fete
[feyt, fet]
1. a day of celebration; holiday:
The Fourth of July is a great American fete.
2. a festive celebration or entertainment:
The ball was the greatest fete of the season.
3. a religious feast or festival:
a fete lasting several days in honor of a saint.
4. to entertain at or honor with a fete:
to fete a visiting celebrity.
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Josh did not know what the big deal was. Everyone was making such a big fuss over
something so small. It wasn’t like he
had done something big or important or anything. He had been told the significance, of course,
but to him, it all seemed so trivial.
Certainly not worthy of the huge celebratory party he was getting, or
the large number of checks his parents were diligently keeping track of.
All he
had done was get up in front the congregation and read off a piece of
paper. Sure, it was all in Hebrew, but
it was written out so anyone could read it.
Plus, the whole thing only took ten minutes. Why would something so simple warrant such an
extravagant party?
Everyone was congratulating him and patting
him on the back and telling him how great he was. But he simply could not understand why. Anyone could have done what he did, and he
could think of a lot of people who could probably have done it better. So why was everyone praising him so much?
He knew
the reasons why the ceremony and party were happening. It was a tradition for his thirteenth
birthday. He knew what that meant to
people, but it seemed silly to him.
After all, all he really did was be alive for thirteen years, and that
was hardly because of anything he did.
His parents, now they should be the ones that people were celebrating,
not him.
All
Josh wanted to do was go home and play video games. But asking his parents to take him home so
early would be rude. After all, the
party was for him. For some reason that
Josh was apparently unaware of.
Maybe
there was some hidden meaning to it.
Maybe going up there and reading those words off what amounted to cue
cards was important not for him, but for the adults? Something like another way for his parents to
brag about him? They did that a lot, so
why not now? But then again, Bobby Weismann
went through all the same things when he turned thirteen, and they had a
celebration just as big as Josh was getting.
And Bobby was really stupid. He couldn’t
even read the words right. So no, it was
probably not for parental bragging rights.
He knew
it was some kind of ritual passage into adulthood. But he was barely even a teenager now. How was that considered an adult? It seemed even sillier than the process
already was. Besides, how could reading
a few Hebrew words make him a man? There
were only three other boys he knew of that either would, or already had gone
through this. Nobody else seemed to care
about being thirteen, and they definitely did not consider him an adult at such
a young age. Josh did not consider
himself to be a man, that was for sure.
Maybe
that was the point. Maybe he was not
supposed to understand yet. Maybe it was
understanding the reasons behind the ceremony and the following celebration
that mattered. Maybe when he was older,
he would be able to figure it out, and that would be when he really entered
adulthood.
Josh
nodded slightly to himself. That sounded
reasonable. Well, more reasonable than
anything he had been told so far anyway.
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For those who are not Jewish, this is a Bar Mitzvah party. The Bar Mitzvah is pretty much a boy's thirteenth birthday, but there's a whole bunch of ceremony around it. The big party afterwards is more recent I think. It's really just a bigger than normal birthday party, but people tend to go all out with them. So yeah, that's what's going on here. Have a nice day.
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