B’nai Mitzvah

We are proud at Temple Israel of Natick to have some of the best trained bar and bat mitzvah students around!  Highlights of our bar and bat mitzvah program include:

• An inclusive approach that involves all families, including interfaith and LGBTQ
• Learning to read Torah in the 6th grade “trope class”
• Reading Torah at the family services and on Shavuot
• Studying Torah and Haftarah with Cantor Ken
• Learning about the Torah and Haftarah portions with Rabbi Liben
• Helping to make up the minyan on Monday & Thursday mornings
• Working on the 13 Mitzvot projects, through which students pick mitzvot involving interpersonal kindness, ritual acts, and Torah study to help make their bar or bat mitzvah preparation more meaningful.
• A Bar/Bat Mitzvah Committee that helps guide families through the process

For Bar/Bat Mitzvah Families: Some Important Documents

• The Bar/Bat Mitzvah Guidebook (including worksheet for honors).
• 13 Mitzvot Packet: as a PDF or a Google Doc
• Prayers for the Country & for Israel (here is a recording of the Prayer for Israel in Hebrew). Here is page 149 of the siddur.
• Some Parents’ Prayers and Yevarechecha (a traditional blessing for children) (here is an alternative in feminine language)
• Shehecheyanu Blessing
• A reminder of the temple’s “nut aware” policy (no actual nuts in the temple, though products that “may contain traces” are allowed)
• Click here for resources for learning to read Torah & Haftarah
• Here are videos with guidance for lifting and dressing the Torah (Hagba/Gelila) and having an aliya (chanting the Torah blessings)