Mazel Tov!

This weekend’s Bar Mitzvah for grandson #2 was a roaring success.

That is, except for the traffic on the way there. Family and friends converging on the hills of New Jersey from all directions all ran into the phenomenon of NYC-ers hightailing it out of the city to enjoy one of the last weekends of summer. It took two hours for one person to get over the George Washington Bridge, our son coming from Rhode Island had at least an hour and a half added to his trip, and what’s usually a four hour trip for us expanded into 5. 

Still, once we got there, everything smoothed out like a silk bedspread.

For those unfamiliar with the custom, a Bar Mitzvah can be as involved as a wedding – a gathering the night before, temple services and rituals to organize, the party itself with a DJ and centerpieces and favors and a photographer and a full meal (and many, many friends of the boy), an after-party, then breakfast the next day.

The weather was absolutely perfect every single day.

Everything my daughter and son-in-law had planned went like clockwork.

My beautiful daughter was downright luminous in her blue dress.

Miraculously, my handsome son didn’t throw his sometimes sketchy back out after lifting one person after another in the chair dance.

The sign-in board that My Guy painted was truly a work of art.

We managed to contain the youngest grandboy, 8 year old Eli’s, enthusiasm to a 2.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Gerry, the 15 year-old grandboy, didn’t die of embarrassment after all when he was dragged periodically into the spotlight.

No one realized that my dress, chosen largely because it was so comfortable, had cost me only $10. (Thank you Marshall’s end of season sale.)

My Guy and I, and our son, didn’t flub our readings –no, not in Hebrew. We’re all about as WASPy as they come.

Our lovely daughter-in-law, who is Jewish, read with composure and skill.

And family and friends embraced and reconnected and celebrated.

Best of all, our young man of the hour not only knocked his readings (Four pages in Hebrew, and did you know it’s written without vowels in the Torah, and is not read but sung?) out of the park, but was so accomplished that he’ll be reading for the temple at the next holiday.