By Rabbi Rich Kirschen, Director of NFTY in Israel
I could never refuse writing for this week’s Parsha because “Behar-Bechukotai” was the my Bar Mitsvah parsha in 1976 (yes, complete with a leisure suit…but to get a better understanding of leisure suits see old re-runs of the Six Million Dollar Man). At the time I had no idea what I was reading for my Bar Mitzvah and neither did anyone else. But back then, or a least in the Holy city of Woodmere, Long Island at my Conservadox Shul (I don’t know if these hybrids exist any more) this is how it was done: you would chant the Hebrew (and later go to the Lawrence Country Club). In my shul (we didn’t say Temple) men and women could sit together while there was a separate section for the older men (who were probably the age I am now) who would sit and make strange “geheking” sounds.
