Yael Meydan, with Cheryl Podob, at her bat mitzvah

Aner Shofty at his bar mitzvah

This year, three members of Connecticut’s Israel Young Emissaries celebrated their b’nei mitzvah in their respective host communities. Marking this important milestone were:

Lisa Ahuvia, Greater New Haven, who celebrated her bat mitzvah as Ezra Academy on May 5.
Aner Shofty, Greenwich, celebrated his bar mitzvah at Greenwich Town Hall on May 15.
Yael Meydan, Eastern Fairfield County, celebrated her bat mitzvah at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Bridgeport on May 21.

The following is an excerpt from the d’var Torah Yael Meydan delivered on her big day.

When I first came to America to be a shlicha, I carried my Judaism inside my heart. It was part of me the same way everyone that I came in contact with was Jewish; the people in the grocery store, the gas station, or the night club. But here in America, being Jewish is more than just being born Jewish. It is about being part of a community and it is also about a spiritual journey inwards.
I want to share with you the story of selecting my tallit. This tallit that I am wearing was not only a gift from the Young Emissary board in honor of the occasion of me becoming a Bat Mitzvah, but it also represents the legacy of the Jewish people. It is hand-painted by an Israel artist named Yair Emanuel and on each side are the pictures of the 12 tribes. When I saw the beautiful artistic interpretation of the 12 tribes, I immediately remembered learning about them in school. They told us that every Jew came from one of these tribes. As a young girl, I came home from school and asked my Orthodox dad if he knew what tribe we were from. Without skipping a beat, he told me that our family was from the Asher tribe. This tallit is for me a connection to my family and to the legacy of the Jewish people that I am a part of. It connects me to the traditions of the past and the new ones of the future.
In my parsha it states that if you do good deeds and make good choices, you will be rewarded with goodness in your life. If you make bad choices and do not heed to good deeds you will be punished.
The way that the parsha connects to my daily life is through a conversation I heard lately about the idea of a two-state solution in the Middle East; one for the Jews, and one for the Palestinians. Even just the other day, President Barack Obama, who is trying to bring peace to the Middle East, has discussed this specific idea.
I feel that if Israel goes back to the pre-‘67 borders which include Jerusalem, I think that Israel would be punished by having made a bad choice. This choice could lead to more chaos and tear apart Israel as a country and as a nation. It will leave everyone in a more vulnerable environment.

Lisa Ahuvia at her bat mitzvah

God wants us to be good. God wants us to be the best that we can. What should we give up to be good and create peace in our land? The real question is how we make real peace, and not just a temporary agreement. Next year I will be going into the army, the army that defends Israel and its citizens. A lot of my friends are currently soldiers protecting the country with their bare hands. Our army doesn’t want to make anyone suffer; they want everyone to live together peacefully. My friends, brothers, cousins, are not fighting to do “bad;” they are fighting to keep us safe. We must believe that our government will make good choices so that the work of all those I know and love, and the work that I will begin to do in the fall, will deliver us peaceful rewards.
My parsha also represents my time here in this community. For nine months I have shared myself with all of you and you with me. My reward for making good choices is a community to whom I have connected with and who has taught me a lot more about what it means to be a Jew in a cultural, ceremonial way. By being able to become an adult Bat Mitzvah I have been able to carry on the tradition of my and our ancestors, one that connects one generation to another.