Bat Mitzvah Celebrations -- Seudat Mitzvah (i.e. The Party)

I just noticed that I never posted what I wrote about my daughter's Bat Mitzvah Seudah  (I wrote the post on July 6th!)
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We finally got it right (almost).

With each Bat/Bar Mitzvah, we get a little better....

We chose the same hall and the same caterer that we used for our son's Bar Mitzvah.  And, as before, we had friends photograph and video the event.

But, this time, we started our presentations earlier and we had a set of dancing before and after the speeches.

In our previous simchas, the dancing never seemed to work out quite right.

This time, my dear friend, Naomi Moss*, coordinated our music and dancing.  She is FANTASTIC.  She knew just what to play and when.  And when the dances were a little more complicated, she got out there on the dance floor and danced with the kids!  She even brought a jump-rope with her!

The dancing during the first set was a combination of grown-ups and kids, but after that, the kids took over, as they should!

They lifted my daughter up in a chair, they spun her around with their legs wrapped around her chair, they tossed her in the air with one of the tablecloths, and, of course, they did all these funky dances that kids do at Bar/Bat Mitzvahs in Israel.

My daughter knew some of the dances better than others, but she was out there, dancing her heart out and having a great time.

At the end of the evening, Naomi even played "Erev ba" for my mom (it is my mom's favorite Israeli dance) -- there were not that many of us left to dance, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

We got lucky this year, because our daughter's birthday fell during the school year, so most of the kids from her class came to celebrate with her.  As Israeli kids do, they wrote her a song and sang it for her. 

I will write a seperate post about her d'var Torah, which was just so impressive.

I spoke next, with the obligatory embarrassing stories that share some of our daughter's more special moments.  Then Moshe, my mom and my dad.  Moshe's mom does not like speaking in public and Moshe's dad preferred to speak only at the Shabbat meal.

Another good friend made a Bat Mitzvah cake, with images from the parsha (Balak).  My daughter's eye's lit up when she realized the decorations on the cake were images of a donkey and an angel! (if you don't get it, read the parsha).

We even made mazkarot (momentos) this time... though we forgot to put them on the tables!  So friend's picked up the slack and distributed them to our guests.  We still have more, so let us know if you want a pocket sized copy of Tefillat HaDerech, let us know! (Why we chose that as our mazkeret is a topic for another post, b'li neder)

It was a wonderful evening.  We felt surrounded by family and friends. Though there were many smachot that evening, many family and friends, who could not stay for the entire evening, made the effort to at least pop in and wish us a mazal tov.




Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA

* To contact Naomi for your simcha:
Naomi Moss naomi.moss6@gmail.com
02-566-5626
054-542-6562