A Bar Mitzvah at age 90?
Jewish boys traditionally recite the blessing over the Torah at the age of 13, when they are “Bar Mitzvah and obliged to follow Jewish laws.” The term literally means “son of the commandment." Omaha, Nebraskan Elliot (Bus) Rubin, at the age of 90, carried out a dream to conduct the Bar mitzvah ceremony that he missed while he was a teenager.
A Chabad-Lubvitch family in Omaha guided Rubin on the road back to Judaism, and a community member coached him to learn enough Hebrew to recite the blessing in an emotional ceremony. His son Danny, his wife Betty, his 96-year-od sister Ethel and a granddaughter were among those attending.
Rubin, founder of a distributing company, quit Jewish schooling at the age of 12 and had kept secret his desire to be a Bar Mitzvah until Chabad Rabbi Mendel Katzman visited him in a routine visit to a senior citizens home.
In response to Rabbi Katzman’s inquiry if Rubin wanted to put on tefillin, the phylacteries that are worn on the head and arm during morning prayers, excluding the Sabbath and major holidays, the 90-year-old Jew bashfully said he had not conducted the Bar Mitzvah ceremony when he was 13.
His son Danny said the rabbi’s daughters, Shevi and Mushka, visited Rubin several times and eventually talked to him about having a proper Bar Mitzvah, according to Jewish law. "With Mushka’s visits and encouragement, my dad’s fear gave way and he agreed to have a ceremony,” Danny Rubin told Chabad.org.
Rubin surprised his family and friends by attending the Chabad House synagogue for the Bar mitzvah ceremony because he rarely leaves his residence.
At the Thursday morning prayer service, the elderly Rubin recited the blessing over the Torah in what his son said was a “very meaningful” moment.