Mortified Bar Mitzva Boy Knows Mom Will Have Healthy Snacks Thrown At Him

Noooooo, my mom has to be the weirdo.

Jerusalem, April 20 – A local seventh-grader has concluded that once again, he must brace himself for the awkward, humiliating experience of his mother’s dietary sensibilities juxtaposed with the mainstream junk food that other parents have no problem providing their children, this time when he and his family mark his Jewish coming-of-age at the synagogue next month.

Yaakov Peri, 12, disclosed Tuesday that he simply knows his mom will do her familiar thing and eschew what she calls “processed, nutrition-free calories” when she fills the small cloth bags to be tossed at her son from the women’s section at the synagogue when he completes his first reading from the Torah to celebrate his thirteenth birthday, when Jewish males become formally obligated to observe the 613 commandments. He expects that fact to mar the entire occasion with the embarrassment that his stupid mother can’t just for once be normal and not make him feel different because of her craziness.

“I can see it coming from here,” predicted Yaakov. “Most other mothers happily buy a few kilos of sucking candy, taffies, gum, whatever, and fill the little bags with them. Then, right after their dear boy recites the final benediction for the section he reads, or at least stands attentively while the reader reads, the women pelt him with those bags of candy and all the kids scramble around scooping them up. Some families just pass around individual candies from a basket and everyone chucks the candies at the bar mitzva boy.”

“But noooooo, my mom has to be the weirdo,” he lamented. “It’s not enough that on Purim, when everyone invests in these elaborate baskets with sugar, salt, and grease the main ingredients, the way a proper package should be, that she insists on carrot sticks, apple slices, some dried fruit, unsalted nuts, and, for garnish, a couple of pouches of herbal tea. I wish I were part of a normal family.”

Yaakov covered his face in his hands. “It’s going to be mortifying,” he whispered. “I’ll be standing there, supposed to be all proud of myself for the culmination of a year of practice and study, not to mention some tension over how seriously I’ve been taking this preparation, that I’ve done a decent job of the reading, while some of my friends and the younger children dive under the chairs and between everyone else’s legs to gather as much candy as possible. Not for me, though, apparently. My fate apparently involves feeling like the sore thumb, the one loser whose mom wants to impose her stupid dietary restrictions on everyone else and not let them have a good time. You can bet there’ll be more leftovers than usual in the synagogue trash bins that week.”

For her part, his mother Shira has given little thought to the subject. “Oh, I don’t know that we’ll be so wasteful with all that packaging that will only end up in landfill – that’s just not ecologically sound. I’m considering forgoing the entire treat-throwing thing entirely. Yaakov will also be so excited when he discovers I’ve discouraged my friends from giving him gifts or money, and donating in his honor to worthy causes instead.”

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