To the Editor:

            Thank you so much for including me as one of the elderly gentlemen who have had or who are planning a second Bar Mitzvah.  I appreciate the efforts of Ana Veciana-Suarez and photographer, Marice Cohn Band in trying to encapsulate the two figures reproduced in the article about three of us old-timers choosing to go through the ritual of a second Bar Mitzvah. The article appeared in the Saturday, August 25, 2007 issue of the Herald.

But, (and there must always be a "but)"; I found that what was reported was not quite what I wanted to be said.  As a writer, myself, for I turn out THINKING ALLOWED each morning for a group of regulars and add to pages on my website, aaron.schectman.com, I found that I could not control the two Miami Herald experts.  There was so much I would have them say and show but the demands of the piece which covered THREE second Bar Mitzvahs did not take into consideration all that I thought was important to said and introduced into the piece and, perhaps, dominate it for a full page.  But, so is life and the article was Ana’s article, after all.

What bothered me least were the ritualistic reasons for enduring a second “coming of age” –‘Today, I am a Man’.  Studying Torah for years has taught me that what was created in the historical period when Jews came out of Africa and into a land flowing with milk and honey, is filled with wisdom and instructions that, as writer Saul Bellow (I think) said, I would be a fool not to study.  He sought answers in Orthodoxy while I prefer Reform. The yearly task of reading through the weekly portions is a light task compared with the saturation study by the Orthodox.  But, it is enough for me and I find great satisfaction in asking questions and thinking of answers to age-old problems that will never satisfy everyone.

What I left out in my trying to steer Ana in directions I wanted was my interest in Utopia.  I am a member of the Society for Utopian Studies and its international offshoot centered in Italy.  My puppetry centered around the idea that it was an imaginary world where make-believe was real – at least in the minds of children and practitioners of the arts involved.  My creation of “Aaron 1” was from many different materials and I experimented with new ideas of how to make him light enough for me to handle as I developed the idea of the world of 1939 at the brink of World War II and today when things have gone so very wrong. Glimpses of a better world may be seen in the destruction of this one.

These are some of the things I wish were included in the article by Ana Vecina Suarez.  But, she had her assignment and there was no time for inclusion of a wealth of historical information that I tried very hard to get her to hear and incorporate in her assignment.  But, so it goes and so life is and I thank the Miami Herald for including me and “Aaron 1” in the article. And, of course, thanks must go to Ana and Marice.