HOW TO SURVIVE AND PROFIT FROM YOUR SON'S BAR MITZVAH
This book is written as a survival guide for all you parents who have suffered or are about to suffer through your wonderful festival, whether it be Bar Mitzvah, wedding, graduation or wake. Do not give up hope! If you follow the instructions given in this book, you will not only avoid the pitfalls and pratfalls of the day, but, in the great American tradition, you will actually end up showing a profit!
Several years ago, I read about a unique and special event, the “Potlatch of the Kwakiutls,” where a North American Indian tribe had a big bash every year during which everyone gave away virtually everything he or she owned and started all over again—the greatest free garage sale that world has ever known!
Ata several Bar Mitzvahs or Bat Mitzvahs I’ve attended over the years, the parents of these young people might just as well have simply called it a “Potlatch” and been done with it.
Every year in the United States at least 200,000 Jewish boys and girls reach the mystical age of thirteen. At that age, there has become ingrained in our culture the social and financial event nonpareil—the Bar Mitzvah for the boy, the Bat Mitzvah for the girl.
WHO IS MARVIN?
Marvin Shapiro is the pseudonym of a nationally trial attorney, writer, and vice president of his congregation. He lives in a small community on the central California coast.
HOW TO SURVIVE – AND PROFIT FROM – YOUR SON’S BAR MITZVAH – HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE
AND THERE I WAS, SITTING IN A COURTROOM …
The year was 1991. I represented the youngest of five siblings, who felt he’d been cheated out of his share of a radio station in Southern California by his two eldest brothers. It was the worst kind of lawsuit – an interfamily feud that had torn apart family unity. What was so ridiculous to me was that if things had just been split five ways, there was more than enough to go around for everyone, and then some. The two older brothers had been represented by a lawyer who had somehow managed to get the father, who had founded the station, to trade his “common” stock for “preferred” stock which, on paper, sounded so attractive until, after the father’s death, the other three children and the widow discovered that “preferred” stock meant that the owner of that stock was entitled to a fixed percentage of interest each year, and that he would get paid that interest first, in “preference” to the “common” shareholders, but after he was paid, he didn’t share in the profits, the voting rights, or the equity in the company. A truly shady deal.
After more than two years of legal wrangling, the matter finally came to a jury trial in Los Angeles in the “old” (very old) former courthouse. The trial lasted six weeks. My clients offered to settle the case for $400,000. The two older brothers and their lawyer offered $300,000 over a period of time. Neither side would budge.
The jury took seven days to come back with a verdict. I was far away from home. Lorraine was in Carmel and I had nothing to do at night but sit in a lonely motel room. So I started thinking of something – anything – that I could write, which might furnish comic relief from the nervous waiting that every lawyer feels when the jury is deliberating day after long, stressful day. Thus was born the idea of How To Survive – and Profit from – Your Son’s Bar Mitzvah. With nothing better to do, I wrote for six solid 8-hour days and about 2 hours each night. At the end of the sixth day, I had finished, sort of like the Lord creating the world in six days, after which He rested.
Shortly before noon on the seventh day, the jury returned with its verdict. My clients were awarded $2.7 million dollars! To this day, it remains the largest verdict I ever received, and more than twenty-six years later, the book remains one of the most “fun” books I ever wrote. (Of course, I wrote it under the pseudonym, Marvin Shapiro, but at least now was a published writer.
HOW TO SURVIVE AND PROFIT FROM YOUR SON'S BAR MITZVAH REVIEWER COMMENTS
“This hilarious satire on one of the great events of Jewish life pokes not-so-gentle, perhaps well-deserved fun at excesses that all-too-often drown out the important meaning of this most special day. Bravo!” – Rabbi Sanford M. Shapero, former Regional Director, Union of American Hebrew Congregations
“How to Survive—and Profif fromYour Son’s Bar Mitzvah is proof positive that you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy a good laugh. This book can be applied to situations all over the world, whatever the religion or event .... And they say I write strange things ...” – Gary Jennings, Best-selling Author of Aztec, The Journeyer, Spangle, and Raptor
“This man ought to be locked up…in a room, on a stage, where he can bring laughter to hundreds, perhaps thousands. A joy journey through what can be a torturous experience. A unique and laugh-filled Bar Mitzvah gift—before the big day arrives.” – Rabbi Normal T. Mendel, Pastoral Director, City of Hope National Medical Center
“Thought provoking.... Fun. Ditzy, but fun...” – Bruce Greenbaum, Rabbi and Charles Beren, President of the Congregation Beth Israel, Carmel, California
“Oy! And to think my son wrote something like this ...” – Trudy Gerstl, Former Regional President, B'nai B'rith Women (Jewish Women International)