Paper idea 2

(WIP) Thesis: Using my Bar Mitzvah as a focal point, I wish to re-visit spirituality in my life and reconstruct an event that should have been a epiphanic turning point in my life. Likewise, I am also interested in building a 'postmortem' styled case study for later use by a local Sunday school teacher using interviews with my family, other B-M anecdotes, and the historical and modern images of divinity.

About ten years ago I had a Bar Mitzvah in Billings. A Bar Mitzvah is the Jewish ritual of adulthood. After leading a service and reading from the community's Torah, the adults of the community welcomed me into their ranks; I became a man. Of course, the next day, I still got yelled at for not getting homework done.

That was in 2000. It was the first time my Mom's side of the family was united for almost 15 years and I made friends in my Hebrew class who I still travel to see. It was the 3-year product of memory, study, and community. Yet,today, I never think about the event. It simply isn't important to me.

I want to change this. By lining up what I memorized and rebuilding the experience I want to figure out what the effect of the ritual was on my identity. I will also relate the experience to other Bar/Bat Mitzvahs so to build a wider context with which to relate my experiences. From this generalized perspective I want to relate our literary view on religion with mainstream American Judaism. This literary view, based in the concept of pro-activity and epiphany, will hopefully allow me to have Elliot's ideal that the approach to meaning restores an experience.

tl;dr: Gonna recollect things.