Everything you wanted to know about making a bar mitzvah (and some things you didn't)

It’s universally accepted that making a bar mitzvah equals stress. How can we enjoy this milestone, make it special for our son, and still emerge with our nerves (and budgets) intact? Mothers and rebbeim bring you tips, perspective, and a little entertainment

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ou've finally settled on the bar mitzvah date; now comes the big question: How much or little should the bar mitzvah bochur take on? Should he just learn to lein maftir? Maftir and haftarah? The whole parshah? Should he make a siyum?

According to Rabbi Yosef Jacobovics, s'gan menahel of Yeshiva Ktana of Passiac, there's really no rule when it comes to that. "Personally, as a parent, I gave all my sons a choice. I didn't push them. I told them, 'You can take on as much as you want, but start with something small, and we'll keep adding on as you're ready.' They began with maftir, and then went backward and learned one aliyah at a time. I advise parents to do the same."

The time it takes to focus on the "extras" — such as making a siyum, or even learning to lein — will inevitably take away from the learning the boys are doing in school. "But in the bigger picture, if it makes a boy feel successful and accomplished, you end up gaining more than you lose," says Rabbi Jacobovics.

Rabbi Hillel Drazin is a fourth-grade rebbi at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland and has been a bar mitzvah rebbi for over 35 years, teaching hundreds of boys to lein, including two of my sons. He agrees with the mehalach of not pressuring boys. "Once the boy doesn't feel pressure, he usually does more than we expect him to. If the father or mother approaches it with the attitude of, 'I think he could do the whole thing, but no pressure,' then it usually works out.

"But parents should still show that they care about it," says Rabbi Drazin. If the parents show no interest at all, the kid picks that up also and might ask himself why he should bother. The trends of each class also make a difference. "If the boys in his class just do maftir and haftarah, then a boy is less likely to learn more unless there's a family tradition to do so."

Rochel, from Silver Spring, has made four bar mitzvahs, and while her first son leined the whole parshah, her next son was not as motivated. "I didn't handle it as well as I would have liked, and it unfortunately became a negative experience." For her next two sons, she and her husband asked them to practice 20 minutes a night. "We communicated that this was our expectation, and it was their responsibility to make sure it happened."

It's not obligatory for a boy to lein, but if parents are interested in the possibility of their son leining the whole parshah, Rabbi Drazin recommends starting around a year before the bar mitzvah. "Kids go away in the summer, you have breaks, you have vacation, so you're not going to have a full year of studying. You're going to have many breaks in between."

If a boy is interested in making a siyum, it requires even more advanced planning. When one of Leah's sons made a siyum on Shas Mishnayos for his bar mitzvah, he started learning toward that goal in  fourth grade. "This milestone can be an opportunity to prepare the boys for life," Leah notes. "Making a siyum and saying the Hadran is a life skill  they can practice now so they will have those abilities going forward."