Elizabeth Banks is on the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Circuit

From Kveller:

Director and actor Elizabeth Banks is on the bar and bat mitzvah circuit.

Her youngest son, Magnus, celebrated his Casablanca-themed rite of passage earlier this year, and she’s been attending other coming-of-age celebrations in her community. Like many of us, Banks is newly inspired by how wise these 13-year-old teens can be as they contemplate life’s big questions up on the bimah. And she’s bringing that wisdom to her fans.

Last week, Elizabeth Banks, the Hollywood star returned home from a bat mitzvah, changed into some particularly cozy-looking cloud pajamas (as one must!) and shared an affirming and illuminating quote with her over 4 million Instagram followers.

She shared that the quote was from a reading that was included in the Shabbat meditation of the service, and that she found it very clarifying in this particularly challenging moment in America, writing in the caption of her post, “I’m trying to be overwhelmed by gratitude for all those standing up for their neighbors and not by grief at the disrespect of our basic rights by our own government that we fund.”

She also wrote in the caption that the text was from the Talmud, the compilation of Rabbinic commentary on the Mishna. This was the message she shared:

So did Elizabeth Banks really quote the Talmud?

While part of the reading she shared (in a wonderfully soothing voice, I might add) is indeed from the Talmud, the majority of it is not. It appears to be from a poem attributed to a writer named S.H. Payer (though this blog post erroneously states its entirety is from the sacred Jewish text).

It’s the final verse of the poem, about generations listening to each other, that comes from the Talmud — sort of.

That idea comes from Rosh Hashanah 25b, which Sefaria translates as: “Fortunate is the generation in which the greater heed the lesser, and it is an a fortiori inference that the generation in which the lesser heed the greater is certainly fortunate as well.” It’s an idea Banks is exemplifying by sharing the wisdom she’s gained from teenagers.

This isn’t the first time Banks has shared wisdom from bar and bat mitzvahs
Back in January, the weekend after the killing of Renee Good in the streets of Minneapolis, Banks took to social media to share more quotes she heard at a bar mitzvah ceremony.

“I went to a beautiful bar mitzvah today,” Banks shared, still in her black bar mitzvah finest, which, she explained, “is a ceremony at which a child, 13 years old, is tasked with contemplating religion, morality, ethics, history.”

“I really found myself thinking about the events of this week in Minnesota, what our country is doing to our neighbors and friends, and they included a couple of quotes in their program I thought were very clarifying and soothing.”

She went on to share several quotes from German Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, including, “The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others,” as well as the paraphrased, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” She also shared some verses from poet Mary Oliver, like this recipe for living a life from her poem “Sometimes:” “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”