If your Bar Mitzvah were in Parshat Mishpatim, you’d be pretty jealous of the kid who got last week’s Parsha. That’s the one where God gives the Torah to the Jewish people o Mt. Sinai. Literal fireworks, booming thundrous voices, big ideas, drama, intesity. And the trope (the cantillations for Torah reading) even reflects that. It’s like Beethoven’s 5th.

But really this week’s parsha is where it’s at. Not that you’d know that on first glance - after all, it’s populated with laws about the most basic of mundane relaitonships. People getting into fights, animals falling into pits, people borrowing stuff that breaks, and guarding stuff that gets stolen. This is what happens in normal life - at least back in the day when people had oxen and dug pits (though there are modern equivalents, to be sure). And this is where Bar Mitzvah-ness actually happens.

We have gotten into the bad habit of calliing the day when you get called up to the Torah your “Bar Mitzvah”. But Bar MItzvah isn’t a day you celebrate - it’s a person you become. And we see that person most clearly in the world of stuff and people and relationship and interaction. We’re all glad you made a nice speech and looked good in your new suit. You did a fine job doing the limbo at did your party.

But what we want to know is, did you do the dishes after you used them, or did you leave them for your mom to do? Did you show up on time for that meeting? Did you control your anger when your kid sister used your laptop without asking? Did you notice that old lady crossing the street and offer to help?