest. So please, bear with me as I analyze the fundamental sources that encapsulate your personality. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 famously asserts, “Lefichach nivra adam yechidid lelamdach shekol hameabed nefesh ahat ma’ale alav hakatuv keilu ibed olam maleh.”

Barrish, from previous page “Therefore humanity was created singly to illustrate that anyone who kills a single person, Scripture writes of them as if they have destroyed an entire world.” This suggests that a single life bears the value of an entire world. Jewish wisdom further extrapolates upon this notion of individual worth — the belief that a single life is precious and irreplaceable — in its depiction of kevod habriot, human dignity, tzedakah, and chesed, which, according to Rabbi Shai Held means “excess, usually excess in kindness” (“Daring to Dream with God”). The great law code, the Shulchan Aruch, for example, presents the perspective on tzedakah that donors should make receivers feel as comfortable in their homes as “benei veitecha,” members of their own household. This grants the receiver a sense of importance and worth in the donor’s life (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 251:6). The “benei veitecha” mandate ensures chesed and human dignity; the donor must extend an equal degree of respect, care, and compassion to the poor as to people the donors regard as near relatives. Furthering Judaism’s commitment to honoring each individual, Massechet Shabbat 127a designates six imperative matters that a person will not truly understand their worth until arriving in Olam Habah, the next world: hospitality toward guests, visiting the sick, focus during prayer, learning early in the morning, teaching children Torah, and granting friends the benefit of the doubt. Rather than focusing solely on an individual’s material success, Jewish wisdom expands the scope of significant lifetime endeavors to include acts of chesed — of moral integrity — acts that value individual worth and uphold human dignity. Amanda, I am truly blessed to have a daughter who entered this world aware of the need to grant dignity to the poor and the requirements for admission into Olam Habah. Your kindness and innate tendency towards honoring individual value and perpetuating human dignity inspire me every day. Until this point, I have not explicitly defined your wonderful virtues, but know now that your ability to recognize the worth in each person and act compassionately reflects your commitment to a covenantal community.

he next dimension of covenantal relationships is a complex trait to adopt as you grow and mature: assertiveness. Numerous Biblical narratives emphasize the importance of assertiveness — of overcoming passivity and emerging a confident individual. I will focus, appropriately, on the female role models of self-assurance throughout the Torah, for I want you, my daughter, to emulate their example. At the beginning of the Torah, Eve sets the precedent for assertive women. Dissatisfied with her role on earth as merely “ezer kenegdo,” man’s helper and the completion of man, Eve seeks to attain godliness to establish the equality she deserves (Bereishit 2:18). In Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Biblical scholar Dr. Judy Klitsner interprets from Bereishit 3:1’s use of the word “arum” to describe the serpent that Eve’s dialogue with the serpent is actually a dialogue within herself regarding whether to live in a state of “arum,” childlike nakedness, naiveté, with her husband, passively accepting her subordination, or to succumb to the “arum,” shrewdness, of the serpent who promises to endow her with godlike knowledge, allowing her to exist nearer to equality (Klitnser). Eve ultimately chooses the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge — chooses to assume an active role in her own life. She trusts her instinct to alter her character’s course, presenting a model for self-assurance. Later in the Torah, Sarah, our first matriarch, similarly overcomes her own state of inferiority. The Torah’s first mention of Sarah identifies her as a barren woman who seems passive throughout the lech lecha journey with Avram; she is merely “taken,” on the journey, rather than choosing to go herself (Bereishit 11:29-30). See Barrish, page 17 T The great law code, the Shulchan Aruch, presents the perspective on tzedakah that donors should make receivers feel as comfortable in their homes as “benei veitecha,” members of their household. This grants the receiver a sense of importance and worth in the donor’s life.