One of my favorite things about being Jewish is getting to go to temple instead of school on Jewish holidays. I also think it’s really cool that we have made it to today even though so many people have tried to hurt us over the years. For me, becoming a bar mitzvah means becoming more of an adult – taking on more responsibilities, both in Judaism and in the rest of my life. For example, it means I will now count as part of a minyan when people are working to gather enough people for certain prayers. Moving forward, I plan to participate in Hebrew High and am thinking about being a part of the madrichim program.

In preparing for my Bar Mitzvah, I learned that it is a lot harder than previously expected. At first, I thought it was just going to be memorizing a couple of lines and saying them out loud for people – but it’s much more about learning them than memorizing them, and meant that I had to practice a lot, not just during tutoring sessions.

For my mitzvah project, I am planning to work with younger kids – reading to them and hanging out with them. I am good with younger kids and like working with them; they don’t judge me and they just want to have fun – and, it is nice to have someone looking up to me!