Becoming a Jewish Adult

A young person reads from a Torah scroll with two adults by their side, in a ceremonial setting.

The path to adulthood is full of twists and turns. From celebrating a bar/bat mitzvah to leaving home for the first time, this is a journey fraught with new freedom, new responsibilities, and an abundance of complex emotions. We offer blessings, prayers, and rituals that help parents and children use a Jewish vocabulary to describe this journey—and to experience it as richly as possible.

 

Latest Rituals

A mother’s prayer, written for her son’s bar mitzvah

teenaged boy's face against green background

A beautiful poem about a daughter’s coming of age

A woman sits against a tree, reading a tablet, surrounded by a sunny, grassy park.
Riffing on the now-traditional candle-lighting, this ceremony offers a candle for eight women in Jewish history.
A person holding a lit candle at a nighttime vigil, surrounded by others with candles.
A beautiful alternative to a candle-lighting ceremony
Person in a purple shirt holding a stainless steel cup with heart cutouts.
Following the synagogue service, a minyan of community members conveys what membership in the community entails.
Circle of women in colorful sweaters touching hands in the middle

A mother’s poem describing her experiences with divorce as they affected her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah

A chain of red and blue paperclips linked together on a textured concrete surface.
The goal of the Remember Us Project is to have each Bar or Bat Mitzvah student remember one individual child lost in the Holocaust.
holocaust memorial
Poem marking the occasion of a child’s Bat/Bar Mitzvah
Close-up of a black fabric drawstring bag on a wooden surface, with white rope drawstrings.

A mother’s prayer on the occasion of her daughter becoming Bat Mitzvah

red haired teenaged girl facing the ocean

The Reconstructionist Network

Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement

Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis

Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues

Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives

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The Reconstructionist Network