Chaya's Bas-Mitzvah

Originally published on clearasmud.blog on August 29, 2021.

Feb 25, 2025

There are so many things I want this post to be, so I’m going to try to fit it all in, and hopefully, it works :).

I want to start by saying what a big milestone this is for Chaya, me, and my husband. We have a wonderful and gorgeous, inside and out, seventeen-year-old daughter, yet being that we adopted her after she turned twelve, we didn’t have the privilege of celebrating her Bas-Mitzvah as a family. Chaya is our first child but not the oldest, which makes for a unique family where the oldest isn’t the first and the first isn’t the oldest.

I remember it like it was yesterday—waiting in a parking lot a few blocks away from the adoption agency, anticipating that phone call that would finally make us parents. That feeling is not something you can put into words. Now, twelve years later, looking at this sweet, funny, sensitive, complicated human takes me right back to that moment. Anyway, enough of the mushy stuff. Let’s get down to the deets of the actual party.

About six months ago, we asked Chaya if she had any ideas on how she wanted to celebrate her Bas-Mitzvah. Of course, she had quite a lot of opinions :). One thing she was sure about was that she wanted it to be exclusively for women and girls. After exploring different ideas, we landed on a Challah Bake. I was supposed to do a community Challah Bake right when COVID-19 started, and that obviously didn’t happen. So, it felt like the perfect opportunity to make Chaya’s special day, also Bozeman’s first community Challah Bake, which we called "Chaya’s Challah Bake."

I think it’s important to address the realities of putting on a big event, especially when you live in a small town with no access to a caterer, where all the Challah Bake prep, all the décor and room prep, and all the food was on me. It is hard! The other very significant thing was that our family, particularly my son, was not (and still is not :)) in a great space. We were at the end of a challenging summer—kids were home with camp being over and school still three weeks out. It didn’t allow me to prep and be organized in the way that I usually am, which basically meant that all the prep for the Bas-Mitzvah took place the day of the celebration. It was a huge miracle! I am so grateful for my family and my amazing friend Chevee, who flew in to celebrate with us and basically helped make it happen in a big way.

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If a Challah Bake is something you want to do, I’m going to share where I got some of the paraphernalia. I will also share the actual schedule and flow of the event:

Aprons (mine were custom) and placemats – Shluchim Services
Boxes I put all the ingredients in – BRP Box Shop
Bowls/wooden spoons/measuring cups – Webstaurant
Recipe card/sticker on the box – Local printer

For food, I wanted to do something I had not done before so Chaya would feel special. I also wanted something that would be the perfect complement to a Challah Bake—not a sit-down dinner, yet still yummy and fun. I had this vision for a dairy charcuterie table (I know charcuterie means meat, but I don’t know how else to describe it) and just had to figure out how to execute it.

I ordered fancy cheeses from PrimeNosh, who went above and beyond to get them here in time, though the original boxes of food didn’t show up. I, of course, browsed Pinterest to get ideas on how it’s done. I incorporated some yummy green salads and my favorite quinoa recipe from Between Carpools (I’ll link it here). It has roasted veggies and feta cheese, and it’s sooo good! Thank G-d, it turned out beautifully, and I was very happy with the results.

As for the event itself, here is how it went down:

Guests arrived, and we gave about 15-20 minutes for people to settle in and find a place to sit.
I welcomed everyone and introduced Chaya, who then gave her Bas-Mitzvah speech and did a fabulous job.
My mother said a few words.

I then spoke a little bit about the beauty of Challah and got the Challah Bake going. I wanted to lead with the speeches right at the beginning while everyone could still focus :) The rest of the evening was left for socializing and enjoying the Challah-making process.

We made the Challah dough together—it was a lot of fun! While we left the Challah dough to rise, we opened the food tables and spent about half an hour eating, socializing, and partying.