Helaine Schechter never had a confirmation when she was in high school, attending a conservative temple where she and her family were members.
So two years ago, she and seven other women who are congregants at Temple Tikvah in New Hyde Park, all 55 years or older, approached Rabbi Randy Scheinberg to fulfill their long-standing wish.
On June 23, their wish came true and the eight women were confirmed in a ceremony in which they each read from the Torah and read speeches they composed about growing up in the 1960s. The service was the first adult confirmation ceremony at Temple Tikvah.
“It made me feel good that women were accepted. It was wonderful to go through this process and reading from the Torah,” Schecter said.
Scheinberg and cantor Guy Bonne both conducted weekly classes with the eight women over the past two years.
Scheinberg said she enjoyed Saturday morning services with the women, which included discussions of specific prayers and different aspects of the service.
“We looked at Jewish history, we studied theology and studied some Torah scriptures. Many of them are coming to realize what Judaism has to offer them as adults. To watch their eyes open to that, it’s so rich,” the rabbi said. “They bring so much to it.”
Confirmation typically follows a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah a few years later, when a Jewish boy or girl is in high school. It recognizes that they have achieved a higher degree of knowledge about their religion. The practice of confirmation originated in the U.S. among Jewish Reform temples in the mid-19th century. Today the practice is common among Reform and Reconstructionist temples and in some Conservative temples.
Schechter and the other women had bat mitzvahs – some more than 40 years ago and some as adults at Temple Tikvah. But they felt they had not had they full experience of that rite of passage. They wanted to learn more, and to chant Torah.
A long-time New Hyde Park resident, Schechter finished Hebrew School as a youngster at the conservative temple her family belonged to, she didn’t have a bat mitzvah because it simply wasn’t done.
“I graduated from Hebrew School and not one girl had a bat mitzvah,” she recalled.
She finally went through that Jewish rite of passage at Temple Emanuel in New Hyde Park – now Temple Tikvah – in 1999.
When Albertson resident Susan Kane was attending Hebrew School at a conservative temple as a youngster, she became disillusioned when she realized she couldn’t have a bat mizvah.
“I dropped out when it became apparent that we weren’t going to be treated as equals,” she said.
For her, the confirmation was a significant ceremony, occurring on the anniversary of her daughter’s bat mitzvah 17 years before. And Kane finally had the opportunity to read from the Torah at a Saturday temple service, something she always wanted to do.
“For me, it was just a tremendous feeling, to be able to do something that they wouldn’t let them do. It was a good day,” she said.
Great Neck resident Barbara Orville, had a similar experience when she was younger, attending Hebrew School for a year but not having a bat mitzvah in the reform temple her family attended. She eventually became bat mitzvah in 2007 in the last ceremony held at Temple Israel in Jamaica before its congregation merged with Temple Emanuel to become Temple Tikvah.
The confirmation classes made this an entirely different experience for her than the bat mitzvah.
“For me, when I was bat mitzvahed, I didn’t feel it. This time I feel it,” she said,
Learning more about Israel, getting to know the other women and learning to chant Torah and writing speeches related to it made the confirmation process more meaningful to her.
“The Torah portion they read was about a figure who was a rebel,” Orville said. “I was a rebel, so it was perfect for me.”
Ultimately, the women themselves collaborated with the rabbi to plan the entire confirmation service.
“The class really put together the service themselves. They decided which settings of which prayers they wanted. The service itself was the culmination of one part of the learning,” Scheinberg said. “We continue to have that service once a month.”
Robin Jacobson, another New Hyde Park resident who was one of the confirmants, had become a bat mitzvah in a conservative temple at age 12, but had not gone through the sort of ceremony that boys who became bar mitzvahs in her temple experienced.
“I never got to do what the boys did, to read from the Torah. I wanted to learn to read from the Torah. This was my chance,” Jacobson said. “For me, it was an amazing experience.”
Sandy Portnoy was an adult when she had her bat mitzvah at the New Hyde Park temple in 1990. She appreciated the opportunity the temple provided her to expand her knowledge of her religious tradition and to be confirmed in it.
“My temple is egalitarian and women and men have the same rights and responsibilities,” said Portnoy, a New Hyde Park resident. “We believe in learning and we just want to keep on learning.”
She said it was “incredible” to be able to chant Torah in the confirmation service.
“The scroll is sacred item. People all over the world are reading the same Torah portion at the same time. It’s very fulfilling,” she said.
Working with the other women on writing the service was also satisfying, she said, as they included meaningful aspects of their younger years, including the 1960s folk tune “If I Had a Hammer.”
The other Temple Tikvah congregants who were confirmed included Susan Kane of Albertson, Barbara Orville of Great Neck, Carol Reiter of New Hyde Park, and Ruth Cooperman of Fresh Meadows, Queens. “We hope that we’re the first of many classes,” Portnoy said.
More than 170 people attended the ceremony and Scheinberg said she received inquiries from other adults about being confirmed during the celebratory luncheon that followed the service. So she expects to start working with another group of adults with that same goal in mind shortly.
“I started planting that seed immediately,” Scheinberg said.
Schechter said being confirmed as an adult gives one a different kind of appreciation for that rite of passage, and she sees it a milestone in a deeper involvement with her faith.
“This is not the end. This is just the beginning of what we call the Jewish journey,” she said.
