Last Saturday and this Friday night, our families with children in grades 4–6 came together for our annual B’nei Mitzvah Family Program.
This year’s theme: God Shopping.
We transform the Social Hall into a “Mall.” Tables represent stores, while bright colored paper and stickers fill those tables with “items” for the kids and their parents to “purchase.”
Their shopping list is specific, “buy something that fits…”: Your personal theology, something my parent(s) believe(s) or my child believes…, I’m not sure if…, I hope that…, I think most believe …
Stores are called: the Rabbinic Republic, Spinoza’s Spices, and Borowitz and Noble’s Books —to name a few. Each store is thematic, Jewish, and reflective of popular theological views throughout Jewish history.
For many of our families, this is the very first time that parents and kids are having deep conversations about their beliefs about God.
Our program reminds our families that the B’nei Mitzvah experience has a deeply spiritual side. Otherwise, the months leading up to and the weekend of the service can become nothing more than a really expensive birthday party. Families carefully craft the party, music, invitations, colors, themes, and table decorations…one might say there is a lot of “shopping” involved.
If we don’t approach the spiritual side, the learning, the process, and the service, with the same level of attention and detail that we do the party, then we will have missed the point.
God Shopping is a reminder that the children of our congregation transform into adults as they stand on our bimah, leading the community in prayers that begin: Baruch atah Adonai. Your rabbis think the loving adults in the kids’ lives must take a moment to talk with them about what they think it means when they say “Adonai.”
What does God mean for them today? What could it mean to them in the future?
Have you thought about what God means to you in your life today?
Perhaps you’ll take a few moments this Shabbat to consider the question.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachael
