The Awesome Column

I was giving my son both siman tov and mazel tov. We went all out.

Of all the wonders I could not have imagined when I was 13 — streaming music, streaming movies, streams (I grew up in the suburbs) — the most amazing would have been the home bar-mitzvah.

As my son Laszlo delivered his torah portion in our living room in August, I beamed with pride. Pride at myself for having found a way for him to do this without suffering through Hebrew School.

From third until seventh grade, I attended Temple Emanu-El’s Hebrew School several days a week. No, not that Temple Emanu-El. Not that one either. This one was in Edison, New Jersey. No, not that Temple Emanu-El in Edison, New Jersey. The other one.

In those four years, I did not learn Hebrew. Which wasn’t my fault. Hebrew School did not attempt to teach us Hebrew. We spent our days learning about the glories of Israel, watching Holocaust documentaries, singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof and — most of all, due to the vast amount of information we needed to absorb — memorizing the names of Jewish holidays. Get ready for Shemini Atzeret on October 16, people.

The main reason I hated Hebrew School was that it was a school I went to after I already went to school. It was a second job. One that I couldn’t put on my application to colleges. Nevertheless, Hebrew School gave us grades. As if someday a job interviewer would say, “Wow, an A+ in ‘If I Were a Rich Man.’ Welcome to Google!”

I suffered through it solely for the bar mitzvah. And like every other Jew, Laszlo and I wanted our bar mitzvah for one reason. That reason is not presents. It’s proof of your Jewishness. When other Jews suss out your Jewishness, they ask if you’ve been bar-mitzvahed, mostly because in most situations it’s considered impolite to whip out your penis.

Laszlo’s bar mitzvah was done through a group called Hebrew Helpers, which sounds like a sad supermarket item for people who can’t have cheese on their hamburgers. Instead, it’s a group that provides instructors and a hookup for rentals of 100-year-old torahs.

For an hour every week for a year, Laszlo met with Marnina Schon Wirtschafter, a 28-year-old instructor. Actually, Laszlo studied with someone else for a few months of that time because Marnina left for Israel to co-star in a sitcom with Henry Winkler. Because when you live in Los Angeles, even your bar mitzvah teacher is an actress.

It was, I believe, the best bar mitzvah ceremony I’d ever been to. Joyful and intimate and meaningful. But two months after it was over, I suddenly worried if I did the right thing.

I’ve been writing about the dangers of allowing institutions to be destroyed by decentralization. And yet I had struck a blow against the synagogue. We had a bespoke bar mitzvah service at my own house with songs we picked. We scheduled lessons when we wanted them at our own house, without any other kids. It seemed less like Laszlo was becoming an adult in a congregation, then he was shopping online.

I brought my concerns to a rabbi, as one does. Rabbi David Wolpe, the senior rabbi of the enormous Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills and author of Why Faith Matters, agreed that I had hurt the institution of the temple. “A home bar mitzvah is nice for the family, in many ways, but removes the child from the necessity of creating community. It turns religion into a private affair, which Judaism has never been,” he responded.

Rabbi Wolpe used the same arguments I do when railing against crypto replacing the Federal reserve or politician’s tweets replacing interviews with journalists.

When things are going well for the Jews, home bar-mitzvah classes are great. But each one removes money and people from the temple.

When things aren’t going well for the Jews, which does happen from time to time, that temple might then not be there for meetings about which country to flee to. Jewish Twitter is a weak bond compared to a congregation.

A temple isn’t perfect, which is the main thing I learned in Hebrew School. But, as Wolpe has written on this subject, “a synagogue is for all ages, at all times. No other institution in Jewish life has that comprehensive commitment.” It’s why, Wolpe says, Jewish law obligates every community to build a synagogue.

I brought these concerns up to Marnina. She says she thinks the temple is indeed important. “I think it’s important and powerful to experience Jewish ritual and celebration together. But you totally did. You brought your own community together to celebrate it and that was powerful and beautiful,” she said.

Then Marnina got rabbinical: “Judaism only exists today because the rabbis innovated the tradition and decentralized it when the Temple was destroyed and we couldn’t have priests doing all the gross sacrifice stuff anymore.” By “gross sacrifice stuff” Marnina is referring to attending Hebrew School.

When I ran all this by Laszlo, he stopped me before I finished, which let me know he really is a Jew now. “There are aspects I was missing — seeing your friends and community in one space. But their system takes five years,” he says. “I wouldn’t have done a bar-mitzvah if I had to do many years of work. So, it’s not taking away from a temple.”

Sometimes decentralization boosts an institution. Laszlo is more likely to join a temple when he’s older than he would be if not for Hebrew Helpers. And they’re more likely to take him. Because he can tell them he was bar mitzvahed.

Joel Stein is the senior distinguished visiting fellow at the Joel Stein Institute. A former columnist for Time, the L.A. Times, and Entertainment Weekly, he is, amazingly, also the author of In Defense of Elitism: Why I’m Better Than You and You’re Better Than Someone Who Didn’t Buy This Book and Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. Follow him on Twitter,Facebook, Instagram, Friendster, or Google+.