Shortly after Sanford Braver moved to the Wesley Palms retirement community in San Diego last year, he struck up a conversation with a fellow resident, William Soltz. The two men discovered they had a lot in common: both were 83, with birthdays a few days apart, both were Jewish, and both had spent their entire careers as psychologists. Then Braver made an unusual proposal. Since they were the same age, why not have a second bar mitzvah together?
So on a Friday late afternoon in July, before roughly 100 residents, family members and friends, the two men stood side by side before the Torah and chanted the ancient Hebrew songs they had first learned as boys 70 years ago.
A bar mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, traditionally takes place when a boy turns 13 and is called to read from the Torah for the first time, marking his entry into adult religious responsibility. The second bar mitzvah is a rarer tradition, rooted in Psalm 90, which describes 70 years as the measure of a life. By that reckoning, a man of 83 is symbolically 13 again and eligible for a second bar mitzvah.
For Braver, the ceremony also had family significance. “I’m not very religious, but I’m a big believer in tradition and ritual,” he said. “My dad had a second bar mitzvah when he was 83. I’m following in my father’s footsteps — and hopefully setting up a family tradition.”
Braver spent 41 years as a psychology professor at Arizona State University, earned his doctorate in social psychology at the University of Michigan, and wrote books and hundreds of articles. After retiring in 2010, he and his wife, Jodi Bernstein, 72, a lawyer, spent a year in Cambridge, England, lived in Carlsbad, and returned to Arizona so she could practice law. Tired of shuttling back and forth for San Diego summers, they moved to Wesley Palms in March 2025, attracted by its patio homes, proximity to the ocean, dog-friendliness (their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel attends the daily 4 p.m. “yappy hour” at the dog park) and the welcoming community. They’ve been married 30 years, and Braver has four children and five grandchildren from a prior marriage.
Soltz, a clinical psychologist, joined a psychiatrist’s practice in San Bernardino in 1973, where he stayed for more than four decades, continuing to see patients in his own office until moving to Wesley Palms in October 2024. His wife, Leslie, 80, taught English and then special education in San Bernardino’s public schools. They were married in 1971 and have three children and four grandchildren. One daughter lives in San Diego. “There comes a time when you have to downsize,” Leslie said. “We liked the supportive health services. The staff is very thoughtful and kind.” All three children and three grandchildren came for the bar mitzvah — a gathering made more precious, Leslie noted, by her stage 4 ovarian cancer diagnosis.
Braver and Soltz prepared under the guidance of Rabbi Alexis Pearce, the Wesley Palms chaplain. Braver studied with her every two weeks for a year, rereading Jewish texts and relearning trope — the musical notation that dictates how each Hebrew syllable is chanted. At 13, he said, the melodies came easily; at 83, “it took a lot to penetrate my skull,” so he sang along, over and over, with an MP3 recording of a cantor. His Torah portion told of the Israelites solving a water crisis in the desert after Miriam’s death, of Moses striking the rock in frustration despite God’s admonition not to. “It’s a lesson about impulse control,” he said. “I strike the rock sometimes instead of holding my staff over it.”
For Soltz, who grew up attending Hebrew school and cantor’s classes at a 1,200-family synagogue in Kansas City, the ceremony was a message to the next generation. “I thought it would meld with my children the importance of maintaining the tradition,” he said. “To be a good person — that is the most important thing. To be good to your wife, to your neighbor, to your children.”
Braver said, “The bar mitzvah was a chance to put my arms around community — my family community, and the community here,” he said. “It was a chance to tie a bow around it. Mission accomplished.”
Their story carries a lesson that it’s never too late. Not too late to make a new friend, not too late to relearn something you first mastered 70 years ago, and not too late to stand before your community and mark a milestone. At 13, a bar mitzvah announces the person you are becoming. At 83, it celebrates the person you have become — and that there are still chapters left to write.
I’m interested in writing a column about what spouses do in the first year after their partner dies and another column about people who get married over the age of 70. Please email me at bbry@blackbirdv.com if you’re willing to share your experience.