Being bar mitzvahed at 83

Center Moriches resident and member of the Jewish Center of the Moriches, Stephen Schwartz, recently made his bar mitzvah at the age of 83.

Although it is customary for young adults to make their bat/bar mitzvah at 13, what many may not know is that it is also a tradition within the Jewish community to make a second bar mitzvah at 83. The number is significant in the fact that the Hebrew Bible says the life of man is three score years and 10, or 70 years. Meaning, the clock starts over at 70, but then adds 13 years to get to the second bar mitzvah at 83.

However, for Schwartz, who has been a lifelong practicing Jew, this was his first time making this life achievement, being that it was not customary in the Reform synagogue that his family attended in Missouri, where he grew up. 

“I was brought up in an ultra-reformed congregation; we didn’t practice bar mitzvah,” he said, explaining that when he married his wife, Sherry, in the late 1980s, they settled in Center Moriches.

Upon settling on the Moriches Jewish Center, he and his wife then saw his son make his bar mitzvah there. Schwartz also went on to serve as a longtime board member of the center.

“There was some sense of desire on my part to fulfill this ritual, and when I decided to do it, I had to really learn the Hebrew alphabet from scratch,” he said, noting he was tutored by cantor Susanne Katchko. “It’s a very complicated system of consonants and vowels, dots and dashes.”

During his preparation, he had to go from aleph-bet all the way to learning to read from the Torah scroll, which meant lessons two to three times per week.

“It’s a lot easier to teach seventh graders than an 80-year-old man,” he said of Katchko’s patience. “It’s an old dog learning new tricks, but she was patient with me and I was diligent.”

Schwartz then was called to Bema, a term for Torah reading during services, on June 29. His portion, determined by his date of birth, included the biblical requirements to wear prayer shawls.

“I am proud of myself. Yes, it was a challenge, but I am glad I did it and became a full-fledged member of the Jewish community,” Schwartz said.

The service was led by Rabbi Jack Shlachter, former spiritual leader. He was joined by two previous spiritual leaders, Cantor Zach, now Rabbi Zachary Konigsberg, and cantor Katchko.

“It was a wonderful experience for everyone present, and I’m confident that Steve inspired others to consider marking the event in a similar fashion,” said Rabbi Shlachter. “Steve has now passed the fullness of years threshold by 13 years, and thus, cycled around for a so-called second bar mitzvah ceremony. It’s way harder to learn as we advance in age, yet Steve demonstrated to his friends, his family, and the entire congregation (including himself) that one is never too old to learn. He not only read from the sacred handwritten scroll of the Five Books of Moses (the Torah), which lacks vowels, punctuation, and trope, but he chanted the passage, and he did so flawlessly.”

Schwartz’s bar mitzvah reception, held at Trumpets at the Gate, was also very well attended, including members of the congregation as well as his wife, children, son and daughter, grandchildren, cousins and extended family.

Professionally, Schwartz is a retired senior scientist and group leader at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who is still busy writing scientific papers and teaching a course at Stony Brook University.