IF I HAD BEEN DAVID

The first truly fearless thing I did

Reading Shawna Kenney’s beautiful essay, I AM THE BOY, reminded me of the period in my childhood when I desperately wanted to be David.

David was the name my parents would have given me had I been born a boy. Instead, I arrived as their third daughter, on my father’s birthday, no less… ..and apparently not the birthday present he’d been hoping for. Rather than visit my mother at the hospital, he finished his pinochle game with the guys.

But it wasn’t until my Bat Mitzvah that I learned, in no uncertain terms, boys were simply afforded more.

Going to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah on Long Island was a rite of passage on its own. We would steal the Philip Sherman colored cigarettes off the silver cups in the center of the tables, along with the match boxes covered in royal blue satin and “Jeri’s Bar Mitzvah” in gold, and head out to the parking lot.

We didn’t inhale yet, and if we were feeling frisky, or left alone by the adults, we might play a kissing game.

To clarify, at thirteen years old Jewish boys became Bar Mitzvah’d, and Jewish girls became Bat Mitzvah’d.

Sounds equal, right?

Turns out, not so much. Lemme go back a few steps.

When it was time for my Bat Mitzvah, I expected a massive Saturday night party with a DJ, a theme like at a big event space, with a Viennese dessert table. What I got was a late Sunday afternoon affair with an accordion player, no Sherman’s colored cigarettes or satin matches, but there was a Viennese dessert table.

My parents refused to pay for a Saturday night affair.

“Why?!” I shouted.

“Because it’s twice as expensive!” my mother screamed back. “If you were having a Bar Mitzvah, that would be different.”

I heard it very clearly – Bar vs. Bat.

“So because I’m not a boy, I get a Sunday matinee?”

“Yes.”

“So if I was born David, we’d be having it on Saturday night?”

“Don’t complain!” My mother was irritated. “It’ll be a nice affair at the temple right after.”

“At the temple? What about Leonard’s of Great Neck?!”

“Are you crazy? Do you know how expensive that place is?”

Boys celebrated Saturday night after sundown with DJs, dancing, and enough Viennese pastries to feed Nassau County. Girls, unless your parents were loaded, got a Friday night service, then repeated the ceremony on Sunday so everyone could attend.

(a family photo from my Bat Mitzvah)

Now, preparing to read the Haftorah takes months. It’s an endless jumble of Hebrew that must be memorized, and it’s not reading, it’s actually singing the Hebrew in tunes that are archaic and do not have much of a pattern. So you meet with the Cantor weekly and do a lot of practicing on your own. It’s a whole thing.

My cantor, Cantor Boris, looked exactly how a cantor named Boris should look… round, kind-eyed, with a thick Hungarian accent, and I adored him. He adored me right back. I had a decent voice, was a quick study and he heaped loads of praises on me. The big weekend was finally near and during one rehearsal, Cantor Boris drew a line through an entire section of my Hebrew.

“On Sunday, you’ll leave this part out,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s Sunday.”

“And?”

“And you’re not a boy.”

Even at twelve, I knew this was ridiculous.

What made it even worse was that I would actually be chanting the entire Haftorah on Friday night during a small family service attended by maybe ten temple die-hards and a few relatives. Then, on Sunday, when all my friends, classmates, neighbors, and extended family would finally show up for the big celebration, I was expected to skip a chunk of it.

This seemed deeply unfair. Cantor Boris agreed, but shrugged.

“Can’t you ask the Rabbi if we can make an exception?”

Cantor Boris was not one for confrontation, and our rabbi was notoriously mean, so he said, “He’ll never agree.”

I complained. My mother, who possessed exactly zero patience for institutional sexism, agreed.

“It’s a stupid rule,” she said. “But you’ll have to make do.”

Then she added, “When I become Sisterhood president, I’m going to change it.”

My mother was raised Catholic by two Sicilian immigrants, had only spoken Italian until she was four, but converted to Judaism for my dad, and kept a kosher home to boot! However, she would sneak us ham sandwiches in the garage. Apparently God didn’t count the garage as a room in the house.

Years later, my mother not only ushered in an era of women reading from the Torah alongside men, she also helped oust Rabbi Poplack and had him replaced with a hot, young, super intellectual rabbi whom every congregant crushed on.

But by then, my Bat Mitzvah was long over.

So, the Friday night of my Bat Mitzvah weekend, I recited my entire Haftorah in front of a few relatives, my sisters and some die-hard temple goers. We had coffee and cake afterward and called it a night.

On Sunday, I started all over.

This time there were over a hundred people in attendance.

As I approached the section I had been instructed to skip, I had a thought:

I could just keep going.

So I did.

I just kept singing.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Rabbi Poplack spring into action. He rose from his special carved wooden seat and hurried toward the podium.

“All rise and turn to page one hundred sixty-three…” he announced loudly, attempting to redirect the congregation into a group prayer.

But I kept singing.

In fact, I got louder.

The rabbi got louder.

So did I.

Now we were competing.

Some people stood. Others looked confused. Then, from the second row, my Sicilian grandfather said loud enough for everyone to hear:

“Let her do it. Just let the kid do it.”

There was a brief silence.

Then I jumped right back in and finished the entire Haftorah.

I nailed it. And I felt victorious.

A few moments later, while standing beside me at the Torah, Rabbi Poplack leaned over and in a terrible stage whisper said, “Your mother put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“No,” I said. “I did.”

I simply wasn’t willing to be held back because I wasn’t a boy.

Looking back, I realize that my Bat Mitzvah rebellion was probably the first truly fearless thing I ever did.

I was twelve years old, standing in front of my entire community, refusing to edit myself to fit someone else’s expectations.

Turns out, I didn’t need to be a David. I just wanted what a David represented. Permission to be me.

Shawna Kenney put it perfectly:

I am “the boy” I always wanted to be. I am the woman I could not imagine. I am me, having a full human experience, given my unique set of circumstances. I just had to center myself in my own story.

We all do.

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