This Tuesday Three of our Chai School students will be confirmed. We hope our Temple community comes out to show support for their continued commitment to Jewish education at Temple Sinai.
Confirmation
is a Reform-originated ceremony for boys and girls that is tied to the
Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It constitutes an individual and group
affirmation of commitment to the Jewish people. Confirmation, one of the
“youngest” Jewish life cycle ceremonies, began less than 200 years ago.
Most scholars attribute the creation of confirmation to Israel
Jacobson, a wealthy German businessman and a nominal “father” of Reform
Judaism. In 1810, expending more than $100,000 of his own money,
Jacobson built a new synagogue in Seesen, Germany. He introduced a
number of then radical reforms, including the use of an organ and mixed
male-female seating. Jacobson felt that bar mitzvah was an outmoded
ceremony. Accordingly, when five 13-year-old boys were about to graduate
from the school he maintained, Jacobson designed a new graduation
ceremony, held in the school rather than the synagogue. In this manner,
confirmation came into being.
At first only boys were confirmed,
usually on the Shabbat of their bar mitzvah. Because of the
controversial nature of the confirmation ceremony, the earliest rituals
were held exclusively in homes or in schools. In 1817, the synagogue in
Berlin introduced a separate confirmation program for girls. In 1822,
the first class of boys and girls was confirmed, a practice that became
almost universal in a relatively brief period of time. In 1831, Rabbi
Samuel Egers of Brunswick, Germany, determined to hold confirmation on
Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, also
the widely accepted practice today.
At its inception, confirmation
reflected a graduation motif. After a specified period of study,
students were subject to a public examination. The following day, in the
rabbi’s presence, students uttered personal confessions of faith. The
rabbi addressed the class, recited a prayer, and then blessed them. It
was a simple service with no fixed ritual. As confirmation moved into
the synagogue and as its ties to Shavuot strengthened, the ceremony
became more elaborate.
In the early 1900s, confirmation took on an
air of great pageantry, boys and girls wearing robes, bringing flower
offerings to the bimah, and participating in dramatic readings and
cantatas illustrating themes of dedication and commitment to Judaism.
Preparation for confirmation still included a period of study, but
public tests and confessions of faith gave way to more normative exams
and papers, and speeches reflecting a deeper understanding of Jewish
teachings and values. Wide variations exist in congregational practice,
from an elaborate synagogue service to a private individual ceremony
with the rabbi. Many confirmation classes undertake social action
projects as part of their year of preparation. While 10th grade
confirmation remains the norm in Reform Judaism, a number of synagogues
now mark the event in 9th, 11th, or even 12th grade. Since the 1970s,
adult confirmation programs have existed in many Reform congregations.
The
first recorded confirmation in North America was held at New York’s
Anshe Chesed Congregation in 1846. Two years later, New York’s
Congregation Emanu- El adopted confirmation. The ceremony grew in
popularity, and in 1927, the Central Conference of American Rabbis
recommended confirmation as a Movement- wide practice.
