Kevin:
Riley - I want you to know how impressed I am with your ability to rise to a challenge. Again and again you tackle difficult challenges and you do it with ease. Today, for example. You were only required to do one aliyah but you never balked at doing all five. And that was including the longest aliyah in the entire Torah! You studied, you worked hard and you knocked it out of the park. And I knew you would.
Another time you rose to the challenge was at the end of the 6th grade. Your math teacher recommended that you not continue in the accelerated math program. While you were doing fine grade-wise, she just thought the pace of the program in 7th grade would be too fast. But, you wouldn’t have it. You insisted that you stay on track. We listened to you and kept you in the accelerated math program last year and of course you did fabulous. When you set your mind to something, there is nothing that stops you.
Becoming a bar mitzvah symbolizes the arrival of change. You’re at a point in your life where all kinds of transitions are coming. When you were little, transitions were really hard. Now, we worry less, as you’ve shown us time and again that you not only take them in stride, you excel. When you do face adversity you are quick to accept it and move on. Your ability to do this has impressed me so much that I have worked to be like you, and I’m still not there. I am proud of you, Riley, and grateful to you for what you’ve shown me is possible. I can’t wait to see where life takes you. I love you man.
Denise:
Almost every night you ask me, “So, how did your day go?” This very simple, polite question that, frankly, most adults don’t always ask each other, is symbolic of something huge: that you care. And that, Riley, is you. You care about others so much. And you show it in your words, your deeds and your affection.
I know that that warmth and sensitivity extends beyond us because, for your entire life, teachers, friends’ parents and camp counselors have gone out of their way to tell me how sweet you are. Back in preschool even. Your teachers, in trying to keep you around, “misfiled” your “bite reports” to keep you safe from the school’s three-bites-and-you’re-out policy.
One morning earlier this year, Rabbi Rebecca stopped me to tell me how proud she was of you because she could see that you had grown dedicated to your studies and you were doing great preparing your Hebrew for the Haftorah, Torah and prayers. (She also said she was impressed how, just the day before, she watched you resist the impulse to touch the silver, tinkly bells atop the Torah when they were sitting in front of you - knowing, as we do, how you are drawn to all things shiny, pretty and noisy).
So, the fact that you’ve gone from a kid who bites his friends to one who could sit attentively in synagogue and resist the urge to flick the Torah bells is just one of the millions of ways I can look back and marvel at how far you’ve come. How much you’ve grown. And how seriously you are taking becoming a bar mitzvah.
You understand the importance of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You’ve embraced the Jewish community and your studies in preparing for this day - both of which I hope you will take with you past today and into your adult life.
At my bat mitzvah more than 30 years ago, my parents said that their greatest wish for me was that I find strength and goodness in myself simply by accepting myself however I am. Likewise, my greatest wish for you is that you have the courage and faith to really know and accept yourself and make your life into everything that it can be.
You are smart, curious, friendly, sweet and warm. You have impressed me with everything you did to prepare for today, and for life. I have nothing but confidence that you will continue on this path and do great, interesting things. I look forward to seeing how your life unfolds. I am - and will always be - so, so proud of you. I love you 3,000 my Ra!
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