Cries of “Mazel Tov!” filled the air of the Butt C lounge on Saturday morning as the family, friends, and members of the Wesleyan Jewish community gathered for the fourth annual Adult B’nei Mitzvah service. Ari King ’09, Matt Johnson ’07, D’or Seifer ’10, Will Leuchter-Mindel ’07, and Molly Shuster ’07 participated in the coming of age ceremony.

The five B’nei Mitzvahs (the term is applied to the participants as well as the ceremony) led most of the Shabbat morning service, reading from the Torah and discussing their relationship with Judaism in short speeches. Most participants focused these speeches on why they decided to get involved in the B’nei Mitzvah program.

“[The Adult B’nei Mitzvah program] is a way for students to express themselves and find their identity, like a lot of other things at Wesleyan,” Johnson said over bagels and lox at the Kiddush brunch behind the Bayit following the service.

Traditionally, when a Jewish child reaches the age of maturity, typically at 13 years old for boys and 12 years old for girls, Jewish families hold a celebratory ceremony to acknowledge that the child has become an adult member of the community and must bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics. This is known as a Bar Mitzvah for boys, and a Bat Mitzvah for girls. B’nei Mitzvah is the plural form.

The Adult B’nei Mitzvah program gives Jewish students at the University who did not have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah when they were younger the opportunity to explore their heritage.

Seifer, one of the program participants, was born and raised in a secular home in Israel.

“Orthodoxy is the main branch of Judaism and it’s not acceptable for women to get a Bat Mitzvah, so it was never even brought up [as a possibility],” she said.

Although it is not traditional for members of the Jewish community to be Bar or Bat Mitzvahed so late, some feel it is more of a serious undertaking to choose to participate as a college student rather than as family obligation.

“It is about finding your Jewish identity, and in some ways I feel it’s a lot more meaningful now because they are consciously doing it,” said Adult B’nei Mitzvah program co-coordinator Rachel Berkowitz ’09.

Seifer decided to participate in the program for some of the reasons Berkowitz identified.

“At first I knew my mother would be a little concerned because she studied at an intensely religious school in America and hated it, but I made it clear that this wasn’t me becoming ultra religious but more of a way for me to connect to my roots and join a community,” she said.

According to those involved, studying for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is a lot of work.

“It’s a big commitment but it ends up being so worth it,” Berkowitz said.

The B’nei Mitzvah participants began preparing for the ceremony in the fall, meeting on a weekly basis for intense one-on-one Hebrew tutoring sessions, prayer classes, and Jewish studies classes taught by fellow students, professors, and Rabbi David Leipziger.

“This is a process that could have taken years of classes to prepare for outside of Wesleyan,” Leipziger said. “We found a way to make it concise, engaging, and intellectual.”

Though the Rabbi and professors were involved in the B’nei Mitzvah, the program is largely student-run.

“It is such a meaningful process and it’s great to be a part of it even in a small way,” said Elana Bauer ’09, who taught classes on Jewish law and made the pasta salad and blueberry buckle for the Kiddush brunch.

Berkowitz and Michelle Katz ’09 co-coordinated the program.

“Ben Sachs-Hamilton [’09] designed the curriculum and headed the program in the fall and after he left to study abroad in Spain, Rachel and I took over,” Katz said.

Katz, Berkowitz, and the dedicated members of the Jewish community faced the challenge of not only properly preparing the participants but also of making the experience feel like a real Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The Saturday night B’nei Mitzvah after-party featured an inflatable obstacle course, a dance competition, and an ample dose of ’90s pop music. The party drew hundreds of students to MoCon.

“It’s repeatedly the most enjoyable experience I have had at Wesleyan,” said Barry Finder ’09. “I love reliving those awkward middle school years. Sadly, this year I missed the ‘Thong Song,’ but I could still appreciate the rest of the beautiful ’90s music.”

Daniel Heller ’06 started the Adult B’nei Mitzvah program during the 2002-2003 school year in response to Rabbi David Leipziger’s challenge for the Jewish community to create more campus-wide events.

“The students at Wesleyan have a lot of passion and energy, so I tried to push them to think creatively about how we could reach out to the greater Wesleyan community and, in a way, reinvent the Jewish community,” Leipziger said.

The Adult B’nei Mitzvah program appears to be a budding tradition of the campus Jewish community.

“It gets better and better every year,” said tutoring coordinator Julie Edelman ’07. “This year the participants knew the entire Torah service whereas last year they might have only known a few prayers. Now they can go to a synagogue anywhere in the world and participate.”