PUTNAM COUNTY- The Putnam Veterans Memorial Park made history when Leah Korer, daughter of Rabbi and Mrs. Avi Korer of Putnam Chabad in Carmel, celebrated the 12-year-old’s Bat Mitzvah before some 150 family members and friends.
Rabbi Korer told those in attendance: “This is the “second Hasidic Bat Mitzvah in Putnam County history.” The first occurred three years ago when Sheina Korer became Bat Mitzvah.
The spiritual leader explained most people are familiar with the term ‘Bat Mitzvah’ when “it’s used to refer to the celebration but actually it refers to the Bat Mitzvah girl. Although in the secular world Leah is not yet a teenager, according to Jewish law, a girl is considered an adult from the age of twelve. On her twelfth birthday, she officially becomes a ‘Bat Mitzvah,’ a ‘daughter of the mitzvahs,’ one who is obligated in mitzvah observance. All the mitzvahs the young woman has done until now were just preparation because this is the real deal.”
The rabbi praised his daughter for her Bat Mitzvah project which encompassed a series of bake sales to benefit Israel—cakes, cookies and other homemade baked sweet delicacies prepared and sold by the child.
