Essay 1

One week left until the big day. I was twelve years old, almost thirteen. In the Jewish religion, when a child reaches the age of thirteen, it is time to become a man/woman in the eyes of the Jewish congregation. I had one week before it was time for me to lead a huge service with all of my family and friends watching. All of the preparation and memorization from the past six months of my life were getting ready to be put to use.

I have never been so nervous in my life. No matter what I did outside of school or the synagogue, there was always some way to relate it back to the next Saturday when I would be put on the spot in front of all of my peers. There was no doubt in my mind that I could do it. I had watched student after student complete there service without flaw since I was a little kid, but that didn't change the fact that I have never been faced with something so nerve wrecking in my entire life.

Every day my parents would drill me to practice. They wanted me to recite prayers and show them how much that I had learned. The fact of the matter was that I wasn't nearly as prepared as I knew I could be. I was looking into the eyes of a huge accomplishment, but all I could really grasp onto was what would happen if I failed.

It seemed as if everything hit me all at once. This was my religion, and I was proud of what was about to happen on Saturday. Of course, my friends poked fun at the idea of me on stage speaking a completely unfamiliar language, but that didn't matter any more. So one night, I changed the way I was thinking about my Bar Mitzvah. I stayed up for hours on end studying, reciting, listening to my tapes, and overall just trying to improve my skill for the big day. It's funny to me how that one night made such a difference. I woke up the next morning. I had barely gotten a wink of sleep, but for some reason I felt good. I felt ready to take on the big day and all of the challenges that were waiting on me. That confidence that I attained was greater then any studying or any other kind of preparation that I could have achieved.

Finally, I woke up on that cold Saturday morning. My family and I rode to the synagogue together.