Forever Young

The Bar Mitzvah post is here!

One week ago from today yesterday, I became a man. Yes, a man – in the Jewish community, at least. The whole experience was absolutely amazing, more than I had ever imagined. It’s been hard trying to remember every leetle detail that I want to write about – this happens every time I post something important. It was all just so incredible (technically, it’s not incredible; you could credit my parents, my Cantor, my Rabbi..). Anyway, I had a really good time.

Me, holding the sacred Torah. They say if you drop it you have to fast for seventy or something days.. or is that a myth? Either way, somebody somewhere sometime has probably dropped the Torah before. I would not like to be that person.

Friday, I woke up and started getting ready for school. My cousin, (uncle Danny’s daughter), Leah, just got in from L.A. and – despite being insanely tired and maybe a little bit jet-lagged – came to visit school with me (aw, what a nice cuzzie). We don’t get to see each other very much, given she lives on the other side of the country, so it was nice to spend some time together. The whole day at school was a party/spring-and-end-of-the-year feast/funfunfun. We only had one real class all day, and that was Science. In Science we watched depressing documentaries about society/how much humans suck… It was strangely interesting. There was one particularly disturbing part where they showed a chicken processing plant. DISGUSTING. In so many ways. No, it did not make me want to be become a vegetarian. It did make me want to become an animal cruelty activist, though.

Seeing the documentaries caused the formation of a ~top secret~ “squirrel colony,” where a bunch of kids and me go live in the woods and eat squirrels but they’re like our best friends and we live off them and then we build warships with a big squirrel figure on the front (you know, like the Vikings ones, but with a squirrel?) and act like hippies minus the drugs and stuff and overall we would own society and be awesome. Whew. The other documentaries were not nearly as disturbing (though they were still pretty bad). There were some clips of religious rituals from Asia that were very interesting/frightening (two things that are often times similar, it seems). Like Chinese mind opera (?). The class was enlightening.

Pics from Leah’s “I’m (about to become) A Man” shoot, May 1st.

When I got home from school we had to leave for Friday night services, another part of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. I couldn’t wear my *special* Bar Mitzvah suit, so I ended up wearing some $20 jacket and pants from Target.. not a good choice. It did NOT fit me. Seriously, I think my Bar Mitzvah suit is one of, if not the first suit that A: hasn’t been a hand-me-down, and B: cost more than Walmart-price. No offense, sweatshop-made suits; you’re just another society fail. Especially if you’re a growing adolescent (psh.. who am I kidding – I’m the short one).

The service on Friday was alright. I was very tired from school and everything. There were some parts where I could barely keep my eyes open. Everybody said I did a great job, though. I guess I’m pretty hard on myself sometimes. There was one really, really special part about the Friday night service. My portion, which is also in the very, very middle of the Torah, once belonged to our synagogue’s 93 year old rabbi, who gave me a very warm and meaningful speech. He has got to be one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Even in his near-100-year-old age, “he still hasn’t lost it.” And that’s an understatement. I think being such an enlightened and wise person must reverse aging to some extent – in your mind, at least. His speech was truly special, and I’m so grateful he was able to be a part of my Bar Mitzvah. After the service, there was an Oneg where you sit down and mingle while eating lots of sweets. It’s a kid favorite.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a sore throat, stuffy nose, earache, and mild headache. “OMG. SWINE FLU.” No. Not Swine Flu, just some weird, inconvenient, INCONVENIENT bug. But, my body did a pretty good job of fighting it off. We got to the temple and I forgot about how icky I felt when I saw all of my friends and family there. We did a short run-through of how everything would go, and services began.

Workin’ the crowd.

I am so grateful to have had such an amazing Bar Mitzvah ceremony. It was so special, I really couldn’t have asked for anything better. I’d like to thank everyone who was involved in the planning of my day – especially my mom. She was/is, undoubtedly, a beast party-planner and overall mom. She held it together pretty well during the service, which was surprising. Usually if anyone even mentioned my Bar Mitzvah she would start bawling. It was more difficult than expected for her this past weekend, also, because her brother/best friend, my uncle Danny, was not able to come. He was supposed to be her “shoulder to cry on” the whole time, but earlier that week, two very out-of-the-ordinary things happened.

“After a picture-perfect pregnancy of 24 weeks and 5 days, including a stellar ultrasound just five days ago where everything looked so great with our twins, Kendall unexpectedly went into labor early Monday morning. We went to Cedars and they were sure they could stop the contractions. But nothing they tried worked and Kendall was rushed into surgery. At 9:46 and 9:48 am on Monday morning, April 27, Kendall delivered our twins, Oliver and Charles. Oliver clearly had some major issues and the team working on him was having a very hard time. Charlie was stable and they were able to get him to the NICU right away and insert all the lines they needed to. It was up and down with Oliver all day and finally, about 12 hours later, he died in our arms. There’s nothing worse, of course, and we are heartbroken. Charlie continues to do well but he was born so early so we just have to hope that he can continue to develop and grow over the months ahead.” - from Danny’s blog

My family was so, so sad to hear this. Charlie is doing well, though, and you can read up about everything on Danny’s blog.

Back to the Bar Mitzvah.. I love my temple. It’s a Reform Judaism synagogue, so we tend to be pretty loose. The most important thing to us is our community, being good people, and having fun with Judaism. I think this played a big part in how everything went and how much everybody enjoyed it. To me, it wouldn’t be as special if it was just some chore that every Jewish kid has to do – not that non-Reform Bar/Bat Mitzvahs aren’t special. I think our synagogue is more my style, though.

My cantor performing a motivational pre-service dance on the bimah. See what I mean?

One of the most special parts of my service was when my dad sung “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan. It’s such a beautiful song, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I cried, for two reasons. Forever Young is a masterpiece. The lyrics are so.. right on. “May you always do for others, and let others do for you.” Dylan wisdom goes beyond that of most other folk singers. He, along with Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, plus a few others, are/were elite thinkers. The fact that Guthrie’s guitar says “This machine kills fascists” is awesome. The fact that Seeger’s banjo says “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender” is even more awesome. I also cried because hearing my dad play acoustic guitar and sing in an intimate setting like a Bar Mitzvah service goes really deep with me. When I was a little kid, my dad would play a song for me every night. Sometimes I still cry – in a sentimental, nice way – when I think of those times. Singing and music, in general, is such a powerful thing. Your voice is probably the most amazing thing a human being can have. Even if you’re tone-deaf, even if you can hardly sing at all, a voice can channel so much emotion. Without the power to speak, humans would not be nearly as awesome as they already are (and you thought I was a misanthrope!). To sing is something I would consider “holy” – you’ll here more about that in my speech.

Later that day we had a luncheon at the synagogue. The food was catered by a parent at our school, who made the awesome-est cake I have ever seen in person.

A drum-themed cake. Drumsticks courtesy of Glenn Kotche.

The luncheon also included a veery long speech by my grandfather (mom’s dad), whom, in case you did not know, was Bar Mitzvah-ed with me last Saturday. He’s blind, and couldn’t really tell that people weren’t paying rapt attention to his endless kvelling about “how much of an amazing child Spencer is” and so on. He pretty much told his buddies’ life stories, also. One of his best friends, who is a comedy writer, said “Peter, your speech is so long, half the people you’re talking about have passed away since you started!” or something along those lines. You gotta love him, though. As for my speech, that will be up here later.

My grandfather and his best-buds.

Peter Miller, left, with comedy writer and best friend Sam Bobrick.

Our ride home from the Temple on Saturday was.. unusual? For one, we got stopped by a cop because we apparently made an illegal left turn. When the cop came up to hand us our ticket my mom dramatically said, “Oh, that’s a bummer. We’re just on the way home from our son’s Bar Mitzvah!” He asked us a couple questions like where our temple is and other fact-checking things and decided to let us go. It seems cops have some sort of quota for tickets, because he said “I need the Moving Violation, but alright. Happy Bar Mitzvah!” Also, we passed a pool hall and found a quite obvious fail (or win, depending on how you look at it) on their sign.

I’m pretty sure the owners of “Marie’s Golden Cue” did this on purpose. Wow. UPDATE: This made it to the FAIL Blog voting page! Yay!

At first, I was a little worried about how my party would go. There was a small music dilemma during the planning, because I don’t listen to what most other kids listen to, and the music I do listen to is definitely not dance material (except for Animal Collective, but not many of my friends would dig that). I don’t have a huge problem with the normal dance party music, I just wouldn’t listen to it on my own (trying to keep it short here – I could give a whole mini-lecture on what I think about pop/rap music). The DJ’s were super understanding and totally got it. Everyone I talked to said they had an amazing time.

The giveaways at my party.

Sometime during the party one of my friends started crowd-surfing? I missed that.. maybe I was in the bathroom, blowing my nose because of that INCONVENIENT bug.

Some of my friends performed a choreographed rendition of “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys.

Tavi and her two new best friends, Sheba and Billy. Sheba has secretly worshipped Tavi’s blog for.. years (?) but they had never met until my party. FUN FACT: Sheba is a hair goddess. FUN FACT #2: Billy’s real name is John but we like to call him Billy for some reason.

We gave out glowsticks during the party. Sammy and Joey took this as an opportunity to make a 30-something foot long glowstick chain which they then threw over the balcony onto everyone.

Just look how guilty they are.

We had a photo booth at the party. I would post pictures from it but I don’t have a downloadable version yet. Some people made reeally cool ones. My friend Henry (a different Henry than my bandmate/best friend) is in about 50 of them – by himself. When I get the disc with everything on it I’ll try and get some of them up here.. There were also some pretty, uh, strange pictures taken in the photo booth.. Let’s not get into details.

We also had two photographers (both parents at my school) – one using digital, one using film. I think that was a great idea. Film pictures, though a little less convenient, can be so much cooler than digital ones, and can have a lot more character, too. In general I think film-only photographers sometimes need more skill to take good photos, whereas on a computer you can make your pictures look awesome in an instant. Hazel has some words of wisdom on this subject.

I got some preetteh cool gifts for my Bar Mitzvah. There were a few I enjoyed a lot, like one of my teacher’s. As I wrote about before, we have a lot of fun in my math class. One of the best parts about it is that my teacher (who is, in fact, one of my favorite people) frequently creates ridiculous/awesome quotes. My friend Will and I like to write them down and someday plan to make t-shirts out of them. Anyway, one of our favorites is, “Lots of people deserve cookies and never get them.” There’s a kind of long story behind this quote, but it’s funny as it is. For my Bar Mitzvah, Bryan, my math teacher, found and gave me a card that said “You deserve a cookie.” I wanted to cry out of the perfectness of that gift. He also gave me an odd amount of money that relates to some math problem, which I still need to figure out. There were a lot of other great gifts, too.

My speech, video, and more will be up later!

Thank you all so much!