(z)It

My eldest nephew became a Bar Mitzvah last weekend, a carefully and lovingly prepared for and anticipated event that drew family and friends from all over the country. The preparations took place on many levels.

There were the Bar Mitzvah boy's preparations over several years, during which time he leyned (learned) with his maternal grandfather, his rabbi and other members of his orthodox congregation to master the Torah reading, the Friday night service and most of the Saturday morning service, not to mention preparing and reciting two speeches (he got a bit of a break - they were both in English).

There were the preparations of the Bar Mitzvah boy's mother, who orchestrated and coordinated and organized a Shabbat dinner at the synagogue for out of town guests, an extended noshing session at their home on Saturday and, on Sunday, as if we hadn't already eaten more than enough, a brunch for out of town guests. Not to mention contacting nearby hotels, reserving blocks of rooms and negotiating the best possible deal. And she hired a photographer to take various permutations of family portraits on Friday afternoon, before the Sabbath began, and on Sunday, during our final food-oriented gathering.

There were the preparations of the out of town relatives: reserving plane tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars and, not trivially, figuring out what to wear and, realizing they had nothing suitable for a summer event at an orthodox synagogue (no short skirts, no sleeveless tops!), hitting the stores in a flummoxed frenzy.

Events like these - important milestones in a beloved family member's life - are a cause for celebration but can also provoke anxiety among the relatives, the vicarious variety as they imagine what it might be like for the Bar Mitzvah boy to complete all of his tasks in front of hundreds of people, or actual anxiety related to the passage of time...how did the last 13 years go by so quickly, and can we remember how we've spent those years?

Among the single women of a certain age attending this event, there was the possibility of anxiety around whether they'd ever marry, raise a child and be able to attend that child's rite of passage. Among the grandparents of the Bar Mitzvah boy, perhaps there was anxiety around whether they would live to see all of their grandchildren become Bar or Bat Mitzvot.

But, interestingly, despite these many possibilities, I detected very little free floating anxiety at this event. My theory is that all the anxiety - of the Bar Mitzvah boy himself, of his family and friends, of his relatives - gathered itself into a tiny but intense ball of pulsating energy and implanted itself squarely on the very Jewish nose of my younger brother (who is a husband, father and uncle), turning itself into an enormous red zit.

I think my younger brother's schnozz was the most appropriate place for this coagulation of collective anxiety to attach itself, since it was going to land on someone. By choosing my brother, the anxiety-filled-zit spared the Bar Mitzvah boy (and all the women in the family) the lifelong disgrace of appearing in the family photos with an unsightly red mound on his face (my nephew has clear porcelain-like skin, and may it stay that way throughout his adolescence and beyond). Moreover, since my younger brother adamantly refused to become Bar Mitzvah when he was at that age, deeply disappointing my parents and wreaking havoc on the life of our family during that time, it seems fitting that, for the weekend of his nephew's big event, he should bear this pulsating pimple on his beak, perhaps as penance for the Bar Mitzvah he never had?

That is my theory, anyway.