Profiles of B’not Mitzvah Girls: Deborah & Sophia Grover
Meet Deborah: Today, I will teach you how to bake a Deborah! This will be a complex recipe, but I’m sure you can do it if you follow along.
We will be starting by adding 13 years into an empty bowl, this will add something or other to the finished Deborah.
There you go, that looks perfect! Next, you will sift in some A’s in school, just to add the little spice of an ego boost. There you go, straight A’s work great!
Now, you need to be careful not to add anything that will cancel out the ego boost. Here, wait, no- don't add that, don't put that in there- oh no. This perfectly good Deborah didn’t need a twin sister! Oh well, at least the sister is not nearly as cool. Well, since you already added one sister you might as well add two younger sisters. And a mother. And a step-parent. And a mother’s boyfriend. No such thing as too many parental figures.
Then, sprinkle in some hobbies, really just go ham with the hobbies. Yeah, that looks to be about the right amount: too much. Can I see the ones you added? Playing bassoon in band and orchestra, basketball, embroidery, reading, drawing, being constantly exhausted, and being cool? Great choices! Next up, add a cat for that extra chaos factor… sure, 5 cats are also fine.
Lastly, add on a Bat Mitzvah Project. We have a wide selection of different options. Nice choice! That project is a lot of fun! When Deborah had to spend a lot of time at The Shirley Ryan Ability Lab after her father’s surgery, she was pretty bored there, and the stuff for her to do was clearly designed for younger kids. So she is going to create an activity booklet and care package to give kids at the facility. She knows that it can be hard and scary when a parent becomes sick or disabled, but a good sense of humor and fun go a long way. Her dad taught her that before he died. Now you’ve finished! Just cook in an oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then serve with cat hair. Now you have a finished Deborah! Be sure to come to her Bat Mitzvah on June 10th!
Meet Sophia: I was recently banned from playing a board game I invented for my 7th-grade math class. It was a class assignment that was distracting a solid two-thirds of the students from playing the other games, along with making the people playing said board game irrationally upset. Over the course of five rounds, people quit, joined to find out what the fuss was about, and tried (and failed) to flip the board. Generally, I don’t think I’m much trouble, as I usually stay quiet and do my work, but when needed I can cause some chaos.
For instance, when I started learning trombone over the pandemic, I did it solely to make sad trombone noises at my father’s bad jokes. Once that went out of use, however, I started learning the tuba with my end goal being to attend KKK counter-protests and so I could drown out fascists with the sweet sound of the VeggieTales theme song. (Careless Whisper : Saxophones :: VeggieTales : Tubas)
When it was time to pick a bat mitzvah project, I asked my mother how my old babysitter was doing since the pandemic. Before the pandemic, she started having problems with her joints and has had a lot of surgeries. I don’t actually feel comfortable calling her “my old babysitter.” I love her, and describing her as just “my old babysitter” doesn’t describe her role in my life. She’s had a hard time since the pandemic, and I wanted (and still want) to check in on her and help her with things around the house as she did for us. I asked my old babysitter if she was okay with me helping her as my mitzvah project, and she said yes.
I don’t know how to talk about myself. This is uncomfortable. I think I’ll end with a joke. How many snakes are there? Thirteen. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
