The Day I Bar Mitzvah-ed A Cat
Yes, for those of you aren’t in the know yet, doing a “Meow Mitzvah” for your cat, or a “Bark Mitzvah” for fur babies of the canine persuasion is a thing.
I didn’t know that myself until several years ago my mother’s then-girlfriend (now wife) asked me if I would conduct a Bar Mitzvah service for her rag doll cat, Romeo, who was about to turn 13.
Thankfully Karen made this request of me over the phone so she couldn’t see my expression which was, to my memory, a blend of WTF and amusement and…compassion. I know how important Romeo is to her. He is her little fur baby. I know I’m not the only one who can totally relate as well, being absolutely bonkers over my own cat, Molly. (However, I don’t feel the need to go so far as to Bat Mitzvah her when she will eventually turn 13 simply because she will freak out if I try to put a yarmulke and tallis (prayer shawl) on her. She doesn’t need the trauma. As you can see in the photo here, Romeo wasn’t thrilled either.)
For Karen, marking this day for her precious boy, Romeo, was for her, doing something special to symbolize her love for him. So even if I had my own feelings about performing a service that has been, for centuries, used to mark a child’s passage from childhood to manhood (and thanks to the Reform Movement, girls to womanhood), and the age of 13 in cat years is very likely accelerated as it is for dogs, making Romeo technically the equivalent of a man ready to retire and play golf and tinker around the house, I felt it my honor to make as good a sweet a service as possible.
Having once been a cantorial student at the official rabbinical/cantorial school of the Reform movement (I’m a cantorial school dropout. Okay, go ahead and plug those lyrics into the song from Grease), I knew the basic service needed and was able to pull together a “Meow Mitzvah” that wasn’t too long, covered the important bits and would keep the attention of the crowd of, get this…about 35 or 40 people and allow them to get on the buffet line within a reasonable amount of time. This wasn’t hard to do because, well, obviously the part of the service in which the Bar or Bat Mitzvah chants their portion from the Torah and/or the Book of Prophets is irrelevant for a cat.
I think someone videoed the service. I don’t remember, but it probably lasted about 20 minutes and I was to my own surprise, very moved. I found myself getting all v’klempt as I sang and chanted and had to force myself not to get all teary-eyed to the point where I would not be able to sing. I love the liturgy, to be honest, and also I have found that I’ve gotten to an age where singing anything that is embedded in my heart moves me that way. Because of that, my voice often wavered and I worried that I did not do a proper job.
However, in spite of my wavering voice and tendency to start pisching (Yiddish expression for crying), Karen was very happy with the Meow Mitzvah, which really was the only thing that mattered. Well, that and the fact that once it was over, Romeo was freed of the yarmulke and prayer shawl and could go back to being a normal cat.
As far as the ethical implications of performing such a service for an animal, I reflected on that and did some reading up on it as well. Truthfully, I don’t remember what I read about it, but I did manage to come to my own synthesis of doing a life-cycle ceremony for a cat, in which I felt was a hopefully-loving conclusion.
Dogs and cats are not only sentient beings. They are emotionally sophisticated creatures who experience fear and sadness as well as great happiness when they are loved by humans who are kind to them. The loyalty and unerring enthusiastic love dogs give us humans, and the de-mousing service, entertainment and cuddling cats give us show me that somewhere on the evolutionary scale, our cat and dog companions are in their process too.
If the soul does develop over many embodiments, eventually moving toward becoming a human being so that it can develop rational thinking and discrimination and eventually the enlightenment of conscious awareness of the fundamental unity of all creation, then dogs and cats are not far behind in their quest for humanity. Perhaps celebrating our love for our cat and dog companions in this way is one of those markers that guide’s the animal’s consciousness. I could be wrong, but I keep my mind open to the possibility.
