IB World Religions 6.2.1. Rites of Passage: B'rit Milah, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, Marriage, Divorce and Death Notes

6.2.1. Rites of Passage: B'rit Milah, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, Marriage, Divorce and Death

Rites and the covenant

1. Judaism marks the turning points of a life with rituals that Jews understand as moments when the b'rit (covenant) becomes visible in one person. Birth, adulthood, marriage and death each receive words and actions fixed by halakhah (Jewish law).
2. These are family occasions before they are synagogue occasions, held in a home, a hall or a cemetery. A rabbi is usually present as an expert in the law rather than as the one performing the rite.
3. Every rite rests on mitzvot (commandments) rather than on sacrament. Jews do not generally hold that a ceremony confers a new spiritual condition; it marks an obligation the Torah is held to have imposed already.
4. The movements diverge most where a rite touches personal status: who counts as married, divorced or Jewish. Israel's laws of status follow halakhah as Orthodox authorities read it, so a ceremony accepted in one movement may not be recognized there.
5. Taken in order the rites tell one story. A child is brought into the covenant, an adolescent accepts its obligations, a couple undertakes a Jewish home, and the community buries its dead under the same law.

B'rit milah and naming

1. B'rit milah (covenant of circumcision) is performed on a boy on the eighth day after birth, counting the birth day itself. Jews trace it to Genesis 17, where God is said to command circumcision of Abraham and his descendants as the covenant's sign.
2. The eighth day holds even when it falls on Shabbat or Yom Kippur, which almost no other obligation does. Only the child's health postpones it, and the rite then waits until a doctor permits.
3. The cutting is carried out by a mohel, a circumciser examined in the surgical technique and in the relevant halakhah. Many mohalim in Britain and the United States are qualified doctors too.
4. The sandek holds the child during the operation, an honour often given to a grandfather, and an empty seat is set aside as the chair of Elijah, whom Jews expect at every b'rit as witness. The boy receives his Hebrew name there.
5. Girls receive a Hebrew name without surgery. Orthodox families usually have the father called to the Torah to announce it, while Reform, Liberal and many Conservative communities hold a simchat bat or zeved habat as the girl's counterpart.
6. Reform and Liberal Judaism kept b'rit milah while setting aside many other ritual mitzvot, calling it the covenant's oldest and most public sign. Pidyon haben (redemption of the firstborn son) is a separate rite kept in Orthodoxy and generally dropped elsewhere.

Bar and bat mitzvah

1. Bar mitzvah means son of the commandment, and the phrase names the boy rather than the ceremony. Jews hold that a boy becomes bar mitzvah at thirteen whether or not anything is celebrated, since the Torah's obligations fall on him at that age.
2. The ceremony marks the first public exercise of that status. On the Shabbat after his thirteenth birthday he is called up for an aliyah, the honour of standing at the bimah while a portion of the Torah is read.
3. In most communities he chants the portion himself, or the haftarah reading from the Nevi'im (Prophets), having learned the cantillation over months of preparation.
4. From that day he counts in a minyan (prayer quorum) and puts on tefillin for weekday morning prayer. Many boys also give a drashah, a short talk on the passage they have read.
5. Bat mitzvah means daughter of the commandment. Reform and Liberal congregations developed a parallel ceremony in which the girl reads from the Torah as a boy does, and Conservative communities have largely followed.
6. Orthodox communities mark a girl's coming of age at twelve, usually with bat chayil (daughter of worth) rather than a Torah reading. That may be a celebration at home, a talk on a Jewish theme, or a ceremony for several girls together.

Marriage, ketubah and get

1. Kiddushin (betrothal) and nisuin (marriage) were once separated by months and are now performed together under a chuppah, a canopy open on all four sides that Jews read as the home the couple will build. The groom gives a ring and declares her consecrated to him according to the law of Moses and Israel.
2. The ketubah is read aloud between the two acts. It is the marriage contract, written in Aramaic, in which the husband undertakes to feed, clothe and live with his wife, and it names the sum payable to her if the marriage ends.
3. Orthodox ketubot keep the ancient wording and its one-sided obligations. Conservative texts add the Lieberman clause binding both parties to a rabbinic court, and Reform and Liberal versions are usually mutual and printed with a translation.
4. The sheva berachot (seven blessings) are chanted over wine to close the ceremony, and the groom breaks a glass under his foot. Jews most often explain the breaking as remembrance of the destroyed Temple, so no joy is left complete.
5. A Jewish marriage ends by document rather than by decree. The get is a bill of divorce written by a sofer (scribe) at the husband's instruction and placed by him into the wife's hands before witnesses at a Beth Din (rabbinic court).
6. Orthodox and Conservative authorities require a get before either party may remarry in synagogue, whatever a civil court has ruled. Reform and Liberal Judaism in Britain accept a civil divorce, though many Reform Jews obtain a get so a later marriage is recognized more widely.

Death and the chevra kaddisha

1. Jewish burial is fast. Halakhah asks for burial within a day where possible, and delay is accepted only so close relatives can travel or because Shabbat and festivals intervene.
2. The body is not left alone between death and burial. A shomer (watcher) sits with it reciting psalms, which Jews describe as kavod ha-met, honour shown to the dead who cannot repay it.
3. The chevra kaddisha (holy society) is the volunteer burial society that prepares the body. Its members perform taharah, a ritual washing accompanied by verses, and dress it in tachrichim, plain white shrouds without pockets.
4. The plainness is deliberate. Coffins are undecorated wood, in Israel often no coffin at all, and rich and poor are buried alike, since death removes the distinctions the living work to maintain.
5. Orthodox halakhah forbids cremation and embalming, reading both as offences against the dignity of a body made in God's image and against its return to the earth intact. Reform and Liberal communities permit cremation, and some of their cemeteries inter ashes.
6. Mourners perform keriah at the funeral, tearing a garment or a black ribbon pinned to it, on the left for a parent and the right for other relatives. At the graveside they recite the Kaddish, an Aramaic prayer that praises God and never mentions death.

Mourning, stone-setting and yahrzeit

1. Jewish mourning is graded rather than uniform, and the obligations lighten in stages instead of stopping at once. Shiva, sheloshim and the twelve months observed for a parent each ask less than the stage before.
2. Shiva means seven and is the week that follows burial. The mourners stay at home, sit low, cover the mirrors, and do not work, shave or wear leather shoes, while the community comes to them.
3. Visitors bring the food and make up the minyan so Kaddish can be said in the house. Custom holds that a visitor waits for the mourner to speak first, so a silent visit is a complete one.
4. Sheloshim means thirty and runs to the thirtieth day after burial. Mourners return to work but keep away from parties and live music, and for a parent that continues a full year, with Kaddish recited for eleven months.
5. The matzevah (headstone) is erected at a ceremony called stone-setting, held within the first year and in Britain usually near the eleven or twelve month mark. The family gather at the grave, psalms are read, and a cloth is drawn off.
6. Each year the death is marked on its Hebrew date as yahrzeit, when a candle burns for a day and Kaddish is said. Reform and Liberal practice often shortens shiva to three days while keeping stone-setting, yahrzeit and Yizkor, the memorial prayer said on Yom Kippur and the pilgrim festivals.