BAR MITZVAH by Bob Oré Abitbol 

When I was younger I found out that if I was to become a man, I had to study Hebrew. 

What little of the language that I had been taught to repeat in little kid pre-school, taught to us by our clearly lonely Hebrew teacher, Mr Edery - had long since evaporated and once I entered Big Boy Primary School any remaining fragments of it were quickly replaced by the mandatory Latin, Spanish and English. And why not? Hebrew was an old and useless language used only for praying. So who cared. 

and yet, 

I wasn’t aware that the language was alive and thriving in Israel, and that it had - as things always do - returned in full force to the land of our ancestors and onto the very streets where I would play. 

But either way, we figured - the genius children we were - that these were two different things - Prayer Hebrew and Walking Around Hebrew. They didn’t have, as far as we were concerned, anything to do with one another. Other than we didn’t understand either one.  

Too often we found ourselves, the youth of Casablanca, mumbling Hebraic sounds in synagogue - giving the thin illusion to others that we were praying, and therefore religious, and therefore goodpeople. 

Baruch ata adonay ...

Bar Mitzvahs were mandatory and a source of pride for our mothers and fathers, with my mother especially, so I knew how to use that fact to my advantage and it lead to a wonderful few years of trying to blackmail her. 

I wanted a blazer. 100% Pure wool. From The Carnival of Venice. I wanted pants, not just any pants, but patented pants - with an elastic that allowed you to go belt-less. I wanted shoes from the best shoe store in town - I would basically ask for the moon and only settle for The Sun. I wanted a Motorcycle. A real one. Not a moped, or a brake-less bike like the kind that had already tried (and failed) to kill me when taking me down steep down hill rides. No, I wanted a real, bad boy, from the movies, engine blaring Motorcycle, or there would be No Bar Mitzvah.

But my mother refused to be blackmailed, in fact she withstood any other forms of pressure I could think of applying. She had seven children, after all,  and if she showed any momentary weakness and indulged one child, once - well then every inch of high ground she had would be lost. She’d go broke. If any one of us got word that any other one of us got something, we would be right there - a pack of hungry wolves - howling for a treat of our own. 

So to save herself the hassle she cut the argument out of the equation and simply said ‘No’ to everyone.

But that didn’t stop me. I was, after all, (according to myself) different from the rest of my brothers, than our sister - who although she was the one girl in a house of boys she had inherited my mother’s strength and so she rivaled the combined determination and strength of the brothers) and even then, I though I was better. I was special. And so it was simple to conclude that because of this I should be allowed special treatment. 

My father was a generous soul, and said yes to everything. He just wanted his home full of happiness. But my mother kept the check book and held the purse strings, and so my father’s pleas to “Give the children something” landed on her aggressively deaf ears. 

“We are not the Rothchilds!” my mother would yell at my (God Bless him) persistent father. 

Ah, the fabled Rothschild family of my youth! How often we were compared to them, how many times would I hear the phrase “But we are not the Rothchilds!” - later to be replaced by the ‘Rockefellers” — how these families made us suffer. It seemed like these families had a cruel vendetta against our family, and wanted nothing more in their lives than for me and my siblings to suffer. I knew very little of these “Rothchilds” and the “Rockerfellers” but they seemed evil to me. Every time we would ask our Mother for something, anything, outside of the norm of our already set in stone daily routine, and we would hear: “But we are not the Rothchilds!” we were denied basic pleasures and life adventures because this ridiculous family had decided we couldn’t. If I wanted the Bar Mitzvah I thought I deserved it was time to come up with a new plan. 

I agreed to take Hebrew lessons. To learn the basics prayers for my transition from child to responsible adult. This did not mean I had agreed to the ceremony, but I wanted to be prepared and ready to go should my mother come to her senses and grant me my many reasonable requests. 

My teacher, chosen my the Omega of my family (my mother), was a man named Abraham Amar - a cousin she had acquired through marriage - who had apparently taught the prayers to my other cousins. Abraham Amar would meet me at my house after school. He would wobble down the street with his short legs and medium build. Peering at me with his grim eyes, shadowed by a large hat that must have been nailed to his head. Even on the brief and unusual moments when he would remove the hat to wipe his sweaty brow, there was a yarmulke glued to his head, protecting him from the terrible circumstance where his hat might fly off his head, without warning and God were to catch him hatless! Uncovered head mocking the clouds! Heaven Forbid! 

Here was a man who did not take unnecessary risks. Except with the drink. 

He was perpetually tipsy, and the alcohol laced vapors that would emanate from his toothless mouth would get me drunk most times, by the end of our lessons. By the end of the first day, I at least had the prayer of blessing over wine committed to memory. 

Normally, a communion or Bar Mitzvah is celebrated at the awkward age of 13. But that age for me came and went as my mother and I held strong to our convictions and wouldn’t budge. 

• Me: My Bike! My Blazer! My Pants! My Shoes! 

all met with my mother’s resounding and almost musical

- No! 

Over time I had noticed patterns and predictions of how my family, especially my mother, tended to operate. Through trial and error, and countless hours of analyzing the data, I established a scheme that would allow me to calculate the amount of time I needed to spend crying, moping or ‘helping’ around the house in order to get a specific thing I desired. Depending the cost of the item, or how hard it was to find I would calculate the amount of time needed. From two days of tears to two months of moping - it was a mathematical science, and one day off and you could blow the whole operation. You had to be patient, space out the crying, compliment her cooking, pick your moments and moods, and take advantage of those times when she was distracted. It was all about adapting to the situation, but being trained enough to know what to do when you had to adapt. 

You had to get up really early to get one over my mother. She was always on to our tricks and schemes, and so we always had to keep them evolving. She was more clever and cunning than all her kids combined, so it was a true win if you were able to figure out how to get her to fall for it. And God help you if in your frustration of the game you make fun of her. She was our mother after all, and she not only was she the authority of the house, but she had also seen it all. Done it all. We were her children - and we inherited that part of ourselves, that would always keep searching for how to get what we want - from her.  

In order to get our allowance, it was the same uphill battle. If we needed money for the movies, the pool, the bus, for hot dogs and chips at the movies, a post pool jam donut, or a comic to read on the bus - we needed to see the matriarch. And even though our daily rituals were well documented and hardly ever varied, it was still as though my mother  were being asked for money for the first time in her life. 

And so everything was scrutinized. From our school results and our conduct, every at of misbehavior, every moment of stubborn hard headedness on our part, or attitude, or even our arguments and fights with the neighborhood children - went into review before a cent was spared. Even something as little as refusing to do my Bar Mitzvah. 

Each time my brothers, my sister and me would line up, single file - and went through the motions of apologizing, promising and praying to her that we will never do anything bad again. We needed that money, our friends were all waiting outside, and there we were  - an army of children, whining like puppies to their unmovable mother. 

And my mother? She would be laying on the sofa, in a comfortable half nap caused from the heavy Shabbat delicacy of Dafina, a robust meal she would often enjoy with brandy, chewing the savory meat like bubblegum.  Pretending to sleep, one hand draped ceremoniously over her eyes, deep even breathing - but still the consistent chewing and gum slapping that came from enjoying a brandy and Dafina, the sound echoed throughout the darkened living room, and I knew her slumber was false. So we would call her bluff, and a begrudging mother would hand over a handful of coins. Always less than the agreed upon “allowance”. So even in our “victory” we still had to negotiate.

Finally, after first giving us a healthy portion of insults and curses, she would hand over more money, making us promise a lot of things we would of course immediately forget, once we had our gold in hand. 

When we met up with the rest of the neighborhood children, we ran straight to the fashionable movie theaters of Casablanca. The Lutetia, the Vox, the Lynx and the Rialto! Pockets full of coins, heads full of wonder and a town full of movie theaters - we were in heaven. 

Suddenly, life was good again! Our spirits and good moods magically returning! The never-ending battle against my mother had been won, but the war would continue next week. 

It was at this time in my life that my father decided to die. Truly bad timing. I loved my father. He was a good man, honest and generous. He had never been ill and then suddenly he was taken in the prime of his life and left unceremoniously. He was only 53 years old, and I was 14 going on 15 - and still hadn’t done my Bar Mitzvah. 

My mother had already begun to begrudgingly give in to my demands and I now rode proudly on my beautiful new bike complete with a cimatti engine. And despite the grief myself and the whole family was shrouded in, according to the prominent rabbis, my Bar Mitzvah had been announced and so it must be carried out. 

So we did it. I did it. I acquainted myself well (enough) with my readings. I studied with my toothless drunk of a teacher at my side, learning the correct pronunciation. My mother, all in black, wept at the absence of my father, we lost the man of the house, as I was becoming my own man. That evening we had a small reception at home with her friends and mine.

-“ It's sad but it's life” was the dark comment uttered by one of the guests.

It was a strange feeling, with my father gone, I felt forced into growing up faster than I would have. My Bar Mitzvah had to wait for my life to be ready for my next evolution. I would not delay to go. I would soon leave my city, my family, my friends and the relative comfort of my life.  

A few months later, I left Casablanca for Paris, alone. Where other adventures, happy and less happy, waited for me. In my head I was shaking, but in my heart, I was not afraid!

by Bob Oré Abitbol  / Translated by Simon Oré

boboreint@gmail.com