Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah: A Personal Approach to Creating a Meaningful Rite of Passage - Softcover

Milgram, Rabbi Goldie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0787972150 ISBN 13: 9780787972158

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2004

Synopsis

Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah is using and inspiring guide that takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a very personal and meaningful Bar/Bat Mitzvah. This book offers a joyful and effective planning process that will help you produce a coming of age ritual filled with innovative ideas and sound guidance. Rabbi Goldie Milgram provides an effective, exciting process to help you organize this experience to meet your needs, in particular your studies, mentors, service, Torah talk, party, gifts and expressions of appreciation. Pragmatic and inspiring, this ground-breaking work will help students, families and communities to create healthy and memorably happy bar/bat mitzvah experiences. Rabbi Goldie Milgram is spearheading the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Institute Initiative, developed under a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and focused upon creating more meaningful and effective ways of preparing students for bar/bat mitzvah. Author of Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice: Holy Days and Shabbat, she is Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit educational research and training group, Pnai Yachadut and also runs the highly regarded web site family Reclaiming Judaism.org. Reb Goldie Milgram is an extraordinary, creative, and wise teacher/mentor/guide/partner in the exploration of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process. She takes the reader on a multi-dimensioned journey to discover various meaningful traditions and rituals and, in turn, to express them into a spiritually significant celebration. This book is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah's equivalent to What Color Is Your Parachute. Peninnah Schram, author, Stories One Generation Tells to Another? Rabbi Goldie Milgram restores relevance and spirituality to the process of becoming bar/bat mitzvah. Her guidance is delivered with great wisdom and compassion. I highly recommend this work. - David A Cooper, author of God is a Verb

About this title

About the Author

Rabbi Goldie Milgram is spearheading the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Institute Initiative; researched under a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, it will focus on creating meaningful and effective ways of preparing students for Bar/Bat Mitzvah. She is author of Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice: Holy Days and Shabbat.

From the Back Cover

A Guide for Creating Your Own Rite of Passage

Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah is a useful and inspiring guide that takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a very personal and meaningful Bar/Bat Mitzvah. This book offers a joyful and effective planning process filled with innovative ideas and sound guidance that will help you customize your coming of age ritual. Rabbi Goldie Milgram helps you organize this experience to fulfill your Bar/Bat Mitzah goals regarding your studies, mentors, service, Torah talk, and gifts. Pragmatic and inspiring, this groundbreaking work guides students, families, and communities to create healthy and memorably happy Bar/Bat Mitzvah experiences.

"This is a most valuable book to learn about Judaism for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah of any age!"
–Peninnah Schram, author, Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another

"Restores relevance and spirituality to the process of becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah."
–Rabbi David A. Cooper, author, God Is a Verb

"Helps Bar/Bat Mitzvah students enhance their autonomy, thinking, creative engagement, Jewish identity, and self-esteem."
–Ellen Weaver, psychotherapist, pastoral counselor, and Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutor, Woodstock Jewish Congregation

From the Inside Flap

Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah is using and inspiring guide that takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a very personal and meaningful Bar/Bat Mitzvah. This book offers a joyful and effective planning process that will help you produce a coming of age ritual filled with innovative ideas and sound guidance. Rabbi Goldie Milgram provides an effective, exciting process to help you organize this experience to meet your needs, in particular your studies, mentors, service, Torah talk, party, gifts and expressions of appreciation. Pragmatic and inspiring, this ground-breaking work will help students, families and communities to create healthy and memorably happy bar/bat mitzvah experiences.

Rabbi Goldie Milgram is spearheading the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Institute Initiative, developed under a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and focused upon creating more meaningful and effective ways of preparing students for bar/bat mitzvah. Author of Reclaiming Judaism: How to Recapture Meaning and Spirituality for Shabbat and the Jewish Holiday, she is Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit educational research and training group, P’nai Yachadut and also runs the highly regarded web site family ReclaimingJudaism.org.

“Reb Goldie Milgram is an extraordinary, creative, and wise teacher/mentor/guide/partner in the exploration of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process. She takes the reader on a multi-dimensioned journey to discover various meaningful traditions and rituals and, in turn, to express them into a spiritually significant celebration. This book is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah's equivalent to What Color Is Your Parachute.”
-Peninnah Schram, author, Stories One Generation Tells to Another

“Rabbi Goldie Milgram restores relevance and spirituality to the process of becoming bar/bat mitzvah. Her guidance is delivered with great wisdom and compassion. I highly recommend this work.”
-David A Cooper, author of God is a Verb

Reviews

Who wouldn't want to read a book that promises to transform parents from "taskmasters to team members supporting an exciting and motivated student" preparing for bar or bat mitzvah? B-Mitzvah (as Milgram dubs it, obviating long and clumsy alternatives) can be an empowering celebration customized to each individual's strengths and talents. Milgram's pioneering and much-tested methods include creating an 18-month to two-year action plan with a mission statement, strategies, charts, self-inventories and goals that clarify roles and responsibilities. Despite this businesslike approach, Milgram advocates "knowing yourself," finding "the prayer of your heart" and learning the language of your spirit. She even compares B-Mitzvah to Native American rites of initiation. To address the range of emotional, intellectual, spiritual and logistical aspects, chapters focus on developing a Jewish study plan; interpreting the assigned Torah portion; finding a mitzvah project; partying and sharing gifts and memories. Real-life examples from families and students bring her points home. Though the guide is geared to both children and adult B-Mitzvahs, the complex and time-consuming process may deter some 12-year-olds. Still, following even a few of Milgram's suggestions may enrich the celebration. Her unconventional wisdom rooted in tradition will help families navigate the B-mitzvah process so they can make the "hoped-for holiness" happen.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787972150
• ISBN 13: 9780787972158
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272