Sixty years after his first bar mitzvah, Lawrence Tarnoff stood on the bimah once more, this time alongside his wife, Jill.
For most of his life, Lawrence felt more culturally Jewish than religious. He connected with Jewish family, food, and holidays, and was bar mitzvahed as a teen. He even worked within the Milwaukee Jewish community, handling public relations for the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and serving as editor of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in the early 1970s.
“As I get older, I want to have a better understanding of the religious underpinnings of our faith,” Lawrence said. “Going through the bar mitzvah training certainly opened those doors.”
Lawrence and Jill decided to open those doors together, celebrating their b’nei mitzvah as members of a larger group through Congregation Sinai on March 26, 2022.
While they shared the milestone together, Jill’s journey was different. She didn’t have a bat mitzvah when she was younger because “girls weren’t doing that” back then. But when Jill found out that she had a speaking part in a bat mitzvah service for their granddaughter, Mara, she decided to take that first step.
“She had a very meaningful and pointed objective in going through the exercise, going through class,” Lawrence said. That objective, a desire to speak Hebrew clearly at her granddaughter’s service, became a way to honor her mother. Jill had a close relationship with her mother, who converted to Judaism when she was young.
“My d’var Torah ultimately became more about my mom than about me. So it was kind of a homage to my mother,” Jill said. “My mother took on her role as a Jewish person with such gusto.”
Having been members of Congregation Sinai for a few years, Lawrence and Jill enrolled in the same Torah class there, with Rabbi David Cohen and Cantor Richard Newman.
Although they started the B’nei Mitzvah process before COVID-19, the pandemic forced them to postpone their ceremony. Despite this, the couple was committed to following through.
“It was like the never-ending Hebrew school,” Jill said. “We just kept chugging along. And everybody hung in there. Nobody dropped out.”
During Congregation Sinai’s service, Jill was “a little nervous”, but the ceremony was heartwarming.
“I’m glad I did it. I’m really glad I did it,” Jill said.
Lawrence believes that his understanding of Judaism has become more meaningful through having a b’nei mitzvah. He still attends Torah study with Cantor Richard Newman on Saturday mornings.
“It’s never too late,” Lawrence said. “Studying, no matter how much or how little you do, it helps open up that door, a door to some wisdom.”
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