‘Something Missing’ Was Bat Mitzvah

When she decided to have a bat mitzvah, Lynne C. Arkin knew she had a lot to learn.

But what the 72-year-old Leisure World resident didn’t know was that the 18 months of preparation would be a test--her toughest challenge.

“It was the hardest thing I have ever done,” she said tearfully before a congregation of several hundred people Saturday during the ceremony at Laguna Niguel’s Temple Beth El.

Traditionally, Jewish women receive bat mitzvahs in their early teen years as a ceremonial passage into adulthood (for boys, the ceremony is called a bar mitzvah). But like others in her generation, her family decided not to hold a ceremony for her.

At Arkin’s age, the motivation was personal. She moved from Florida to California four years ago after a bad marriage, her fourth. “I seemed to be searching for something.”

She had attended a lifetime of religious services but never felt she was a full participant in any temple because she did not read or sing Hebrew. That changed during the classes required to go through the bat mitzvah ceremony.

Arkin’s classmate Pearl Weinstein, 73, also of Leisure World, said that when she was young, many Jewish families opted against the ceremony for girls.

What Weinstein and Arkin learned in class was that other women their age had also forgone the ritual. They too had raised children, become grandmothers and always had a nagging feeling of exclusion.

“It was something I felt was missing,” Weinstein said. “Here I had three daughters, three sons-in-law, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, but I felt a real need to be part of the continuity of our Judaism.”

Linda Kirsch, the temple’s director of education, said most of their mitzvahs are for teenagers--evenly split between boys and girls. But among adults who take the plunge, women always outnumber men.

During training, Arkin and her 11 classmates spent three hours every Tuesday night learning Jewish history, holiday traditions, chant and reading and writing Hebrew. They used what they learned during Saturday’s ceremony, when they read in Hebrew and spoke to family and friends in the audience.

The weekly meetings served to help break down social barriers and led to open discussions on marriage, sex and raising children.

Although four of the students were from Leisure World, the other eight were mostly working moms. One exception was Dennis Schroeder, 45.

“I couldn’t get a word in edgewise,” Schroeder said. “There were 11 Jewish women talking before, during and after class. In every other place or situation I’m talkative. Here, I was silent.”

Schroeder, a former Catholic, converted two years ago and decided to have a bar mitzvah to help him raise his son, Tyler, 10, in the Jewish faith.

But he wasn’t the only male. Michael Horan, another Catholic married to a Jew, also wanted to have a knowledgeable background to help raise his children. Tragically, Horan died last November due to cancer.

The death nearly knocked the group off balance, Schroeder and his classmates said.

“He was our inspiration,” Schroeder said.

For Donna Wigdor of Mission Viejo, the class and ritual served to help bridge the gap between her and another generation right under her roof.

“My son, Jared, who’s 12, is also taking Hebrew,” she said. “At home, I would run around the house practicing my chants and my son and I would study together. Often, we would need to call on Rabbi [Allen] Krause to settle religious arguments.”

For Lori Covey of Lake Forest, the preparation was especially poignant.

“When I was a girl, it wasn’t important to have a bat mitzvah. None of my girlfriends did it and it was like, ‘So what?’ ”

But after Covey’s two daughters, Sara, 10, and Rachel, 8, began religious instruction, she knew she had to make a decision. “Mostly, it was another step in a journey.”

As for husband Richard? “That was the best thing, he took care of the kids.”