Just about a year ago, I wrote about having watched the Coen Brother’s movie, A Serious Man, and I shared how reminiscent the film was of my own Jewish upbringing in general and of my Bar Mitzvah in particular.

Well, this past weekend we held a Bar Mitzvah of sorts for my son Julian, a Coming of Age ceremony that was about as different from my own experience at age 13 as you can get.

My wife and I had been planning the event for months and months, and my own primary goal was for the event to be meaningful for Julian, something that he participated in willingly, enthusiastically, because he found value in it, rather than something he participated in, as I did, because he was told simply that he had to.

And since, as I’ve written in past, I am not a religious Jew, had we decided to enroll Julian in Hebrew School and have him go through the formal Bar Mitzvah process it would have been an inexcusable repeating of an unfortunate history.

In the end, we designed something that integrated spirituality and community-based rite of passage via what my wife called 30 Days to Bar Mitzvah. For the entire month of October, nearly every day included some kind of planned activity — from readings and educational exercises on the subject of religion and spirituality, to character and strength-building challenges, to the drafting and signing of a contract documenting the ground rules for his first cellphone.

The photo included here captures two elements of the ceremony we held this past weekend.

First, the candles were inspired by a ceremony we have witnessed at the local Unitarian Fellowship. We asked attendees to come to the front of the room, light a candle, and share how they know Julian, along with any other words they wish to share. We’d purposefully invited a wide variety of friends, family, and mentors, including a number of folks who were significant role models for Julian at one time or another, and seeing Julian through their eyes and listening to this outpouring of acknowledgement, honoring, and appreciation was deeply moving.

Second, the silver cup is the kiddish cup that I was given at my Bar Mitzvah, and which Julian used to chant the blessing over the wine in Hebrew. He did beautifully, made a funny face as he drank and realized the cup contained actual red wine, and the crowd responded with a joyful and resounding L’chaim! (to life!).

The central part of the ceremony, however, was what really convinced me that we’d met my goal of having this be an event that Julian cared about and was enthusiastic for.

We asked him to do a kind of brief speech, providing him with some suggested formats, but leaving it up to him as to what he wanted to do and what topics to cover. Julian chose one of our suggestions, which was a variation on the traditional Bar Mitzvah ceremony, wherein the Bar Mitzvah recites a portion of the Torah and then provides an interpretation of the portion.

Julian chose to read three pieces that he selected from the various readings he did during his 30 Days to Bar Mitzvah: a story from Zen Shorts, and two pieces from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. His reading was confident, expressive, and sensitive, and the thoughts he shared about what the pieces mean and how they are relevant for him were genuine and insightful.

I’d venture to guess that most parents, like my wife and I, who do not raise their children in a particular religious tradition, angry atheists notwithstanding, occasionally wonder if they’d made the right choice, wondering if a child needs a formal religious education as a foundation as they navigate the often murky and stormy waters of life. This coming of age process, however, has been incredibly affirming that it is entirely possible to embrace a wide variety of spiritual traditions and values, to impart them on your children, and to raise children who are every bit as prepared for their journey as any other child.

I’ve written here before of how enormously proud I am of Julian, and this weekend was quite the apotheosis.