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Article: Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
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Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah
The bar/bat mitzvah ceremony is an important rite of passage for contemporary Jewish youth, marking the end of childhood and the beginning of ritual adulthood. The term
bar mitzvah
can be found in Talmudic literature, but the rite itself is a relatively recent development, probably dating from the late Middle Ages. The
bat mitzvah
was not mentioned until the nineteenth century.
The Talmud, a compendium of legal and narrative discourse completed about 500 c.e., based legal maturity on puberty, which was declared to occur at thirteen and a day for a boy and twelve and a day for a girl. At that point, a male became a "bar mitzvah" (literally, "son of the ...