At the beginning of the Reform Movement in Germany in the early 1800s, the observance of Confirmation was instituted.
The thought was that a 16-year-old has greater intellectual capacity to understand what it means to confirm or affirm one’s commitment to Judaism than a 13-year-old. It also allowed for a religious coming-of-age ceremony for girls before the bat mitzvah celebration existed.
Reform leaders tied acceptance of the Torah at Mount Sinai to Confirmation students accepting Judaism as a part of their lives. Therefore, Confirmation was set to be held on Shavuot, which celebrates the anniversary of receiving the Torah.
The first Confirmation ceremony in the United States took place in 1846. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of American Reform Judaism and all of its institutions — Union for Reform Judaism (formerly the Union of American Hebrew Congregations), Central Conference of American Rabbis, and Hebrew Union College — officiated at this service in Albany, N.Y.
By the end of the 19th century, the ceremony had become widespread in Reform communities and has since been adopted by other movements.
Although originally intended as an alternative to the bar mitzvah celebration, today Confirmation is an additional lifecycle event.
While the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony focuses on worship skills and Hebrew and is an individual undertaking, Confirmation is a culmination/graduation from religious school education, and is a group experience.
Even so, each student does typically give a personal statement. The study is most often focused on understanding Jewish concepts and examining Jewish theology.
The Torah text that is identified with Shavuot is the theophany at Mt. Sinai, and the reading of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-14) is traditionally done as the congregation stands to relive that moment at Sinai.
When considering what the Israelites actually heard at Sinai, a midrash concluded: “The Israelites heard what was in each one’s power to hear” (Exodus Rabbah 28:6.).
This text gains special significance when the Confirmation class reads the Ten Commandments to the assembled congregation. After a year of study with a rabbi, each student determines for him or herself what Judaism means in his/her life — or, in the words of the midrash, “what was in each one’s power to hear.”
Their Confirmation speeches are really snapshots of how the Torah and Jewish literature speaks to them at that particular moment. Each student has something unique to say and shares his/her own particular interpretation of what Judaism means.
The combination of hearing these different adolescent “takes” on Judaism and having the student speak the words of the Ten Commandments in the ears of the congregation enables those in the congregation to reflect upon what is “in each one’s power to hear” as well.
As the congregants and guests stand in the pews and relive the Sinai moment and then hears the confirmation students’ remarks, each worshipper has the opportunity to consider again what it means to be a Jew and to participate in the covenant community we know as Judaism.
May this year’s Shavuot observance go beyond blintzes and cheesecake and cause each one of us to consider what we hear when we “stand at Sinai” on Shavuot and every day as we go about our lives reflecting on the rich traditions of Judaism.
Rabbi Dena A. Feingold is spiritual leader of Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha. See the Celebration special section in this issue for lists of students in this year’s Confirmation classes.
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