Article I, sections 3 & 4.

When I was five, maybe six years old and my sister was seven or eight, my parents asked us if we wanted to continue going to Sunday school. Both of us said no. So we stopped. That’s all there was.

A few years later, I quit little league after being hit by the ball three times in one inning (while batting, while running, and while pitching) – despite what it sounds like, I was actually quite a good baseball player. Anyway. I remember that being disappointing to my father.

***

In seventh grade, my best friend and I climbed into my mom’s car after the first of what would be many bar mitzvah services that year. My mom asked how it was and my friend replied, “It was okay. It was mostly in some weird language.”

“That’s Hebrew,” my mom said. I’m pretty sure I knew that, because I remember thinking how stupid my friend was. But I’m not certain.

My other best friend in middle school had her bat mitzvah at a Reconstructionist Jewish temple in Deerfield. At least I think it was Reconstructionist. Whatever it was, the point is they never used the word God. Through the whole service. No God. Though there was some Hebrew, so I can’t be entirely sure.

Another of my friends was jealous that so many of our classmates were having big parties that year, so her parents threw her a huge thirteenth birthday party in their enormous backyard – complete with DJ, dance floor (yes, outside, they had one assembled on the lawn), lunch, and thirteen birthday cakes. She invited everyone in our class, as was the custom.

My parents asked if I wanted a big party also. I said no. I didn’t need one. Besides, I wouldn’t be thirteen until eighth grade. I’d be last. And it would just make me feel different.

So I spent my thirteenth birthday in my basement with my close friends. We ordered pizza and played strip Twister and watched “Mallrats” and “Empire Records,” and I fell asleep with a girl in my arms for the first time.