‘Friends’ son stars in mall bar mitzvah
Despite brief, unorthodox ceremony, family still cuts checks for 16-year-old
Former “Friends” star Lisa Kudrow shared the news with TV audiences Wednesday that her 16-year-old son finally had his bar mitzvah, thanks to a chance encounter with some tefillin (phylacteries) in a mall.
“It was a drive-by bar mitzvah, actually,” she said during her guest appearance on late-night show Conan Wednesday.
Apparently, her son, Julian, was walking around the mall on his own, when he passed a stand where men from a “Jewish organization” asked him if he was Jewish, if he’d ever had a bar mitzvah before and if he’d like to.
They proceeded to help him put on tefillin and took a picture with him.
Representatives from the Chabad movement often set up stands in public areas where they offer Jewish men the opportunity to don tefillin, which is considered a commandment they are required by the Bible to fulfill every day.
“He came home, told me about a video game he bought and then said, ‘Oh yeah, I was bar mitzvah-ed,” Kudrow continued.
She added that even though it wasn’t a traditional ceremony, her family still wrote checks in honor of the occasion.