Bar & Bath Mitsvah

The Bath & Bar Mitsvah is the celebration and dedication of a daughter or a son reaching spiritual responsibility at the age of twelve to thirteen. This dedication is celebrated with friends and the son is recognised as a man and the daughter is recognised as a woman. Prior to this, they were under the covering of their mother, teaching them the physical truths of life. Reaching maturity moves the responsibility to the Father, teaching them spiritual truths. They are now under the Father’s covering and must learn the ordinances or spiritual rules YHVH gave to man in His Torah. These rules are called the Mitsvots. The boy and the girl are from this day; responsible for their own salvation and their own faith and relationship with YHVH and their attitudes will determine their salvation. A Bar Mitzvah is the dedication of a boy, and a Bat Mitzvah is the dedication of a girl, who has gone through what is known as a coming-of-age ceremony. The terms also commonly refer to the ceremony itself, which normally takes place when the child has turned 13 (for a girl from 12). At the start of the first day of the fourteenth year of a boy's life -- the day of his thirteenth birthday -- he is a "bar Mitzvah," a "son of the Commandment," meaning he is required to keep the Mitzvos (Commandments) that all men are required to keep. A girl, on the day of the start of the thirteenth year of her life, becomes a bat Mitzvah, a "daughter of the Commandment," in that now she is required to keep the Mitzvos that all women are required to keep. It is synonymous with being an adult, or young adult. Since boys mature more slowly, they take a year longer to be considered young adults. (Obviously not all boys mature at thirteen, and not all girls mature at twelve. However, that is the average date, and certainly at that age all healthy children should be expected to have begun adolescence.)