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July 6, 2007
A family-wide simchah
Three generations step up to the bimah together.
FREEMAN PORITZ
Norman Charach is 85. Marty Charach is 53 years old. And Daniel
Charach is 13. What do all three of them have in common, besides
being part of the same family? On June 23, all three of them –
grandfather, father and son – celebrated their bar mitzvahs
at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Richmond.
The intergenerational bar mitzvah saga kicked off a year-and-a-half
ago when Marty decided to read from the Torah alongside his son
at Daniel's bar mitzvah.
"I never had [a bar mitzvah]," Marty said. "A year-and-a-half
ago, I couldn't read a word of Hebrew. So my good friend Richard
Elias sat down with me and taught me to read. Now, I'll be reading
from the Torah."
With the inclusion of his father, Marty decided to turn the occasion
into a family affair. "My father, Norman, is having an aliyah.
He's never even had an aliyah," said Marty.
Around 250 people were in attendance for the congregational Shabbat
lunch hosted by the Charachs following the bar mitzvah – including
family members from across Canada and the United States. All were
in good spirits, said Norman: "I was standing all the time
to say the maftir and then everybody said what a great job I did."
The weekly Torah portion was Parashat Chukat, of which Marty read
four verses. "I read everything perfectly, with evidently a
good tune," he said. Daniel read the remainder of the parashah,
the maftir and the Haftorah. In his ceremonial post-bar mitzvah
speech, Daniel, the new "man" of the congregation, who
will be starting high school this fall, spoke on the subject of
his Haftorah, which recounted the story of Jephthah's rise to leadership
as a judge, and how to succeed despite major challenges. Jephthah
was thrown out of his ancestral village by his half-brothers because
his mother was a concubine.
"He got kicked out of his own town because his mother was a
prostitute," Daniel explained. "And I just talked about
how unfair it is to be kicked out, not for something you did, but
for something that someone else did, and then the blame goes on
you. And then they asked him to come back for the war and help them,
be their leader, but he could have said to them, since you kicked
me out, why should I come back? Buthe did go back, because he wanted
to show them how strong he [was]."
Reflecting on the bar mitzvah several days later, Daniel commented,
"Well, it was really cool to have my whole family there, to
be able to share it with my grandpa and my dad. It made me feel
really good about myself."
"It [the bar mitzvah] was amazing," added Marty. "The
rabbi was great. We all three did well in our own parts. Of course,
my son did great, as a 13-year-old. I was pleased with everything
and everybody. And it was a really moving, touching experience.
It just went beyond expectations. It was everything we could have
hoped for."
The family have been members of Beth Tikvah since 1987 – and
with this simchah, their connection has only grown stronger. Daniel
summed up his rite of passage into the Jewish faith: "Me and
the rabbi talked about me still going to synagogue and being part
of the Jewish community. And I'm still going to go to synagogue,
probably not every weekend like I did before my bar mitzvah, but
I'm still going to go. It makes me feel more part of the Jewish
community."
Freeman Poritz is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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