Bar Mitzvah

In this week's Torah portion, Vaishlach (And He Sent), the Torah tells us, for the first time, the story of a Bar Mitzvah. A Bar Mitzvah (or Bat Mitzvah for girls) signifies that a boy has turned thirteen (or twelve for a girl) and is now responsible for his actions before God. Before that age, a child is considered not ready to take responsibility for his actions and decisions.

Shimon and Levi, two sons of Jacob, decided to avenge the misfortune of their sister Dinah. The Torah recounts that “Each of them took his sword […] and killed all the men” (Genesis 34:25). In Hebrew, the expression “each of them his sword” is written “ish harbo,” literally “man his sword.” From the fact that the Torah calls them “men” and that they were thirteen years old at the time, we learn that at that age a boy becomes a man (with respect to responsibility for his actions).

In the story of Shimon and Levi, in the story of the Bar Mitzvah, we find a contradiction that, by explaining it, allows us to understand the essence of a Bar Mitzvah and, in turn, the foundations of service to God.

On one hand, our sages explain that the adjective "ish" denotes a man's intellectual and emotional virtue, that is, his capacity to guide his emotions according to the dictates of his intellect: to love what is rationally right to love, to be firm when it makes sense, and so on. This means that, from the time of his Bar Mitzvah, the boy ceases to be a mere reactionary who acts according to his feelings and emotions and becomes more rational and intellectual.

This idea implies a service to God based on the intellect, where the person understands the greatness of God, the importance of the Mitzvot, and therefore decides to connect with Him through His precepts.

On the other hand, Shimon and Levi's reaction involved a total sacrifice for Dinah. They risked their lives to rescue their sister. Even though their lives were not in danger at the time of the rescue itself, Jacob himself would later fear the surrounding people, who might seek revenge for what happened in Shechem (see Genesis 34:30).

This implies a service to God that transcends the intellectual, a service based on the irrational acceptance of God (kabbalat ol) and His precepts, beyond what the person understands.

This contradiction between the rational and the irrational leads us to understand the essence of a Bar Mitzvah: the beginning of service to God at age thirteen is based on intellect. The child begins to perceive reality differently. In turn, the sacrifice in this first Bar Mitzvah story shows us that rationality alone is not enough; there must be a component of absolute surrender to God, mesirut nefesh (self-sacrifice).

These two spiritual movements are replicated in humankind in general, even after the Bar Mitzvah: as a person grows in their understanding of God through Torah study, matters that were previously subject to faith become rational, and faith is elevated to higher matters. However, the backbone, the center of service to God, is faith that transcends the intellect.

In other words, true faith doesn't consist of believing in God, in believing in His greatness, His power, and so on, because all of that, after much study, is logical. These are rational concepts that human beings can arrive at without using their faith. True faith lies in the irrationality of God, in how He transcends all the definitions we can apply to Him. True faith consists of contemplating that He, despite being infinitely superior to us, chooses us and connects with us.