Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Mitzvah Book

Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Mitzvah Book by Danny Siegel
CMS Distributing
Reviewed by Allan Gould

One of the most powerful, moving, exquisitely-written and insightful books I have read in the past decade is Woman: An Intimate Geography, by the Pulitzer-prize-winning, former New York Times' science reporter Natalie Angier. I found it so important, I actually read aloud its 400 pages to my wife, every night for a month, after I had previously discovered and devoured it, a few weeks earlier.

I begin this book review in this fashion, because I am not a woman, but a middle-aged man, who has a vested interest-- as a man, as a husband, as a father of a daughter as well as a son--in knowing more about The Other Half. I have similar feelings about a remarkable little paperback by Jewish educator, poet, lecturer and author DANNY SIEGEL, called, rather immodestly (but justifiably so; he just may be the world's greatest expert on Jewish "micro-philanthropy" and "saving the world in little steps"), Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Mitzvah Book. It costs only $18 Canadian ($12 U.S.), and it's published by the small Town House Press in North Carolina, so you may well have to track it down at your local Jewish bookstore, or by contacting CMS Distributing, or Naomike@aol.com, but you really should; like my non-female obsession with Angier's WOMAN, you do NOT have to have a son or daughter approaching Bar/Bat Mitzvah age, in order to be profoundly influenced by this masterpiece of Doing Good.

Siegel has written other books over the past dozen years, which touch upon the same concerns, both of them published by the more established KAR-BEN Copies: Tell me a Mitzvah (1993) and Mitzvah Magic: What Kids Can Do to Change the World (2002). But this one is truly the must-have text--and one, I feel, that should be given to every Jewish child in every day school or cheder in the world, well before he or she starts to learn their Haftarah; maybe years earlier.

In his opening chapter, Siegel lays out "What This Book Is All About":

. . .I want this to be a practical guide for introducing Mitzvahs into any and every aspect of the events that comprise the Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration. Sections of the book will deal with everything from the speeches to incredibly colorful kippot/yarmulkes made by Mayan women in Guatemala, to the content and format of the invitation, centerpieces and whom to honor and how best to honor them. Mitzvah opportunities are to be found everywhere and at any moment. This book provides very concrete suggestions and techniques that will help families decide how to connect Mitzvahs to the celebration. It is at that time that the Bar/Bat Mitzvah will then truly become a Mitzvah experience. . . . The simple fact is that hundreds of thousands of lives have been touched because of Bar and Bat Mitzvah projects and Tzedakah money.

And that is what this book does--and so very much more: it clearly and passionately lays out a simple fact: that the often-vulgar, "more BAR [as in free-flowing booze] than Mitzvah" celebrations of thousands of pubescent Jewish boys and girls every year can truly help change the world. Indeed, they can change the lives and life-purpose of those youngsters, their parents, their relatives, and a good percentage of those invited to the celebration.

We have all been to too-many meaningless celebrations of family and friends: lavish birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings, and more. I've attended Bar Mitzvahs where the father actually "roasted" his son in a Rat Pack fashion, which was vulgar enough; what was even more tragic was the utter lack of meaning to this religious event-- beyond the cheques, the video games, the CD players and cell phones.

Which is where Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Mitzvah Book comes in. It helps all of us, in this often crudely capitalistic culture of ours, to recognize that this important Life Passage (after all, it DOES mean that a Jewish child now has obligations in prayer, Jewish society and more that he/she did not have, before turning 13 or 12, and reading that Torah or Haftarah portion) can be life-changing and even world-changing. What a responsibility! And what an opportunity!

Our son and daughter are now 31 and 26, respectively, but Siegel--whose "mitzvah work" I've known about for decades--inspired my wife Merle and me to have Judah linked with a Soviet refusenik lad at his own celebration, and to have Elisheva volunteer for several months with the elderly (reading to them, singing Hebrew and Yiddish songs to them, giving them manicures) at our local Jewish Home for Aged. And more: when I took each child on a special "Bar Mitzvah Trip With Abba" to New York City (since we lacked the cash to visit Israel each time), both of them took hundreds of U.S. quarters to give to every beggar and homeless person they saw on the streets of Manhattan--which helped continue the Tikkun Olam (healing the world) aspect of their Jewish coming-of-age for a long period after their parties were long forgotten. Indeed, both of our children asked for donations to Siegel's remarkable charitable fund, ZIV (www.ziv.org), "in lieu of gifts," which, even in retrospect, decades later, stuns me with their agreed-to generosity. Of course, most people gave our children gifts as well--but what a lesson for everyone involved!

Siegel's latest book is so "right-on," it thrilled me: He explains the meaning of Tikkun Olam, of Tzedakah (which is very unlike the Christian term "charity," which comes from the word for "love," but rather, from TZEDEK-- the obligation each of us has to be a righteous person; it's an important distinction). He asks the Important Questions-- literally asks: One chapter is called "24 Questions Parents May Wish to Ask Themselves," and includes such toughies as "Have I ever asked myself, 'Is my child gifted in Tikkun Olam-type Mitzvahs?'," and "What do I mean when I say, 'I want my child to be successful'," and "What is the relationship between my child's Jewish education and what kind of person he or she is and will possibly become?" and "Who are my child's heroes?" and--here's a killer: "How seriously do I take my own commitment to Judaism and things Jewish?"

Siegel has created in his life, work, and teaching, a marvelous concept: the Mitzvah Hero. No, there's nothing wrong with having "heroes" in athletics or having obsessions or crushes with movie or TV stars. But when we read of the Jewish woman who, on a vacation, saw Guatemalans struggling to survive on pennies a day, by selling home-made knitted objects, and decided to get dozens of them to create stunning kippot/yarmulkes which sell for $10, and are now given away at Bar Mitzvahs and weddings across North America (the proceeds of which has sent many of their once-starving children to universities, and brought electricity into once-dark homes), our eyes should not only fill with tears, but our hearts should be filled with admiration and desire to emulate such creativity, such goodness, such, yes, such Heroism. (Why should Paris Hilton be a hero to anyone?)

As Siegel movingly quotes the brilliant educator and author John Holt, "Charismatic leaders make us think, 'Oh, if only I could do that, be like that.' True leaders make us think, 'If they can do that, then. . .I can too.'" Which is the real point of this extraordinarily important, even life-changing (and possibly world-changing) book: that every Bar/Bat Mitzvah child--indeed, every one of us--"is always capable of great acts of Tikkun Olam, greater than he or she ever thought possible." I've seen Danny Siegel enthrall auditoriums filled with adults, by challenging them: "What do you do?" "I'm an accountant," someone shouts out. "No, you're a potential mitzvah-doer, who can help a poor person to handle their money better," he tells them. "I'm a dentist," another states proudly. "And think of what Good Deeds a dentist can do for an impoverished person with rotted teeth," he replies. Not all need such a reminder--but don't most of us?

Much of this book is filled with practical--amazingly practical, and surprisingly obvious, yet so rarely recognized by most of us--chances to Make The World a Better Place, through Bar/Bat Mitzvah-mitzvahs. So, we are told how an invitation can invite people to support various charities (as well as merely give the usual information about the location of the synagogue, the date of the party); how a centerpiece can read "IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, A DONATION WAS MADE IN HONOR OF THIS TABLE TO [THIS OR THAT CHARITY]...."; how the food that is left over--always, inevitably, left over--can be taken to a battered women's shelter or an Old Folks' Home; how the New Jewish "Man or Woman" can inspire others to good deeds in his/her speech, buy warm dinners for Israeli soldiers freezing on the Golan Heights, purchase, give out, and then discuss the impact of those Guatemalan-made yarmulkes on those non-Jewish others who share this planet with us.

I always smile when I read an investment article which plugs a certain stock or mutual fund, and often contains a "full disclosure" declaration at the end of the piece: "this journalist owns shares of this financial vehicle."Well, here is my own "full disclosure": Danny Siegel and I have been best friends since we met on a youth pilgrimage to Israel, over forty years ago; he has sat at many of our family's Pesach seders; he has inspired my own teaching. Heck, he and I even wrote a book together, back in the 1980s.

But even if I had never heard of Danny Siegel, or heard him speak (as I have, literally dozens of times), I would beg every reader of this review to buy a copy-- many copies-- of this meaningful, life-enhancing book; to read it; to give copies to friends with children who are, say, ten and older. There is a relatively well-known quotation from the gifted (Jewish) novelist Franz Kafka about the power (or duty) of great literature: that "a novel should be an ax for the frozen seas around us" (sometimes translated as "the frozen sea WITHIN us.") Well, I'm not so cynical as to believe that we are all "frozen" inside. But why do some of us look at the tons of food which remains uneaten at a celebration and think "what a waste!" while others ask themselves, eagerly, "how can I get this to the nearest shelter for the homeless?" Why do some smile when they buy a few hand-made trinkets on a vacation, thinking "I'm helping the local economy!" while a certain Jewish woman looked at impoverished craftswomen in Guatemala and made a vow to herself: "I could change their lives!"

This book Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Mitzvah Book can change millions of lives, and not just those of a few thousand Jewish pre-adolescents, their parents, other relatives and business associates who happen to show up at The Party. It can change the world, and start melting those frozen seas, whether they are around us or in us. I've had it with heroes on the baseball diamond and basketball court. My new heroes are those who help others, and try to heal this very damaged world of ours, and I proudly join them, as often as I possibly can. Siegel's latest book will move you to join them as well.