Questions to Ask Your Rabbi
As families prepare for their bnei mitzvah, there are many details to work out. While my focus as a tutor is on Hebrew, I’ve identified several important questions that fall outside of that scope. Please be sure to obtain the following information from your synagogue or rabbi:
Portion
- What is our student’s Torah portion called? What story does it tell?
- Will our student perform a traditional/full aliyah? How many verses is that, in total? (Most verses read as long, unpunctuated, run-on sentences, though some are brief.)
- Will our student be sharing the bima (floor/stage) with other bnei mitzvah?
- Will there be someone nearby on the bima to cue to our student if they get stuck?
- How long is the service in total?
- At what point in the service does the reading begin, and approximately how long (in minutes) does it last?
- Beside the Torah portion, what else should our student prepare?
- Is our student expected to cantillate their portion? May they simply read aloud?
- Can you recommend a cantillation tutor, or two?
- Tip: For very short portions, opting out of formal cantillation training is acceptable. Our student can memorize the melody much like learning a song—by listening to and repeating a quality, cantillated reading. Some students choose to work on the melody in class with me, while others practice with a study partner at home. The partner serves as a sounding board to provide feedback on whether their rendition matches the cantor’s melody.
Reading
I will answer the following questions, but it can’t hurt for you to cross-check with another resource.
- When our student performs/reads, would the text include vowel and cantillation markings?
- The Torah scroll features letters, spaces, and minimal punctuation. However, you may obtain a printed or online resource that includes vowels and cantillation markings.
- How long will it take our student to achieve a Hebrew reading level that is sufficient for getting through a Torah portion?
- Bnei mitzvah should read Hebrew fluently enough to quickly decode a word as soon as they encounter it in the line of text.
- Decoding is learned over time, and in stages.
- We begin by learning the abgad (alphabet) and the relationship between letters (consonants) and movements (vowels) in Hebrew.
- We then progress to reading words, then sentences, stories, verses, etc.
- You’d be surprised at how quickly a student who attends private lessons and/or their organization’s group Hebrew classes achieves this level, provided they practice regularly on their own.
- I recommend 30-45 minutes of weekly reading (e.g., 3×15 minutes) to all my beginning Hebrew students.
- To my Bnei Mitzvah students I recommend doubling that amount.
- With competing priorities and busy lives, few students practice reading as recommended. For this reason, I find it difficult to provide an accurate estimate of how long it will take your student to achieve a level of proficiency and confidence that will allow them to read their Torah portion.
- Bnei mitzvah should read Hebrew fluently enough to quickly decode a word as soon as they encounter it in the line of text.