Editor’s Note: A native of Norfolk who grew up at Temple Israel there, Brandon Metheny is an attorney and Director of Admissions at the University of Richmond Law School. He teaches at the Brown Religious School at Temple Beth-El here in Richmond. This was the introduction to his recent chanting of his Bar Mitzvah Haftorah at Beth-El.
By Brandon Metheny
Twenty-five years ago (more or less), I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much about that day. Not just because a quarter century has passed – even at the time, it was an overwhelming day with so much going on that it’s hard to get a foothold. This, by the way, is why I offer the same piece of advice to every student I teach: take it in. Find a moment during the service, even just a small one, take a deep breath, and take it in.
Savor the moment.
The thing I remember most is actually from before the day of my Bar Mitzvah; at thirteen years old this was just the most boring parshah available. It’s just laws! Law after law after law. Seventy-four, in fact – the most of any parshah and over 12% of the total number of commandments in the entire Torah. And they seem at first glance to be a fairly random assortment. But when we step back and take a look, two unifying themes begin to emerge – community and dignity.
These commandments, random though they may seem, look to build and safeguard our community and protect the dignity of all of those within it.
They are also remarkably physical in their nature. These are commandments that tell us how to live our lives, how we should act every day.
To quote the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of faith.” We are commanded to go out and do things – with each other, with our fellow people. We are to build a community. But in that community, we also make sure all creatures are treated with dignity.
For humans, we build a fence around a roof, we remove a stumbling block before the blind, and we don’t “clean sweep” the fields so the hungry have to beg.
For animals, we allow an ox to eat while it works, we help lift an animal that has fallen under its burden, and we chase away a mother bird before taking its eggs.
Even for these creatures that don’t really understand human thoughts and emotions, we make sure their dignity is preserved. Ultimately, at the intersection of community and dignity, we find responsibility. A responsibility to all of those around us, in communities big and small. An obligation to protect their dignity in order to strengthen our community.
I bring this up because those key ideas of community and dignity resonate more strongly than ever. We don’t have the legal system laid out in the Torah any more. The basis for what we do, as Jews, is rooted in the community we grow in and the dignity we give to others.
I also want to speak to a specific group of people. I have had the great honor of teaching at our (Beth-El) religious school for now nine years, mostly 6th and 7th graders. We are far too inclined to treat children at this age like they are little kids, who can’t handle big ideas or tough topics, but they absolutely can. They think things over and come back with insights that you wouldn’t believe come out of their mouths.
But I want to speak to the parents.
Every single year, I end my last class with the 7th graders with an instruction both simple and complex: go out and do Jewish. Don’t just be Jewish, but do Jewish. Take Rabbi Heschel’s leap of action, in whatever form it may take. There’s not one single path to a fulfilling and meaningful Jewish life.
Like a lot of kids, I grew up going to services every week. That sometimes didn’t happen in high school, and when I got to college, pretty much stopped outside of major holidays. Even here, I didn’t regularly attend services until 2021. But I found my own path, and am fortunate to have an incredible mom who trusted me to do so.
Trust your kids. Give them the tools they need, treat them with the dignity they crave, and show them the community that awaits them. Show why our commandments exist and how they are still relevant.
Follow Proverbs; raise up a child in the way they ought to go, and they will not swerve from it even in old age. Not raise the perfect child, not the best child ever, but a child in the way they ought to go, on their own path.
Let your children find their way to “do Jewish,” demonstrate our morals and ethics in all you do, and remove stumbling blocks from their path, whatever it may be.
Do that, and I promise you, they will always find their way home.
