Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah (8):Defeat, Defiance, Triumph and the Undelivered Toast…by Robert M. Katzman
Part Eight (the final part):
What went wrong, and then right…at Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah; My undelivered toast and the eerie and unexplainable 1958 incident.
About a week before Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah party, I asked her to see if she could find a CD she could borrow from the temple’s library that played the traditional Jewish celebratory song, Hava Nagila. When people have weddings, Bar or Bat Mitzvah’s or any significant Jewish or Israeli celebration or party, this is the song that’s always played, and then the people joyously dance to a folk dance called the Hora.
The Hora usually involves a large outer circle with everyone holding hands and dancing in a clockwise direction. Then, inside of that circle is another one, going in the other direction, usually with the married couple or the person being honored in the inner circle. The music is played loudly and raucously as the circles spin faster and faster, with more and more people joining in as people overcome their shyness. The song goes on for a long time, or until everyone passes out.
I’m not much of a dancer, but this is one I never miss. Or that was until, at my middle daughter Rachel’s wedding in December, 2008, it went on for too long, and too fast, twisting back and forth as the dance requires until my knee blew out and I wore a brace on my leg for about a month after that. But man…it was a great wedding!
So, the point is, this extremely frugal Bat Mitzvah had no band and no slick DJ. I figured we could use the temple’s sound system and existing equipment to play dance music for the kids in general and Hava Nagila for the Hora, in particular. It mattered to me.
At this point in the American Jewish Diaspora, there are probably more Christians, and even Moslems, too, that have been to so many family celebrations over the last one hundred years, that there are now collectively more of them who know about this dance, than the total number of Jews in this country.