Rabbi's Messages

Celebrating Confirmation

on Sunday, 29 May 2016.

In some ways, the ceremony of Confirmation – which was lifted from Christian practice – is the most Jewish ritual of all.

On the festival of Shavuot, in Reform congregations all over the world, groups of teenagers will stand on the bima to “confirm” their commitment to Judaism. They will chant from the Torah and speak about what it means to them. At Kol Ami, they will also lead us in worship, and share with us their thoughts on the role of Judaism in their lives. It is a moving and meaningful service, especially because the teens who participate in it have truly chosen it.

The origins of Confirmation are not mysterious. Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, who 100 years ago was President of the Hebrew Union College (our Reform seminary and my rabbinical alma mater), wrote that when Confirmation was:

... borrowed from the Church.... the early Reform leaders had chiefly one object in view: to emancipate religion from the view which regards religion in the main as the concern of man only, and not of woman. (American Reform Responsa, Vol. XXIII, 1913, pp. 170-173)

In other words, Confirmation was the original egalitarian Jewish ceremony! In a world that couldn’t yet imagine Bat Mitzvah (this was the late 1800s, after all), the way to celebrate the education of ALL Jewish children was by creating a new ceremony.

Today, Confirmation is no longer about inclusion of girls. (That’s a foregone conclusion in everything we do.) Rather, it’s become a complement to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah experience. At age 13, children are called to the Torah alone; at 16, they engage in a group project. At age 13, they begin the journey into Jewish adulthood; at 16, they “confirm” those intentions as they really begin to approach adulthood.

So in the end, Confirmation is really about choice. It’s about the choice that so many of our children make to remain involved in Judaism long past the age of Bar and Bat Mitzvah. The choice to keep learning and teaching. The choice to build their lives around Jewish youth group and Jewish community. So powerful is this choice, and so powerful is this group ritual, that our “Adult B’nai Mitzvah” program is actually modeled much more on Confirmation – an opportunity to learn, to build community, and to be called to the Torah as a freely choosing adult.

I hope you’ll join us for the service of Confirmation, known in Hebrew as “Kabbalat Torah – Receiving Torah.” It’s a fun and joyous evening service. It will be held on Erev Shavuot, Saturday June 11, at 6:00pm. That evening will also include our Shavuot Cheesecake Contest (I can’t wait for that one!) and Tikkun Leil Shavuot with Temple Har Zion. See below for details.

Chag Shavuot Sameach – May it be a sweet and happy Shavuot holiday for all.

Rabbi Micah Streiffer