A Son Sets on the Other Side

Today on Tablet, Merri Ukraincik writes about her son’s bar mitzvah, which would separate her from him in synagogue for the rest of their lives.

I saw that fact mirrored clearly in the mechitzah itself, which rent my heart in two just as it did the sanctuary where we stood. Once an innocuous, architectural given of my Orthodox life, it had suddenly transformed into a rampart delineating a before and after in my relationship with my son. From that moment on, it would be unbreachable and we would stand on its opposite sides. While he leyned the story of Noah to the congregation, to me he recounted a more private, heart-wrenching tale: that of a son who had encamped in the world of men and had set off for his future.

A great read. Enjoy it here.