Bar and Bat Mitzvahs

I grew up in a predominantly Jewish suburb in south Florida. I, along with nearly all of my friends, am Jewish. Having a lot of Jewish friends means many things, but when everyone is in middle school, it means attending Bar and Bat Mitzvahs galore. A Bar (for a boy) or Bat (for a girl) Mitzvah is the religious ceremony where a Jewish child of the age of thirteen is said to become an adult…at least, a Jewish one.

While the Bar/Bat Mitzvah itself is actually the service at a synagogue, most people just associate it with the party that comes afterward. Everyone’s parties are very different – different venues, different themes, different food, different people, etc. Some have live bands and some have DJS. Some are in the afternoon and some are in the evening. However, and I don’t know if it was a south Florida thing or an everywhere thing, nearly every single Bar/Mitzvah I went to during that span of time concluded with the playing of Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For” while everyone (or at least all of the kids) stood in a circle and linked arms.

Living in San Francisco now, I attend a Bar Trivia night almost every week with my roommate and friends (it is what it sounds like; you answer trivia questions at a bar). One of the rounds is always the music round, where one minute clips of songs are played and you have to identify the artist. One week, I heard “That’s What Friends Are For”. I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t identify the song as Dionne Warwick’s (I certainly will as of now), but at that moment the memory of every single Bar/Bat Mitzvah I ever attended flooded back into my mind.