B’nai Mitzvah of two 83-year-old men at Wesley Palms

By Laurie Baron in San Diego

When you imagine a Bar Mitzvah, you probably envision gangly 13-year-olds with cracking voices reciting their Torah portions and giving speeches at shabbat service in a synagogue.  After the service, they celebrate at a catered reception with their relatives and adolescent friends either in the temple social hall or a hotel ballroom.

That’s not what the Bar Mitzvah ceremony held at Wesley Palms Retirement Community in Pacific Beach on July 10^th looked like.  The Bar Mitzvah “boys” were both 83-year-olds.  Sanford (Sandy) Braver, a retired psychology professor from Arizona State University, decided to have his second Bar Mitzvah at this age because his father had done it.  William (Bill) Soltz, a clinical psychologist whose practice was in San Bernardino, followed the precedent set by his older brother.  Sandy and Bill met at Wesley Palms.  When both realized the proximity of their 83^rd birthdays this July, Sandy persuaded Bill to join him in restudying and reciting the Parshiot they chanted 70 years ago as teenagers.

Why have a second Bar Mitzvah at the age of 83?  Psalm 90:10 reads, “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength.” Thirteen years later, at age 83, a Jew could be considered to be entering adulthood and recommitting his- or herself to Judaism not unlike couples who opt to renew their marriage vows at a landmark anniversary.  The custom of observing a second bar mitzvah at 83 emerged in the latter decades of the 20^th Century.

That this double bar mitzvah happened at Wesley Palms also might strike some as unusual. It is, after all, a retirement community originally founded by the Methodist Church.  Although it is owned by the non-profit and non-sectarian company Front Porch, Christian residents still constitute the majority of those who live there.  Nevertheless, its Jewish residents have developed a vibrant community that holds weekly Friday night services and gets together afterwards for Shabbat dinners.  During the year, Wesley Palms sponsors a Rosh Hashanah dinner, a Hanukkah party, an annual concert by the San Diego Jewish Men’s Choir, a Chinese dinner for Christmas Eve, a Holocaust memorial service, a Purim event, a Passover seder, and a monthly Jewish film series.

Kvelling over the unexpected richness of Jewish life at Wesley Palms, Sandy Braver observes: “We have a small (about 30) but tightly knit Jewish community here at Wesley Palms. It’s as cohesive as it is, I believe, because of the ministrations of our exceptional full-time Chaplain, who happens to be a Reconstructionist Rabbi, Alexis Pearce.  Alexis is deeply loved and highly effective. We also have here as a long-time resident Sima Jacobson Oppenheimer, who is the rock and anchor of the Jewish community.” Sima sponsored employing Cantor Kathy Robbins to lead the singing at the Bar Mitzvah service.

Pearce served as the rabbi of the Reconstructionist congregation Dor Hadash from 1996 until 2005 back when her last name was Roberts. She subsequently acted as a chaplain for Kaiser, San Diego, and Silverado hospices.  Having tutored both Sandy and Bill for their Bar Mitzvahs, Rabbi Pearce explains, “A second Bar Mitzvah does not cause any change in religious status, but it does allow a person the gift of stepping back to see the scope of a full life, and the role of tradition and community in shaping one’s path.  Both Sandy and Bill happen to be psychologists, with a skeptical and science-based outlook.  But their love of Jewish life is deeply connected to their sense of family and identity”

About 100 people attended the Bar Mitzvah and buffet reception catered by DZ Akin’s.  Unlike most Bar Mitzvahs where the occasion is geared to the teenage peers of the Bar Mitzvah boy or girl, this crowd consisted largely of the senior residents of Wesley Palms and the elderly friends, middle age children, and grandchildren of Sandy and Bill.  Bar Mitzvahs shouldn’t be wasted only on the young!

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Laurie Baron is a professor emeritus of history who taught at San Diego State University.  He and his wife, Bonnie, are now residents of Wesley Palms.