Judaica Gifts to Give a Boy Celebrating His Bar Mitzvah
The Bar Mitzvah is definitely one of the most important events of a Jewish male's life. This event, held when a boy turns 13 years old, denotes his entry into the world of adults and opens to him new privileges and responsibilities that were previously closed to him in the first few years of his life. Because the Bar Mitzvah is an important milestone, it is a custom to give various sorts of gifts to the celebrant, and these gifts include Judaica Gifts.
A Judaica gift is any gift that that proclaims the Jewish heritage. It could be a religious item or an object that is part of the daily living of any ordinary Jewish family. There are many kinds of Judaica gifts that can be given to a boy celebrating Bar Mitzvah, and they include Judaica jewelry or any form of Jewish jewelry.
Common Judaica Gifts for the Bar Mitzvah
People who are not sure what to give a Bar Mitzvah celebrant would typically give the boy prayer books or educational books on Jewish traditions. Some would even give cash, checks or any monetary gift in lieu of Judaica gifts for fear of offending the family in case the wrong choice of gift was made.
However, one does not have to be Jewish or a rocket scientist to come up with an appropriate gift for a Bar Mitzvah celebrant. There are many Judaica gifts that you can safely give to him without causing awkwardness, especially if you were not born into the Jewish faith.
Examples of such Judaica gifts are:
- Yad Torah. The Yad Torah or Torah pointer is a long and slim rod that ends with the carving of a hand with an extended pointer finger. The Torah pointer is a ritual item used for reading the Torah scroll or Sefer Torah. The Yad Torah would be very useful to a Bar Mitzvah boy when he is called upon to read from the Torah, which would now be his privilege. That is because the sacred Torah must never be touched the bare fingers.
- Kiddush cup. The young Bar Mitzvah celebrant will be observing a lot of Shabbat mornings in the years to come, so one useful Judaica gift to give him would be none other than a Kiddush cup. The Kiddush cup is typically made of silver and is engraved with elaborate designs. This cup is used to hold the wine or the grape juice in the recital of the Kiddush during the Shabbat.
- Etrog box.An etrog box is a container that is supposed to hold the ethrog fruit during the Feast of Tabernacles. The ethrog fruit is a symbolic citron symbolizing goodliness that the Torah says is one of the four species of plants. The Torah does not have a prescribed shape or design for the etrog box since the usage of the box is a relatively recent invention. However, a lot of etrog boxes given as Judaica Gifts are made of sterling silver or polished wood and carved with intricate designs.
Simple Judaica Gifts
If you have been invited to a boy's Bar Mitzvah and you are not sure of what to give the celebrant, there are other gifts that you can give him aside from the common Judaica Gifts. You do not have to resort to writing off a check as a cash gift for the boy, although this is done by a lot of other people.
You can, for example, give as Judaica gifts prayer books written in Hebrew with the boy's Hebrew name engraved in the cover. If you are a close relative of the boy, you can give him a tallit and a kippa – the traditional prayer shawl and cap. The point is that Judaica gifts given to a young boy celebrating the Bar Mitzvah must be meaningful and coming from the heart.