My favorite thing about being Jewish is getting to meet new people who have similar ideas to me. Since starting religious school three years ago, I have made really good friends with a lot of the people I met at Temple Beth El. Becoming a bat mitzvah means becoming a Jewish adult. For me, this means more opportunities to learn about and participate in Jewish culture; I will have more opportunities to chant Torah, or travel to Israel with Birthright when I am in college.

This year, I have learned that I am definitely capable of more than I thought I was – I would never have imagined that I would be able to read another language. I didn’t even think I would ever become a bat mitzvah before we moved here!

For my mitzvah project, we are planning to prepare bags with toiletries and snacks and give them to the men’s or women’s shelter so that they can hand them out to those who need them. We were originally planning to keep some in our cars and give some to friends to keep in their cars to hand out to people when we saw them, but in our current situation, it seemed safer and smarter to give them to an organization who can put them to good use.

Now that I am a bat mitzvah, I want to get involved in NFTY and I want to go to Hebrew High so that I can keep learning and still see my friends even though I don’t go to school with them – and I want to go to Israel so I can see all of the things we learned about in religious school!

Lindsay is the daughter of Cary and Jamie Pfeffer. She is the sister of Chloe Pfeffer. She is the granddaughter of Shari and Les Jelinek of Del Ray Beach FL, Randie Wolfe of Hilton Head SC, and Skip Pfeffer and Marilyn Levy of Long Island NY. Send notes of mazel tov.