Gadi's Bar Mitzvah Card

So you've seen the invitations, now it's time to show you the card I made for my youngest son's Bar Mitzvah. When Gadi returned from his youth movement's summer camp this last year he was thrilled to show us the green and orange striped tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, that he had been given. There are no specific rules regarding what colour a tallit must be. The fringes that hang off the four corners, called tzitzit, and the measurements of the tallit are the important details. Traditionally, tallitot have white backgrounds, as well as blue or black stripes, but the tallit Gadi received has orange and green stripes - the colours of the NOAM youth movement - and he was thrilled with it!

A Jewish boy who has reached the age of 13 wears a tallit for morning prayer, during the week, as well as on Shabbat and other holy days. Gadi wore his tallit for the very first time when he was called up to read from the Torah on the first "Torah-reading-day" (the Torah is publicly read in the synagogue on Shabbat, Monday and Thursday mornings, holidays and fast days) that followed his 13th birthday. He then read the whole weekly portion again on Shabbat, all the time wearing his treasured green and orange tallit.

I have also shown him wearing a kippa on his card. In Orthodox synagogues, men are required to cover their heads as a means of showing respect for God. At the time of creating this card, Gadi favoured a rather tatty red kippa, but he is now the proud owner of a Hull City kippa, to match the one Grandpa wears.
Next to the portrait of Gadi wearing his tallit I added a Sefer Torah. The Torah, or Torah Scroll, contains The Five Books of Moses that were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and include within them all of the biblical laws of Judaism. It is carefully written by an expert scribe on parchment (animal skin) and is kept in the ark of the synagogue and taken out to be read during services.

Also pictured on the card are tefillin. Tefillin are cubic black leather boxes with leather straps containing four hand-written texts from the Bible, which Orthodox Jewish men wear on their head and their arm during weekday morning prayer. Jewish boys start wearing tefillin just before their Bar Mitzvah. Above the tefillin is the Magen David (Shield of David, or as it is more commonly known, the Star of David), the symbol most commonly associated with Judaism today. It is actually a relatively new Jewish symbol and doesn’t have any religious significance in Judaism, but it is one of the symbols most commonly associated with the Jewish people.
Finally, the card I made for Gadi displays his name prominently in Hebrew, as well as the number 13, the age that Jewish boys become Bar Mitzvah. He was thrilled to receive it just a few days before his big weekend. Here he is proudly displaying it, looking ever so slightly nervous in anticipation of the days ahead.