Putting on an act can pay off.
I was terrified. My sister and I sat in the front seat of my great-grandfather’s Cadillac. She was 10-years-old and I was 13. Today marked the day of my passage to manhood. The parking lot at Temple Isreal gave us a minute of privacy before services began.
My GG asked me to move his car into the handicapped parking spot while he used his walker to find his seat in the temple. Renee smiled and looked at me as I maneuvered into the parking spot.
“What’s wrong Greg?”
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want this. It’s not for me. This Bar Mitzvah is for everyone else.”
I was dripping with shame.
Had I studied enough? Why didn’t I feel like I was doing anything worth value? I didn’t learn to read directly from the Torah so was I less worthy for the Bar Mitzvah honor?
Why did our Rabbi quit last week? We had an interim Rabbi I didn’t know or like when we met. I had to run the service without the Rabbi’s help. What if everybody thought the way I did things was terrible?
