My favorite part of being Jewish is the community even though my attendance is not the best. I enjoy every time I get to go tutoring, High Holidays and Friday night services. When someone asks me “What is a Bar Mitzvah anyway?”, I tell them it’s a big ceremony and later there’s a party, but it’s more than that. It’s a once in a lifetime event and it is celebrating me becoming a man in Judaism. It also makes me step back out of my life and help others.

My mitzvah project was about senior citizens. This involves talking to them about their lives, walking with them getting the gains (that’s 13-year-old speak for “building muscle”). When I talked to them, I asked questions like: “What would you do differently if you got to be 13 again?” I got a variety of answers, but one – one was different. She said: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Keep learning and growing”. That just stuck with me.

Moving forward in my Jewish adulthood, one thing I may do is Hebrew High and another thing I may do is BBYO (if you don’t know what that is, it is a group for Jews who come together and do fun stuff as teens).