Bat Mitzvah Analysis

When a young girl celebrates her Bat Mitzvah, the ceremony is often seen to be one which celebrates her becoming an adult, and while this may be true, this is only the surface of what it means to be a Bat Mitzvah. Literally meaning “daughter of the commandment”, a Bat Mitzvah is when a young girl makes the free choice to accept and abide by Jewish laws, and take responsibility for her Jewish faith. This is why the passage she reads from the Tanakh at the ceremony should be about a person whom she feels is truly a role model of how she should live her life as a daughter of the commandment. It is for this reason that when I make my own Bat Mitzvah, I will be reading from The Book of Ruth. Ruth is one of few female icons in the Tanakh who young Jewish girls can look to as a role model, and her qualities of courage, faithfulness and loyalty are certainly ones which a Jewish Girl should emulate as she strives to be a daughter of the commandment.
The Book of Ruth is one of the shortest books in the Tanakh. Set directly …show more content…
The time of Judges also indicates to the audience the position of women at the time. In the time of Judges, a patriarchal society ruled where women were of a lower standing than men, and thus were unable to work or be educated, and were the property of their husband or father (Shmoop n,d,). Knowing the context of the story, it becomes evident that the story was written to teach the Israelites that they must keep their faith in Yahweh (whose salvation manifests when people are at their worst, as it did with Ruth) (Zlotowitz & Scherman 2010), and that Yahweh works through ordinary people with ordinary lives (The Catholic Youth