How to manage the process with grace, joy and good sense. A practical guide that gives parents and teens the "how-to" information they need to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process and grow as a family through this experience. For the first time in one book, everyone directly involved offers practical insights into how the process can be made easier and more enjoyable for all. Rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, parents, and even teens speak from their own experience. • What's it all about? • Preparation for Parent and Child • Tutoring, stress, expectations, enjoyment, planning for children with special needs • Negotiating the ceremony and celebration • Designing a creative service, heightening the spiritual exercise, special issues related to divorced and interfaith families, planning a party that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event.

This practical guide gives families the how-to information they need-not only how to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process, but how to grow as a family through this coming-of-age experience. All who are directly involved in bar & bat mitzvah offer their practical insights into how the process can be made easier & more enjoyable for everyone. Topics include: What it's all about from start to finish, tutoring, stress, expectations, negotiating the ceremony (including issues related to divorced & interfaith families), how to design a creative service, & advice on planning a reception that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event. Contributors include: Rabbis, cantors, & educators-Reform, Conservative, & Reconstructionist; fathers & mothers of bar/bat mitzvah boys & girls; post b'nai mitzvah teens; party planners.

A spiritual keepsake that will become a family heirloom.The companion book to the author's Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child's Bar or Bat Mitzvah 100,000 copies in print The perfect gift to help a bar or bat mitzvah preserve the spiritual memories of this sacred event. This hands-on album updated and expanded for this second edition is designed to help everyone involved better participate in creating the spiritual meaning of this joyful rite of passage. Created by Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, author of the award-winning classic Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child s Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and his wife, author Nina Salkin, this guided album is a wonderfully interactive way to remember important moments and details. Included are special sections to record your family s history; the hopes, wishes, and memories of influential people in the bar/bat mitzvah s life; mitzvot performed; contributions to tzedakot and more. With ample space for writing, reflecting and pasting mementos, this spiritual keepsake gives young people a place to treasure their special experiences and encourages them to prepare for spiritual life as Jewish adults."

The kids’ companion to the award-winning Putting God on the Guest List, 3rd Ed.: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah Used as an inspiring part of bar/bat mitzvah preparation for parents in hundreds of congregations around the world. Jewish youngsters and their parents need to turn inward at bar and bat mitzvah time and ask themselves these hard questions: “Why are we doing this? What does it all mean?” At last, a guide especially for kids, to help them spiritually prepare for their bar/bat mitzvah. Explains the core spiritual values of Judaism to young people in a language they can understand. Questions at the end of each chapter engage kids and let them offer their own thoughts. A special section helps parents and kids find places to perform acts of tzedakah to honor the event—newly revised and updated.

The first comprehensive resource for pastoral care in the Jewish tradition—and a vital resource for counselors and caregivers of other faith traditions. The essential reference for rabbis, cantors, and laypeople who are called to spiritually accompany those encountering joy, sorrow, and change—now in paperback. This groundbreaking volume draws upon both Jewish tradition and the classical foundations of pastoral care to provide invaluable guidance. Offering insight on pastoral care technique, theory, and theological implications, the contributors to Jewish Pastoral Care are innovators in their fields, and represent all four contemporary Jewish movements. This comprehensive resource provides you with the latest theological perspectives and tools, along with basic theory and skills for assisting the ill and those who care for them, the aging and dying, those with dementia and other mental disorders, engaged couples, and others, and for responding to issues such as domestic violence, substance abuse, and disasters.

A practical and friendly guide for students and parents -- a guide that focuses on both the service and the reception, incorporating the experiences and rituals of families from all traditions.

A 64-page workbook to help rabbis cantors education directors and family programmers prepare b'nai mitzvah students and their families for that momentous life-cycle event--the bar or bat mitzvah.