When 12-year-old Sheryl Milstein’s parents gave her the choice between having a Bat Mitzvah after finishing Hebrew school and spending the summer in California, she picked the latter.
Now, 56 years later, Milstein has decided to become Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judea of Bucks County, where she has been the preschool director for 26 years.
“This temple is so important to me. I’ve grown the school from 30 some kids to 150 some kids, and … this place has been my life,” she told the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. “I just think it’s so special that I’m getting to do this here on the bema here.”
Milstein said she decided to become a Bat Mitzvah when she learned about the new Hebrew class that the rabbi was starting at the shul almost a year and a half ago. According to Rabbi Andrew Sklarz, today, the class has attendees anywhere from their 20s to their 80s.
“I think it brings community within the congregation,” said Sklarz. “I think that Hebrew is really a gateway to feeling comfortable within the sanctuary.”
Sklarz has worked with a number of adult B’nai Mitzvahs, some of whom were observing the tradition of having a second B’nai Mitzvah. The tradition is when one turns 83 years old to become a B’nai mitzvah for a second time, 13 years after one’s 70th birthday, the life expectancy as described in Psalm 90. But Milstein never had a Bat Mitzvah as a preteen.
For Sklarz, deciding to have a B’nai Mitzvah as an adult, “comes from deeply within.”
“There’s been a great deal of thought and reflection and soul searching and there’s a different level of desire and passion,” he said.
For Milstein, becoming a Bat Mitzvah was always something in the back of her mind, but when her children became B’nai Mitzvahs, she said, “It started to bother me.”
“Like, why didn’t I ever do that?” She said. “I was a 12-year-old. What does a 12-year-old know? Because I was looking back as an adult and saying, ‘I should have done this.’”
Milstein attended the Hebrew Sunday School Society of Philadelphia when she was four years old. Then, in fourth grade, her family joined a reform synagogue for her two younger brothers to start training for their Bar Mitzvahs. However, she said being Bat Mitzvahed wasn’t a big priority for many families at the time. “Not all girls were being Bat Mitzvah then. It was just really coming into vogue. So, it just wasn’t considered as important to me.”
So when given the choice to go to California or have a Bat Mitzvah, Milstein said, “I was 12 and chose to go to California.”
“I had relatives there. I had a wonderful summer, but I continued my Jewish education; so, I was confirmed, I went to Gratz College, I taught religious school for 12 years at a couple different places, but I always felt like I just was missing something because I never had a Bat Mitzvah,” she explained. “So, when I heard that they were doing it here, I decided to talk with the rabbi about it.”
Milstein said when she spoke to Sklarz that day, “he was so excited and just embraced it.”
“I see bar/bat mitzvah not as an end but as a beginning,” Sklarz said. “It’s really a time in which one celebrates their Jewish identity and makes a commitment to the future. In Sheryl’s case, that commitment has been there for so long and is now illuminated in this and will continue to blossom.”
And Sklarz is not the only one at the shul who is embracing the milestone for Milstein.
Bonnie Globerman, who works closely with Milstein as assistant director of the preschool, told the Jewish Exponent, “It’s amazing what Sheryl is doing … She [is not] 13, and she comes with more wisdom and experiences, leadership and she’s accomplishing goals she set for herself. When you’re 13, you have a lot more time. As an adult, she works fulltime, she has family … but she carved out time … [to] accomplish this goal.”
Milstein added that while she is excited to become a Bat Mitzvah, the decision hasn’t come without it’s challenges.
“It has been difficult. I work, I mean I’m going to say at least nine hours a day. I’m here from eight in the morning until 5:30 maybe six o’clock at night, and then I go home and make dinner for my husband and I,” she explaned. “I’m exhausted when I get home and I don’t have a lot of time to study Hebrew, but I was forcing myself, at least to learn my Torah portion.”
In preparation, Milstein attends the Hebrew learning class run by Sklarz on Monday nights and once a week she also meets one-on-one with him to go over her torah portion in addition to her studying on her own.
In her D’var Torah, which she shared with the Jewish Exponent, she explains her challenges and how she wouldn’t have been able to overcome them without the help of her husband, Sklarz, and the community at Temple Judea.
“Becoming a Bat Mitzvah today does not feel late. It feels right,” she shares in her D’var Torah. “It feels like the culmination of years of teaching, learning, and serving this community. This is the moment I was meant to stand here, not as the person I was at 13, but as the person shaped by this place, this work and these people.”