Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah | A Story of Family and Memory

Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah

Lucas stood before our community and did something I ask of every Bar and Bat Mitzvah student, but that not every thirteen year old is ready to do. He looked past himself. He looked back at his great grandparents lighting Hanukkah candles in Argentina. He looked back further still, to a boy named Nissim Mordehay in Bulgaria, a boy he never met and never could have met, and he made a promise to remember him.

That is what Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah was really about. Not just a milestone. A link between generations.

Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah and a Family’s Traditions, Carried Forward

Lucas began his remarks by talking about inheritance, not the kind that shows up in a bank account, but the kind that shows up at a table. He spoke about lighting Hanukkah candles and eating matzo ball soup the same way his parents did with their own grandparents in Argentina. He spoke about Passover, and about the Haggadah his Aunt Vero designed, which his family reads together every year.

I love this part of Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah speech because it names something true about Jewish continuity. It rarely survives through grand gestures. It survives through soup. Through a Haggadah someone in the family took the time to design. Through a candle lit the same way, year after year, in whatever country the family happens to call home. Lucas understood that his job now is to keep carrying those small, specific things forward.

Remembering Nissim Mordehay

The most powerful part of Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah D’var Torah was his decision to tell the story of Nissim Mordehay, a Jewish boy born in 1932 in Ihtiman, Bulgaria. Nissim’s family ran a clothing and textile shop and lived as part of a close Jewish community, until Bulgaria allied with Nazi Germany and Jewish children were barred from public school and forced to wear the yellow star. In 1943, when the Nazis ordered Bulgaria’s Jews deported, it was the Bulgarian people, their leaders, and their church who stood up and refused to let it happen. Nissim survived. He was able to grow up and tell his story precisely because ordinary people chose courage.

Family in the Front Row for Lucas’s Bar Mitzvah

No Bar Mitzvah morning is complete without a thank you, and Lucas’s were full of the kind of specific, lived-in detail that tells you a family truly shows up for each other. He thanked his mom for dropping everything to help with homework and for rearranging her work schedule for every school event, every karate class, every soccer and baseball game. He thanked his dad for practicing with him despite long hours, for teaching him about saving and investing, and for getting him started on his fitness journey. He thanked his sister Emma for the drives, the arguments, and the promise that they will always have each other’s backs, even after she leaves for college.

Mazel tov, Lucas, and mazel tov to your whole family. May you keep every one of these promises.

With love and blessings,

Rabbi Amy