Olivia reached a HUGE milestone this week: She has become a Daughter of the Commandment. That's what Bat Mitzvah means. What it also means, from a practical standpoint, is that she is now responsible for her relationship and walk with God. She worked hard over the last year, taking a weekly class at our church on all things Biblical. She also had to learn some church history, the hierarchy of our community and issues that she will likely have to face as she walks her walk with Messiah.
It was quite the event! Our little community center seats about 90 if we really pack in the chairs and we usually have about 70-75 people each week. For her Bat Mitzvah, we invited all of our family and friends, which resulted in about 40 extra people coming! Fortunately, one of our members had a couple of tents and we set them up outside for lunch so we had extra room inside the building for more seats.
Our service starts with some opening prayers and liturgy, followed by worship and this day was no exception. The first difference came when Olivia paraded the Torah around the room.
We have a much bigger, Kosher Torah scroll, but it's quite heavy and very valuable, so we let the kids who are doing their Bar/Bat Mitzvah carry the much-more-manageable practice scroll.
After worship, Olivia played a duet with our guitarist, Brett. It was beautiful and it was all I could do not to cry from pride. She then had to read the first 3 verses of her assigned portion in Hebrew!
I had helped her by printing out the section she needed to read about a month before so she could practice. After reading in Hebrew, she read the first reading, in English this time.
Then it was time for her teaching. she spent weeks preparing a 15-minute teaching related to her Torah portion and she really knocked it out of the park.
Her teaching was followed by blessings. Traditionally, there are 12 blessings given by different people whom the Bat Mitzvah candidate chooses.
These blessings were filled with fond memories and sincere hopes and prayers for her future.
It was a blessing for us to have both sets of grandparents there to bless her and share in this wonderful day.
We were so excited to have Nana and Pop-Pop drive all the way up from Florida!
After the blessings, Pastor Richard declared her to be Bat Miztvah and Grandpa and I carried Olivia around the room on a chair. She was NOT fond of that part. Fortunately, we managed not to drop her like she was so afraid was going to happen. :)
Finally, it was done and time for the gifts and food! One additional thing we did for her was to have a canvas for people to write little personal messages for Olivia to remember the joy of her big day!
We did record the entire service, so if you're interested, you can watch it!
I cannot express the pride and happiness I felt at seeing our little girl take such a big step in her life.
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