Seventh grade was the main year for Bar Mitzvahs, since that was the year when most of us turned 13, the blessed age when one has the celebration. The premise was this: all of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah boy or girl's immediate family, friends, and distant relatives come in from across the country to see the child read from the Torah and give a speech about life and adulthood. But let's get serious. Bar Mitzvahs were all about the after-party, an important spectacle for middle schoolers who only really cared about smuggling alcohol from the bar, hooking up with some hot classmate and eating good non-microwaved food.

The party was either during the day or at night. All of the kids knew that the night ones were the best, because for the most part those were the most extravagant ones, held in nice hotels with excessive decorations, party favors galore and - if the parents were really feeling wasteful - a theme (anything from 'Hawaii Beach Party' to 'Baseball Beach Party'). The day parties were not as good because no one likes to get crazy during the day. Plus, they were usually the cheap ones held in the 'party room' of the temple or, even worse, in the kid's own home. As a Klezmer band played an interpretation of 'Hava Negilah,' little cousins and overly-excited grandparents danced the Horah while all of the kid's friends pretended they were too cool to join in. If someone had a day affair, he or she was never surprised when friends declined the invitation.

When you are in middle school, a nighttime Bar Mitzvah gala is a Godsend, literally. The girls get to show off a different dress every time, while the boys get to stick with the same suit or J Crew ensemble. Most kids would neglect to show up for the service to support their friend, and instead only come for the party. But the Bar or Bat Mitzvah kid never cared, since the only reason he or she was doing it was for the party too, not to mention the presents. Checks and twenty-dollar bills piled up on the gift table, along with expensive ball-point pens and gift certificates to Tower Records.

The nice-looking kids, hot dance floor, inflatable toys and contraband wine always added up to some kind of heartbreak or romantic tryst. Couples broke up, only for one of them to hook-up with someone else that same night while the other tried to hide in shame. The pairs who stayed together would inevitably sneak off to the bathroom to perform scandalous sex acts that would be gossip for at least the next week ('Did you hear that Natasha gave Evan a hickey on his inner thigh at Greg's Bar Mitzvah?!').

The Bar Mitzvah soiree was really just a Bacchic festival of decadence for those in the process of puberty. Everyone danced to 'YMCA,' 'Jump Around,' 'R.E.S.P.E.C.T.,' 'Tootsie Roll', and 'Time Warp.' Sometimes 'Nuthin' But a G Thang' got thrown in, but only when the party was really raging. No party was complete without the Electric Slide line dance, which could be performed to any number of songs. When the kids all did the 'slide,' the adults would pause from their inebriated conversations about the stock market and chuckle at how 'The Hustle' was the real 'Electric Slide.' And always, always, always, the last song of the night was the climactic 'Last Dance'. As sweat-drenched kids left the dance floor, they either thought about how they finally got to slow dance with their crush or about how their Bar Mitzvahs was going to be so much better.

Bar Mitzvahs were a popularity contest. Everyone who had one wanted all the cool kids from their school to come, no matter if they barely knew each other's names, and everyone wanted to be invited to the cool Jewish kids' (no, that's not an oxymoron) Bar Mitzvahs. They were status symbols, just another part of the depraved competitiveness of middle schoolers.