COVID-19 has stopped people from going out, but it couldn’t stop Shmueli Goldman from having his bar mitzvah.
The 13-year-old Gainesville resident celebrated his coming-of-age Thursday from the safety of his own home at the UF Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student & Community Center of Gainesville. His ceremony was streamed live on Zoom Video Communications to a few hundred friends and family who were social distancing.
Shmueli is one of eight children in his family. Even with so many siblings, he is the first to have a virtual bar mitzvah, said Rabbi Berl Goldman, his father.
Shmueli is used to virtual programs because he does online schooling at the Shluchim Online School, so he found using Zoom was not a problem for his bar mitzvah.
Before reciting Hebrew and feasting on a buffet of Chinese food, Berl recounted inspirational words from the Torah and acknowledged his son’s commitment to studying the Jewish laws he was now responsible for following the rest of his life. Shmueli’s mother, Chanie, praised his positive attitude and constant smile.
Shmueli’s other present relatives took turns greeting spectators and congratulating him — all with similar sentiments of compassion and bright hopes for his future.
Online attendees celebrated in the Zoom chat as Shmueli danced and was paraded around the room on the shoulders of his family members after he spent about eight minutes reciting the Jewish laws he studied from memory, in both Hebrew and Yiddish.
“Now that I’ve actually done it, it’s such a relief,” Shmueli said.
