WWII veteran celebrates bar mitzvah at 102

Within the Jewish community, the bar mitzvah is one of the most important rites (if not the most). Translated into Spanish as “child of the commandments”it is a holiday in which Jewish boys and girls accept the moral and religious standards of an adult.

It is customary for boys to celebrate this “coming of age” at 13, while girls do so at 12, but due to various circumstances, many jews delay their bar mitzvah and they come to celebrate it at 20, 25 or quite simply, they choose not to celebrate it anymore.

Milton’s Choice, a 102-year-old American Jewbelieved he would pass into the afterlife without celebrating this important moment, however, with the help of others in his community, he was able to officially become a “son of duty”.

Pick assured that due to various circumstances at the time, his parents were never able to give him the celebration that comes with “responsibility for one’s own actions” (according to tradition). When Pick turned 22, one of the most terrible events in human history occurred: Second World Warfor which he was forced to enlist in the army and fight Japan in the Pacific War, which broke out after “the land of the rising sun” attacked the bay of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the 7th December 1941.

Luckily, Milton Pick lived to tell the tale and managed to have a happy and fulfilling life.

The 102-year-old was on vacation in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, when he met a couple of Hasidic Jews (a variant of Judaism that is characterized by being more festive and cheerful). Pick shared the fact that he hadn’t done his Bar-Mitzvah, and in an act of good faith, they got down to business and decided to have Milton Pick’s Bar-Mitzvah.

The couple contacted Dudi Caplin, the rabbi in charge of the Chabad Jewish Center in Cozumel, told him Milton’s story, and the rabbi was delighted to host the Bar Mitzvah. At first, Milton was not interested in doing this ceremony; perhaps he deemed it unnecessary due to his advanced age, however, after what Caplin defined on his social media as “a long talk”Milton agreed to live this experiment.

In the images that have been shared, Milton can be seen with a strange contraption on his head and a ribbon tied around his left arm. It’s called “Tefillin” and it is two small leather boxes, one located on the forehead (to rest on the mind) and another on the biceps of the left arm, so that it is close to the heart.

These boxes contain four sections of the Torah (text where Jewish law is embodied) and are tied with leather cords, because according to the book of Deuteronomy “You shall tie them as a sign on your arm, and they will be a reminder between your eyes.”

So it was on his 102nd birthday, Milton Pick traveled to Chabad in Cozumel to perform his ceremony, attended by several devotees based in Quintana Roo, Mexico, and officially celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah becoming the most old Jew to become “son of the commandments”. “

With curiosity, Milton’s birthday is March 1., which in the Hebrew calendar is the beginning of the month Adar, which is known as a month of celebration and joy within the Jewish community. This month is also significant because, according to custom, it was the 7th of Adar when Moses, the religion’s most important prophet, was born and died.