It hit me when I was standing in front of the congrega – tion at Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, ready to leyn. For the past year, I had been going through all the motions of getting ready for a Bat Mitzvah. I had learned to leyn with Tammy Jacobowitz, studied berakhot throughout Tanakh with Judy Heicklen, and prepared some hesed projects.
It wasn’t that I had not enjoyed it—it’s just that I hadn’t really felt anything.
So I was standing there, ready to leyn, when I heard my grandfather, my Zaide, being called up for an aliya. “Yosef ben Hillel v’Bina.” Bina, I realized—that’s my middle name. That’s when it hit me.
Names have always been important in Judaism. Avraham and Sarah, Yaacov and Yehoshua—they all had their names changed. Changing one’s name or taking on a new name symbolizes our ability to accomplish things we have not yet accomplished and to be a part of something we have not yet been a part of.
When I was born, my parents named me after my moth – er’s grandmother, Bina Appleman. Although I never met her, I grew up with stories that made me feel like I did. My great-grandmother was an amazing woman, and I always felt a little under her shadow carrying her name. I felt that people expected a lot from me, to live up to the standards she had set.
My great-grandmother lived in a small town called Evarts in Harlan County, Kentucky. As a member of the only Jewish family there, she fought to remain observant and keep her four children that way as well. Harlan County was coal mining country, and the hours were long, the work for the miners physically debilitating and harsh, and the pay little. The workers, as did many of their time, attempted to unionize, but the mine owners did not let them. The miners went on strike in 1932. At the same time, my great-grandparents, who ran a general store, were saving up for the newest fad—an automobile. But it was hard for my great-grandmother to go out in the streets and see the starving children of the striking workers, knowing that she was saving up for a luxury that she could easily live without.
So she made a decision. She placed an ad in the paper saying, “IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE JEWISH CUSTOM TO REMEMBER THE NEEDY DURING THE PASSOVER SEASON, MR. AND MRS. HARRY APPLEMAN WILL GIVE AWAY ON FRIDAY APRIL 17 A CARLOAD OF FLOUR. ALL THE NEEDY FROM EVARTS AND SURROUNDINGS ARE WELCOME REGARDLESS OF COLOR OR CREED.”
And so they were. The family gave away flour in 24-pound bags as long as it lasted. They used the money they were saving for a car to buy flour for the striking miners, and they opened a soup kitchen.
The mine owners, needless to say, were not pleased. They shot out the windows of the soup kitchen, tried to kidnap my then-six-year-old grandfather, and, as a last step, had my my great-grandfather indicted for helping the strikers—what they called criminal syndicalism. The matter moved up the state judicial system until finally reaching the governor of Kentucky. My great-grandmother went to defend her husband, and when asked why they would disobey the law, she said something along the lines of, “Is it truly a free and moral country, where one can go out to the street and see starving children, and then turn and walk away knowing that it is illegal to help them?” The governor was persuaded, the indictment against my greatgrandfather was dismissed, and the next day the governor’s declaration of my great-grandmother as a “woman of valor”—an Eshet Hayil—was in the newspapers.
Becoming a Bat Mitzvah is more than just becoming an adult. That part is important, but what is truly essential is understanding how important it is to be a part of, and to take care of, your community.
The miners were very grateful to my great-grandparents. In fact, if you go to Harlan County today, you might just see some non-Jewish grandmothers and grandfathers named “Harry” and “Bina” after them. They had made a decision, at great personal risk, to not stand by and watch others suffer when there was something they could do about it and to continue along the path that Jews have followed for generations of caring about others.
When my parents came for visiting day at my sleepaway camp, Moshava, the summer before my Bat Mitzvah, they sat me down with a list of charities and told me to choose my favorites. I could raise money for them for my Bat Mitzvah, they said. Let’s be honest, I thought—donations instead of presents?
I humored them anyway. Reading the stories of these charities, I began to connect with them. When Clara Hammer, the “Chicken Lady” in Jerusalem, saw a girl in front of her at the butcher being given a bag of skin and bones because she could no longer afford a chicken for Shabbat, she told the butcher next time to give the girl a whole chicken and put it on her bill. At the time of my Bat Mitzvah, she was feeding more than 200 families a week in Israel and also lending out around forty wedding gowns to brides in need. Just before Pesach this year, Clara Hammer passed away just short of her 100th birthday. May her memory be for a blessing.
Beit HaYeled provides a home for children who for one reason or another can no longer live in their own homes. The children in Beit HaYeled live in a warm setting and get everything they need.
Through Big Brothers and Sisters of Israel, teens spend time with younger children from troubled homes once a week, doing regular things like playing sports and baking.
I was in a situation, though I did not realize it then, similar to my mother’s Savta. I felt for these children. I didn’t want to sit around while I could be doing something to help them. And so I attached a note to my Bat Mitzvah invitation asking that, in lieu of gifts, people should donate to those charities.
So going back to where I was, ready to leyn, I realized that, without even knowing it, I had already accomplished what becoming a Bat Mitzvah is all about. It is about two things. One—becoming a full part of the community. That was accomplished through my leyning, as I couldn’t do that before my Bat Mitzvah, and through my hesed project—realizing that as an adult member of the community it was my duty to be there and help those who need it. Two—realizing what it means to be a full part of the community. That’s the part that I came to understand on the day of my Bat Mitzvah.
Becoming a Bat Mitzvah is more than just becoming an adult. That part is important, but what is truly essential is understanding how important it is to be a part of, and to take care of, your community. I realized that I had taken my great-grandmother’s name and made it mine. I had taken everything that she stood for and wanted and made it part of my own life.
But there is more to it. It’s about remembering that you are part of sharsheret hadorot, a link in a chain of generations. You are a part of something so much greater than yourself, a part of a people thousands of years old, with customs and ideas that you must now carry on. You are a tiny yet invaluable part of your family, community, and people. It’s about making a lifelong commitment to be there and to continue on.
So my Zaide came up to the Torah and said the berakha, and I leyned. As an adult. A member of my community. A link in sharsheret hadorot.