Write To Life     by Elana Horwitz

originally published in Hamodia

Bar Mitzvah "Speech"

To the editor:

The following is an actual exchange between a friend and me. My friend emailed me:

The hall and the food at your son's bar mitzvah were really nice as were the speeches; what I could hear of them anyway. 

That brings me to the one thing that bothered me about the evening, and I know that it bothered you as well.  The fact that, although the bar mitzvah boy or his father or grandfather had gotten up to speak, people (at least the women, I don't know about the men) kept talking to each other as if nothing was happening.  This is, I think, a relatively new phenomenon that I have seen at other events recently.  I honestly, honestly don't/can't understand this.  These are nice people who are usually very careful about doing mitzvot, etc.  How can we explain/understand this behavior and, more importantly, help put an end to it?  

You tried.  I saw you try to tell people to listen to your father's speech--but to little avail. Gosh, this really bothers me, can you tell? 

The purpose of this email is not to simply rant; I'm bringing this up so that you and I can possibly think of some way to affect some kind of change. Any ideas? Possibilities that I have thought of: arranging some series of shiurim on the topic of "Derech Eretz," having some of the local Rabbanim talk about it in shul on Shabbat, and, on a very small scale, talking to our kids about it.  What are some of your thoughts?