Community: One-Off Events

The Bible shows believers from the community of faith practicing the religion of our fathers at both fixed and one-off times. Fixed dates include the weekly Sabbath, annual holidays, and appointed times, including Passover and Sukkot. Below are the four main times a Jewish person makes a statement about him/herself:

  1. Birth/Brit

  2. Bar/Bat Mitzvah

  3. Wedding

At each of these moments of passage, we use ceremony and food, and gatherings and testimony to allow participation and inclusion to occur. Life-cycle events are significant to our families. When we, as believers in Yeshua, continue to regard them as significant, we reassure family and friends that we value our common heritage.

Circumcision

Circumcision

Birth / Brit Milah

A bris (or brit) is the ceremony of circumcision for Jewish boys when they are eight days old.

For information about Messianic Jewish brit milah, you will want to contact your local general practice doctor and / or our office.

For some controversy about circumcision, read here ›

You may modify these rites or email or ring us, and we will help you construct one of your own.

You will want to have food and comfortable seating including a separate room for the mother of the child to sit during the brit milah. You may want to publish a bulletin/notice sheet for the event. Personal invitations and thank you cards will add a special touch to the event.

Bar mitzva

Bar mitzva

Bar / Bat Mitzvah

Bar mitzvah (“son of the commandment”) refers to a boy who has reached 13 years of age. At this time, he is considered a man in the sense of being responsible to take on the religious obligations of Jewish life. It also refers to the ceremony of the threshold after which the boy is now a man.

As this article points out, the bar mitzvah ceremony is a sign to the child that he is a Jew and a sign to the Jewish community that we are Jews. The bat mitzvah ceremony is for girls who have reached 12 years of age.

Read more about a bar / bat mitzvah here

Wedding

Wedding

Weddings

In our marriage to our life partner, we state publicly that God has chosen this person for us and we want our home to look like this. Then we build a ceremony with flowers and dresses, bands and rings, and seating and color charts to match.

If you want to reflect your home as a Messianic Jewish home, you want to have Messiah as central. You might include a chuppah, a smashed glass, and any number of other items which demonstrate that reflection.

“There was every reason that our wedding should include all these things, for we had not become nor felt any less Jewish because of our belief in Jesus. In fact, these outward symbols were merely an indication of our inner convictions and our desire to honor and perpetuate our Jewish heritage.”

David Brickner wrote an excellent article about marriage here.