These are surely strange times in which to have celebrations. But despite the pandemic, life does go on. Babies are born, couples decide to marry, and, for our family this past weekend, Maya celebrated becoming a Bat Mitzvah.
Marking this occasion over Zoom was certainly not part of the original plan. But just as Simmie and Ronen and Maya were beginning to finalize decisions on what their family would do to mark this milestone, Covid-19 appeared and changed everything. They decided to have the main part of the celebration on Monday morning so that it could be safely shared with friends and family near and far. Maya read from the Torah portion Nitzavim (“ones standing”), followed by a speech. Maya’s paternal grandparents and great grandmother (on Zoom from Israel) spoke beautifully. Her aunt Dina provided keen insight, and her sister Eliana was poised and charming in describing her younger sister, including a video with Rory “speaking” Maya’s praises. Her Mom was simply beaming. Barry and I also spoke of Maya’s charm and talents, sharing some of her most endearing qualities.
All of you who have joined us today know that Maya is an excellent student and a loyal friend with a winning smile. But Maya has numerous other attributes that make her particularly endearing and impressive.
From a very early age, Maya showed signs of artistic talent. When she was just five years old, we were looking at a book in which this picture was shown,
and she said “that looks like a Kandinsky.” Neither Barry nor I had a clue who the artist was, but it turned out that she had learned about Kandinsky’s work at school and was right! The following year, Maya painted this winter scene, and we were stunned at her ability to capture not only the feel of winter but three dimensions in a two-dimensional space.
Maya’s talents are not limited to art; she has honed her skills in music as well. We still recall her earliest weeks at what we call “Camp NanaSabba,” when she would just enjoy sitting at our piano and playing melodies she composed. Before long, she was able to play by ear music she had heard, and continues to hone her skills as a pianist through formal lessons and experimentation.
Maya is a young lady who also appreciates the finer things in life. She has long enjoyed seeing movies at the Showcase SuperLux Cinema in Chestnut Hill, where the waiters serve her candy in a champagne flute.
Another fond memory of our time with Maya was when Barry was telling her about a book he had recently read, “Moonwalking with Einstein,” in which Jonathan Foer relates his experience in competitive memorization and the techniques he mastered that enabled him to remember long strings of unrelated words and numbers. They were very modest in terms of their ambition to memorize, and decided on three words: tiger, window, and ice cream, which both Maya and Barry will somehow never forget.
It was an outstanding example of making lemonade from lemons. While I am sure that Maya will look back and feel she “missed” having the celebration she would have liked, I am certain she will know that she had the best celebration she possibly could have had.
Love,
Nana/Rebecca
