What I Loved At The Bat Mitzvah

      On Wednesday, May 27, Tom and I were once again back in Los Angeles,

...this time to attend a bat mitzvah to be held on Saturday, May 30.
​    There was lots for the family to do to prepare for "the bat," as we called it for short, and so Tom and I, as well as some of our children, who also flew out to L.A. for the event, volunteered to help with the preparations.
         My job was to make a fruit salad for seventy people for the brunch that would be held after the ceremony. As the bat mitzvah (the phrase refers to both the ceremony and the girl who becomes a "daughter of the law") had chosen pink as her color, her mom requested that I make the fruit salad using watermelon and strawberries.
​       I  decided to carve out a watermelon to use for a more festive fruit bowl,

...and recruited  my son Tommy and son-in-law Miguel to be fruit cutters.

      (NB: We cut up the fruit the previous day, then stored the fruit in the refrigerator  in a container separately from the carved out watermelon. I also stored the empty watermelon bowl in the refrigerator. When it was time to serve the fruit salad we then poured the fruit into the watermelon bowl).

        The bat took place at the Cornerstone Church, an open-hearted Christian congregation whose pastor kindly lent out its space for this Jewish coming-of-age ceremony.

      The service was quite beautiful and uplifting, and I was much taken with the music, 

...the Rabbi's warm welcome to us all followed by his insightful, thought-provoking homily, the bat mitzvah sweetly singing her Torah passage with the assistance of her Hebrew teacher,

...and the many blessings read by friends and family members.

     But among the congregation I noticed something else that struck me as kind of wonderful: several girls all dressed up for the occasion…and wearing tennis shoes.

​        After the ceremony at our brunch  in the church hall,

...I sighted more young guests in dresses and sneakers.

      Now, this wasn't the first time I'd ever heard tell of sneakers worn with dress attire. A few years ago a young Facebook friend posted pictures of herself and her friends attending their prom in formal wear and tennis shoes, and I posted a blog on my elation at seeing girls finally liberating themselves from the pain and restriction of high heels - which were really just one step above foot-binding - in favor of more comfortable and practical footwear that allotted them freedom of movement (see post from 10/1/2021, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/hooray-for-school-dance-sneakers). 

       I loved it. 
     And I again loved seeing these young teens in their sneakers on this day, and later in the evening at the bat mitzvah party, 

...all decked out in their party dresses, free and moving,

...and wearing their sneakers.