Imagine the stress of planning an important simcha. Now imagine not knowing if the guest of honour is even going to show up for his big day. This is the reality my husband and I faced when planning for our son Aidan’s bar mitzvah.
Aidan has moderate functioning autism, meaning he is fully verbal but has lots of difficulties comprehending information. In fact, he still doesn’t get the significance of what a bar mitzvah even is. However, Judaism is very important in our family life and we wanted our son to have a bar mitzvah – even if it wasn’t going to be a typical one. So we decided that even if, after all the lessons and preparation, Aidan didn’t show up to the bimah, we would still celebrate him.
The support we received in planning helped ease some of our stresses. Our rabbi was so understanding of Aidan’s special needs and allowed us to plan a private service at the synagogue. Meanwhile, Aidan’s music therapist got her own mother to work with us as Aidan’s bar mitzvah tutor. We decided to embrace his autism by incorporating imagery of puzzle pieces (used by many autism awareness organizations) as his “theme.” We ordered puzzle piece-embossed kippot, had puzzle pieces in our centrepieces and even on the decorative pretzels the guests munched on. The photographer we hired has worked for many years with our family and “gets” Aidan’s aversion to being photographed.
Aidan’s bar mitzvah took place on a Thursday morning. He was scheduled to read the beginning of that week’s Torah reading, Ki Tavo. The parashah recalls the miracle of God taking the Jews out of slavery in Egypt, into the land of milk and honey, Israel. As prayers started that morning, I was happy that Aidan was sitting in the back of the sanctuary (instead of waiting outside). His tutor sat next to him. When his big moment arrived, Aidan quietly walked up to the bimah with his tutor and read from the Torah.
READ: FROM YONI’S DESK: REFLECTIONS ON MY OWN BAR MITZVAH
As Aidan wasn’t capable of presenting a classic devar Torah, I did one for him, which compared our journey with Aidan’s diagnosis to the Jews’ journey to Israel. When Aidan was diagnosed with autism, my husband and I felt trapped. We were like the Jews in Egypt, hopeless and despondent. We didn’t know what our firstborn would be able to do – would he ever speak? We went through periods of extreme hope and extreme doubt, just as the Jews did in their wandering for
40 years in the wilderness.
Through it all, we supported Aidan the best we could. And despite the challenges he still faces, we are so proud that he could reach this momentous occasion. We have finally reached the land of milk and honey, and although we didn’t expect the journey we would take with our firstborn, we sure love our tour guide. Let’s just say, there weren’t too many dry eyes in the house that day in shul. Our guests were truly touched and amazed, and we all had a great time dancing the hora.
For Aidan’s bar mitzvah project, and in line with his bar mitzvah parashah, which also discusses tithing, we decided to give 10 per cent of his monetary gifts to Autism Ontario. Weeks later, we are still shepping nachas from this unforgettable day. Our message to anyone with a child with any kind of special needs is to have hope. Everyone can succeed in their own special way.