Sons and Daughters of the Commandent

      The term Bar Mitzvah means literally "son of the commandment." Bar means "son" in Aramaic (at one time, a common Near Eastern language), and Mitzvah means "commandment." Bat means "daughter" in Hebrew and Aramaic. Under Jewish Law, children are not held responsible for observing all the commandments (613 of them) until a certain age. At some point, likely between 516 BCE and 70 ACE, age thirteen plus a day was deemed the age that a Jewish boy becomes Bar Mitzvah, and a full member of his community.
      It is not known exactly why thirteen was picked as the age for conferring some serious adult responsibilities. Possibly, the age was picked because Abraham was believed to have rejected idols and begun his jorney with God at the age of thirteen; or perhaps, it was because Moses was said to have made thirteen copies of the Torah. Thirteen may have just seemed like the appropriate age for a coming-of-age observance. Many other cultures and civilizations have ceremonies that recognize adolescence as a gateway to adulthood. Eventually,it was written into the Talmud (Jewish Laws) that "...At age thirteen, one becomes subject to the commandments." Interestingly Bar Mitzvah is not mentioned in the Torah, which actually suggests 20 as the age when adult obligations begin.
      To become Bar Mitzvah, no ceremony is really needed and no ceremony is mentioned in the Talmud. It is simply the age that confers the status. After becoming Bar Mitzvah, certain obligations and privileges are assumed. These include:

   -responsibility for observing the 613 mitzvot (commandments)
   -observance of fast days (for example, Yom Kippur)
   -status in the count for a minyan (the quorum of ten required for community prayer)\
   -eligibility for aliyot (being called upon to read from the Torah)
   -the right to take part in religious services

      When becoming Bar Mitzvah, the celebrant not only enters a new phase in the life cycle, but also adds to the strength of t he community, and this could be another reason for the relatively young age of thirteen. It came to be celebrated in a ceremony (along with birth, marriage, and death) during which the thirteen-year-old blesses and, perhaps, reads from the Torah. Eventually, a celebratory meal was also added.
      Bat Mitzvah ceremonies are a much more modern development, although according to Jewish Law, girls mature faster than boys and are responsible for monies in traditional Orthodox communities, a girl's Bat Mitzvah often went unacknowledged, except by family and by her being subject to most of the commandments. different communities adapted different habits when it came time for a girl to become Bat Mitzvah. The first recorded public Bat Mitzvah ceremony, where a girl read from the Torah, did not occur until the early 1920s/ Today it is a much more common practice.

Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd.