Author Description

Growing Up is a book about, and for, a young boy approaching his bar mitzvah - but it is a very unique bar mitzvah book. In the pleasant, enjoyable framework of a story, utilizing a "blend" of halachoth (Jewish laws), aggadoth (stories of our great Sages), and hashkafoth (ways of understanding the world), it gives the reader approaching his 13th birthday a grasp of the meaning of this event - when he takes his first step in his task of becoming a Jew for life. Sammy Goldstein is 12 and a half, and his brother Jerry is 15; and both are excited about their coming trip to New York, for the bat mitzvah of their cousin Joshua. Jerry starts explaining to his brother the unusual significance of the number 13, and the meaning of the battle of free choice and the commitment to mitzvoth. Then they listen as their father elaborates on the Rambam's 13 Principles; and finally Rabbi Adler, Sammy's haftorah,/i> instructor, lends him The Tefillin Handbook, to teach him the important essentials and details about tefillin. When Sammy sees his cousin's bar mitzvah, he understands even more what new challenges and opportunities are ahead for him. And right then he is faced with a test on his readiness to become bar mitzvah in the true sense of the term. After their visit to Jerusalem, his father has decided on a small party for Sammy's bar mitzvah - and Sammy isn't happy at all - especially as Jerry's party had been a big one. How this conflict is to be resolved provides a true test of what Bar Mitzvah means, and how a young Jew is to reach a new level of maturity. Growing Up may well be described as the story of Bar Mitzvah for today's young man approaching this turning point in his life.