How to manage the process with grace, joy and good sense. A practical guide that gives parents and teens the "how-to" information they need to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process and grow as a family through this experience. For the first time in one book, everyone directly involved offers practical insights into how the process can be made easier and more enjoyable for all. Rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, parents, and even teens speak from their own experience. • What's it all about? • Preparation for Parent and Child • Tutoring, stress, expectations, enjoyment, planning for children with special needs • Negotiating the ceremony and celebration • Designing a creative service, heightening the spiritual exercise, special issues related to divorced and interfaith families, planning a party that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event.

How to manage the process with grace, joy and good sense. A practical guide that gives parents and teens the "how-to" information they need to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process and grow as a family through this experience. For the first time in one book, everyone directly involved offers practical insights into how the process can be made easier and more enjoyable for all. Rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, parents, and even teens speak from their own experience. - What's it all about? - Preparation for Parent and Child - Tutoring, stress, expectations, enjoyment, planning for children with special needs - Negotiating the ceremony and celebration - Designing a creative service, heightening the spiritual exercise, special issues related to divorced and interfaith families, planning a party that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event.

This practical guide gives families the how-to information they need-not only how to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process, but how to grow as a family through this coming-of-age experience. All who are directly involved in bar & bat mitzvah offer their practical insights into how the process can be made easier & more enjoyable for everyone. Topics include: What it's all about from start to finish, tutoring, stress, expectations, negotiating the ceremony (including issues related to divorced & interfaith families), how to design a creative service, & advice on planning a reception that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event. Contributors include: Rabbis, cantors, & educators-Reform, Conservative, & Reconstructionist; fathers & mothers of bar/bat mitzvah boys & girls; post b'nai mitzvah teens; party planners.

Make the world a better place through good deeds--big or small. "Thank you, really, for devoting your energies to making the world just a little bit better. By doing so, you are saying to yourself, and to others, that this whole Bar/Bat Mitzvah thing is real and important. And, this book will help you figure out great ways to put your own passions, interests, and hobbies to work for mitzvah." --from the Foreword Are you searching for a meaningful and fun mitzvah project? This inspiring book is packed with ideas to help you connect something you love to a mitzvah project or tikkun olam initiative that you can be passionate about. It is filled with information, ideas and activities to spark your imagination, as well as a planning guide to get you organized and off to a good start. Creativity and Compassion Arts & Crafts - Clothes & Fashion - Computers & Technology - Food & Cooking - Movies & Drama - Reading & Writing Putting Mitzvot in Motion Animals - Camp - Fitness - Health - Music & Dance - Sports Your World, Our World Environment - Family - Friends, Neighbors & Your Community - Global Community - Israel - Your Jewish Heritage

Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagogue--the amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship. In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered. He had entered the synagogue's genizah--its repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts--which held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many of which were over 1,000 years old. Considered among the most important discoveries in modern religious history, its contents contained early copies of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, early manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and other sacred literature. The importance of the genizah's contents rivals that of the Rosetta Stone, and by virtue of its sheer mass alone, it will continue to command our attention indefinitely. This is the first accessible, comprehensive account of this astounding discovery. It will delight you with its fascinating adventure story--why this enormous collection was amassed, how it was discovered and the many lessons to be found in its contents. And it will show you how Schechter's find, though still being "unpacked" today, forever transformed our knowledge of the Jewish past, Muslim history and much more.

"We can battle insensitivity, immorality, and dishonesty in our lives individually and collectively as a people. We have a wonderful road map in the Torah and its traditions. It is time to think seriously about our reputation in the world and what we can do to enhance it, not because we want to look good but because we want to be good." —from Chapter 6. What should we do when we see other Jews behaving badly? Most Jews are good, upstanding people who live by a strong moral code and follow Isaiah's words to be a light to others. But when Jews in the public sphere make headlines for being caught in scandals, their actions can provoke anger, shame and a sense of betrayal in the larger Jewish community. In this insightful and timely book, Jewish scholar Dr. Erica Brown presents an intentional, disciplined framework to explore the emotions provoked in the Jewish community by reports of Jews committing crime. She proposes that we transform our sense of shame into actions that inspire and sustain a moral culture. Drawing from the Hebrew Bible, Talmud and our centuries-long Jewish commitment to ethics, she outlines ways you can activate and operate your personal moral compass, and shows how you can empower yourself with sacred obligation, responsibility, kindness and knowledge to increase Jewish pride.

"For most of us, only at the end of a lifetime do we begin to understan that even our life stories are sacred and that God has been involved all along."---from "The Life of Torah" --