This article teaches unique and meaningful ways to convey honor and blessing to special people present at a rite of passage, for example, a bar or bat mitzvah. The birthday cake strategy with candles present that are lit with nice things being said about family members was invented by a Christian caterer and become mistakenly adopted during some bar and bat mitzvah parties. That caterer didn't understand a) That candles are lit to start and end the Sabbath, never during it and b) that a bar and bat mitzvah is not a 12th or 13th birthday party.

When the words of the chapters assigned to a particular week enter our consciousness and our "soul stream," we can learn something new and interesting about ourselves as individuals, families, humans and peoples. This new awareness is what may be meant by the term "revelation." This is Judaism at its best -- exciting, meaningful, growthful. Torah reading can be a high point of a services. Here is how to give everyone present a greater opportunity to be included in the Torah reading.  I first saw Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi lead a service using this method at Philadelphia's P'nai Or community, and he is indeed, credited with having developed it. During my travels I'm seeing this approach beginning to appear across the full spectrum of Jewish life.