For Your Guests
Beth Jacob is a participatory congregation, and we provide an explanation of the service and a transliteration booklet. It is our hope that Bar/Bat Mitzvah guests, both young and old, will understand that their presence and participation in services helps to enhance the Shabbat community in our congregation. Please remind the Bar/Bat Mitzvah guests that they are to remain in the sanctuary and to participate in all appropriate ways. By their remaining in the sanctuary, their presence adds honor to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration.
Guests and those participating in the service should wear appropriately modest attire. Some people are allergic to perfumes and perfumed products. Please help us keep Beth Jacob a friendly place for all by informing your guests of our policy on limiting their use of scented products.
Beth Jacob is pleased to welcome to the congregation your child’s peers, friends and family who may not be familiar with the Shabbat morning service or a synagogue. We have included an attachment of a letter you might want to include to your child’s friends along with the invitation. It explains the appropriate time to arrive (9:40am), the dress code, and to anticipate a long service.
We ask that you provide adult supervision for your child’s friends who will be seated together in the synagogue to assure that appropriate decorum is maintained throughout the service.
We welcome all your guests, but for their convenience, please notify your guests of our Shabbat morning childcare service and crying room for your youngest visitors!.
For your reference, here is a link to a sample Beth Jacob handout written by Pam Lauer for her son’s Bar Mitzvah.
Our focus on the Shabbat of your child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah is Shabbat and community. Within that context, the congregation celebrates with you and your child as they become an adult member of the community. Many out of town guests or visitors to the shul on a Bar/Bat Mitzvah Shabbat remark just how much they love the feel of the Shabbat service. There are many reasons for that, but in part it is because we work hard as a community to not make this “your Shabbat” alone.  In addition to your family and friends, the shul will be filled with members of the congregation who daven on a regular basis each and every Shabbat. Together, the invited guests and family with the congregational community join in celebration. As a result, Beth Jacob does not allow for parent speeches during Shabbat morning services. As parents, we are filled with pride as our children take this next step in their Jewish journey. There are many things we need to say to our children at this moment in their lives. Those things are not for 200 people to hear, but rather for your child to hear directly from you at a time when you can show all appropriate emotion, without concern for how others might react. If you desire to publicly share with your child your thoughts, a good time to do so is at a Friday night Shabbat dinner or during the celebration after the Bar/Bat Mitzvah.
Shabbat Home Hospitality for Guests
If you have guests who do not travel on Shabbat, contact Rabbi Allen about home hospitality.
Please see the link at Hosting Events at Beth Jacob for information about housing, and hotels.