FAQ

We are committed to working with you to manage scheduling fluctuations. Your son or daughter will have a regular weekly meeting with the Rabbi, and we will happily adjust the Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah preparation schedule around the occasional major sport event, musical recital, and dance or theatre performance, with sufficient advanced notice.

We consider each one of our students unique and brilliant, and we also recognize that some also have areas of pronounced challenge. We have successfully tutored students with attention deficit, shyness and sensitivity, oppositional temperament, reading challenges, students who are on the “spectrum” and those who are “twice exceptional”.

Additionally, we customize the ceremony to embrace the student’s personality as much as possible, especially for those who are extra shy and/or possess reading challenges. We take pride in having skillfully tailored Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah prep to match each student’s strengths and areas of challenge.

Hebrew reading instruction is recommended, though optional. We will assess your child’s comfort with new language acquisition and decide in consultation with you, and with your son or daughter, on the appropriate Hebrew instruction level, if any. Our guiding principle is to present our students with a meaningful level of challenge that would produce in the end a sense of pride and accomplishment

Jewish tradition designates Monday or Thursday mornings and Saturday mornings or afternoons for any ceremony that involves reading from an open Torah scroll. There are interesting historical reasons for this – a discussion for another time. Most families choose a Monday or Thursday morning here in Israel, though arranging a Shabbat (Saturday morning or afternoon) event is also a good option.

We customize to alleviate stress for academically pressured children. Additionally, we will share specific strategies with you and your child that help to smoothly, and joyfully, integrate the Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah prep work into his or her daily flow.

Tefilin is a wonderful part of the traditional weekday ceremony (Monday or Thursday). The laying of Tefilin is only practiced on Monday and Thursday morning ceremonies, not on Saturday. Whether it is a fit for your child and family will be discussed during planning. A set of Tefilin can be purchased for your child in Israel in the days prior to the ceremony. Tefilin shopping can be an exciting and meaningful part of the entire Bar Mitzvah of Bat Mitzvah experience. We can also provide a loaner pair.

Your ceremony is entirely under your control, at the location of your choice, and with the people near and dear to you and to your child. Some families desire a traditional Minyan (10 adult Jews for a quorum) and choose to invite strangers to that end. Others choose to have a small and intimate ceremony with immediate family members only. We will discuss these details during planning.

You will have the option of hiring a professional song leader/cantor in addition to the Rabbi. We especially recommend the additional cantor when your guest list exceeds 10 people.

It is common to have one last session the evening before. Usually the family puts up the Rabbi in a hotel room near the ceremony location for the night before the ceremony. That evening the Rabbi will meet with your child for a last face to face preparation session. This will usually the first time that the family and Rabbi meet in physical space. Sometimes the family invites the Rabbi out for dinner in order to get better acquainted and coordinated in anticipation of the following big day (optional).

Yes, this is very common. You will suggest whom amongst your guests you would like to honor with an “Aliya”. Group Aliyas are common too, allowing multiple guests to participate together. We discuss this part of the ceremony in detail during planning.

We will provide a full-size authentic Torah scroll. When we perform the ceremony at an outdoors area or an archeological site it is uncommon to have prayerbooks on hand for each participant (Rabbi and child being the exception). If you elect to have your service at an established synagogue or at your hotel’s prayer space then uniform prayerbooks will be available for all to use.