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Scaling Down Spending Is An Uphill Battle.
You've heard the stories of extravagant Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, from "theme" nights to renting the QEII for $500,000.
And you've heard rabbis and Jewish leaders decry such spending as wasteful, tasteless and removed from the spiritual component of these religious events.
But are there signs that anyone is listening to the criticism, particularly during a recession?
One local woman who did resist the spending trend described the fall-out from her experience: She had a party at home with friends and family. She had cooked most of the food herself, serving at small tables arranged throughout the home. A violinist played soft music; people could actually hear each other speak without shouting or straining.
"It was so lovely, but my mother could have sunk through the floor," the woman said. "She was so embarrassed. She said, 'If I had known you were going to do this, if you had needed money, I would have paid for it myself.'"
Breaking a tradition-even one that has become a symbol of ostentatious behavior - is never easy, but at least some Jewish parents are working toward scaling down their spending for a family simcha without appearing like spendthrifts to friends and relatives.
"The more responsibility the family takes in preparing for and celebrating the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the more it belongs to them," said Gail Rosenberg, who has done one of each in recent years. They were held at home and emphasized rituals, as well as speeches and poems by relatives and friends.
"The Bar and Bat Mitzvah is not something that happens to you," she noted. "It's something you make."
Rabbi Shlomo Porter of the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies complains that "people make a bigger deal of the 'bar' rather than the 'mitzvah,'". It's one of the few issues that rabbis of each denomination agree on, but most feel their hands are tied when it comes to reversing the tide.
Rabbi Donald Berlin of Oheb Shalom congregation tells parents to be aware that their...