Bar Mitzvah on the Eigth Day of Hanuka

This past Shabbat was the sixth anniversary ov Avi's bar mitzvah celebration. The final day of Hanuka fell on Shabbat, meaning that Saturday's Torah and haftarah (reading from the Prophets) portions were the same as those chanted by Avi. You may recall from earlier posts that Avi chanted his Torah portion for the next two years, and that I took them over for the two years following his death.

Today, I chanted two sections. Like last year and the year before, I was moved by the verse in which Jacob refuses to let his youngest son, Benjamin, go down to Egypt because his full brother, Joseph, was dead, leaving Benjamin as the only son of Rachel. Jacob and I shared the same intense grief of a father who had lost a son. The difference, of course, was that Jacob got to see Joseph alive again after many years.

This morning, a new bar mitzvah boy, chanted part of the reading. Avi would have been pleased by the Hebrew Academy student's layning and by his leading the entire morning services.
I am encouraging the young man (without mentioning the reason) to layn in the future all the Torah portions that Avi would still have been chanting.

Through my layning, I memorialized Avi. I can't think of a better way, however, to perpetuate Avi's legacy than to have other b'nai mitzvah follow his example.