What does a Jewish congregation do when it has an interfaith family, a bi-racial family, where the mother is on the board of directors and the Bar Mitzvah’s grandfather is a Pentecostal minister? You find ways to be as inclusive as possible within the halacha.

A little history: One of Congregation Kneseth Israel’s four vision planks is embracing diversity. It wasn’t always this way, I am sad to report. Last year when I first arrived I was told that we had turned down a different bi-racial family because the children were not Jewish according to halacha; it was their mother that was black. For this Bar Mitzvah, the mother is Jewish, the children have been raised as Jewish and the father, while a practicing Christian has been supportive.

The congregation was founded 121 years ago by the Jews of Elgin with the help of Rabbi Emil Hirsch of Congregation Sinai in Chicago. He was one of the leading luminaries of the Reform Movement. Then the congregation went through an Orthodox period. A congregant who came to town to head the Elgin Watch engineering department wanted to sit with his wife at services. The barriers to mixed seating were broken. Then there were a series of Reform rabbis, a series of Conservative rabbis and cantors. Three years ago the congregation thought it was dying. It participated in an in-depth visioning process with focus groups, a change to the by-laws and the divestment from the Conservative Movement. They changed its by-laws and adopted a vision that calls for meaningful observance, life-long learning, building community and embracing diversity.

They are still not clear what to call themselves. Independent? Pluralistic? Just Jewish? Traditional? Conservative with a small c? We are probably all those things. We uphold halachic values and practice. We have endless debates over headcoverings and kashrut, Shabbat observance in the modern world and what our interfaith families can and cannot do. In the end what we are is a community of Jews celebrating our diversity.

That was clear this past weekend when we celebrated an Orthodox member’s second Bar Mitzvah at age 83 (see previous post) and that was true when we celebrated AJ’s Bar Mitzvah during Sukkot.

What halachic considerations were in play? Are the children halachically Jewish? Yes! No question about that. Their mother is Jewish. They are being raised as Jews. They are Jews. What can a non-Jewish parent or relative or friend do during a Saturday morning Bar Mitzvah celebration? How do we also celebrate Sukkot, take care of more traditional families sense of obligation and meet the requirement to be out of services by 11:45? Do we do Hallel? Kohellet? Musaf? What balance should we strike between Hebrew and English? How do we honor the unique special needs of this family? For me, this was easy and most of the way had been paved previously. This is what we opted for:

• The grandfather presented the Bar Mitzvah boy with his own father’s tallit. Ironically, the grandfather was not wearing a tallit himself, something I heard about after the fact but I never even noticed. I reassured people who asked that not every adult Jewish male wears a tallit and while our custom is that all men over Bar Mitzvah age do, some opt not to.
• The Bar Mitzvah boy lead Ashrei, having explained that we are happy because we are enriched by G-d’s words.
• He lead Hallel because it was Sukkot. Some of the Psalms were read responsively in English with two of his grandmothers leading them.
• His grandfather, the Pentecostal minister read selections from Ecclesiastes from Siddur Sim Shalom because it is a text we share in common even if the translation was different.
• The Bar Mitzvah boy lead the Torah service. His mother and Jewish relatives had aliyot. The Torah was passed down from Jewish grandfather, to mother to Bar Mitzvah boy.
• The Bar Mitzvah boy chanted his maftir, read his Haftarah and his father read part of the translation in English. Again, while this is a text we share in common, this proved to be the controversial move. People really questioned whether the haftarah could be read in English or by a non-Jew. Since in ancient times the haftarah was translated into Aramaic, the lingua franca of the day, it is certainly permissible to read the Haftarah today in English. (http://ccarnet.org/responsa/arr-94-100/). This took some of the pressure off the Bar Mitzvah boy and enabled him to shine. It included his father in a meaningful, significant way and to enable everyone more access to the text, within the bounds of halacha while making everyone feel welcome.
• The Bar Mitzvah boy himself did the haftarah blessings, before and after the reading, including the insert for Sukkot.
• The grandfather and I did the priestly benediction together. Mine in Hebrew, the grandfather in English. Again, this is a text we share in common.
• Everyone through candy–two Smarties tied together with pipe cleaner to look like a Torah scroll.
• At the end of the service, the family gathered for Kiddush all together. The Bar Mitzvah found a ceremony online while researching his speech/D’var Torah about the 13 Attributes discovered a way to do kiddush that would be inclusive of all his aunts and uncles on both sides while featuring the number 13 and reflecting on the attributes we wish for a Bar Mitzvah boy–mirroring the 13 Attributes but not a direct parallel: http://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/cup-life-ceremony
• After a Kiddush at the synagogue where the mother and all grandmothers were involved in the strictly kosher preparation, the family headed to a pumpkin farm for a Sukkot afternoon appreciating the harvest. At the down home farm luncheon, the Bar Mitzvah father gave a remarkable speech which I wish we had captured on film. Essentially he said, “AJ you are a leader, just like today how you brought all of us together for the first time and lead us in prayer. Now continue to be a leader, don’t follow the path, go where there is no path and leave a trail.”

It was a lovely day, one of embracing diversity, building community, lifelong learning and meaningful observance. We were warm and welcoming, while following halacha. Well, maybe except for my late Shabbat afternoon ride on a camel, but that is a story for another time.