Explorers Find Rare Bar Mitzva Boy Who Didn’t ‘Read So Beauuuuutifully’

“In examining evidence regarding approximately eighteen million Bar Mitzva celebrations documented since 1920, we have yet to encounter another case where ‘which ____ read so beauuuuutifully’ was not invoked.”

Kfar Sava, February 6 – Anthropologists in search of heretofore unknown populations have identified a Jewish thirteen-year-old boy about whom not a single speaker at his Bar Mitzva celebration said he read his Torah portion or Haftarah “so beauuuuutifully.”

Writing in the social sciences journal New Horizons, the researchers from Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities described their encounter with a youth to whom they refer only as H, who went through the entire ritual of chanting a portion of Scripture at synagogue, followed by a reception at which several family members, including the Bar Mitzva himself, addressed the assembled guests. However, in what the writers claim is the first such occurrence, while each of the speakers referred to the day’s reading in their remarks, none of them interjected, “which H read so beauuuuutifully,” before moving on.

“We believe this to be the first documented case of the requisite subordinate clause being omitted,” they wrote. “Further research is necessary to determine whether in fact this distinction obtains, but in examining evidence regarding approximately eighteen million Bar Mitzva celebrations documented since 1920, we have yet to encounter another case where ‘which ____ read so beauuuuutifully’ was not invoked.”

Scholarly reaction to the discovery has been mixed. “It’s too early to say what this means, considering that we don’t actually know whether it represents a unique phenomenon,” insisted Klee Schay, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utrecht. “I’d like to see more data before accepting the assertion that the Bar Mitzva in question is in fact that only one ever not to feature the familiar phrase. I’m actually disappointed that this is what they chose to look for. A better subject for exploration, and a more fruitful one in terms of illuminating human society, in my opinion, would have been the attendance of an overbearing aunt of the Bar Mitzva, or an uncle a little too fond of scotch.”

Megidda Boutmi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, disagrees. “There’s real value in finding this case, even if it turns out to be not absolutely unique in the end,” she contended. “The researchers deserve kudos for even looking for the omission of the stock phrase. It takes some out-of-the-box thinking to be attuned to such a development.”

Boutmi added that she intended to conduct some informal field research of her own this week at a nephew’s Bar Mitzva celebration, where she plans to get drunk and proposition some of the boy’s schoolmates, if only to become the center of attention.

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