My father abandoned organized religion on the day of his bar mitzvah. He ascended the bimah ready to chant his Torah portion and join the generations of thirteen-year-old Jewish males who had successfully negotiated this ritual passage to manhood. Alas, he had memorized the wrong portion.
Talmudically speaking, reading out of order is not an option. So, he never became a bar mitzvah. As an adult, he never joined a synagogue. As a parent, he never sent me to Hebrew school. As a result, I didn’t get invited to a lot of bar mitzvah parties.
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