RELIGION

Religion is a big part of any culture. No matter what culture you are in, you will see that each one practices different religions and has different rituals. Religion is a collection of cultural symbols, belief systems, and world views that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. (Wikipedia). In many cultures, there is some form of a “rite of passage”. This is when someone goes from one stage in their life to the next. Not physically, but spiritually. In most cases, it is a boy becoming a man; a girl becoming a woman. Basically an adolescent becoming an adult. Sometimes it could be something more on the lines of an immigrant becoming an American citizen.

In class, we watched a documentary that showed us one religions way that they perform rites of passages on boys. In this specific religion, they did not allow the boys to cut off their hair at all. Even the slightest trim would be considered a sin. Most families would usually disown the boy if he decided to cut off his hair or just look at it as their son has committed a murder and would make him pray to be forgiven for his wrong-doings. For the boy to become a man, they go through a rite of passage where the boy’s hair grows long enough that he can tie a turban around his head. Once the turban is tied around his head, he is considered a man. Physically he did not become a man by hitting puberty, but spiritually and religiously he did.

In my religion, we have a huge rite of passage for both girls and boys. I am apart of the Jewish religion, so our rite of passage for girls is a Bat Mitzvah and for boys it is a Bar Mitzvah. In both cases, throughout this rite of passage, you are changing from an adolescent to an adult. For both of these rites of passages, the adolescent will spend a good period of time learning a passage in the bible to read in front of the congregation. The service is usually held at a temple with a Rabbi helping lead the service. The temple is filled with family, friends and members of the temple. When I was going through my Bat Mitzvah process, I remember being so stressed. For a 13 year old, learning how to read a whole passage in the bible was extremely nerve-racking and difficult. Not to mention the whole thing was in hebrew! I got through the whole service beautifully though and I could see people in the audience crying. I wasn’t sure why they would be crying. Now i realize that because it is such an emotional rite of passage of me becoming a women, the people who were closed to me were weeping tears of joy. After the service, we eat and celebrate.

Having that rite of passage in my religion makes me feel special that I got to be apart of something that has been done by Jewish people throughout history.