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,\u00a0William Soltz.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Since they were the same age, why not have a second bar mitzvah together?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The second bar mitzvah is a rarer tradition, rooted in Psalm 90, which describes 70 years as the measure of a life.\u00a0 By that reckoning, a man of 83 is symbolically 13 again and eligible for a second bar mitzvah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Braver, the ceremony also had family significance. \u201cI\u2019m not very religious, but I\u2019m a big believer in tradition and ritual,\u201d he said. \u201cMy dad had a second bar mitzvah when he was 83.\u00a0 I\u2019m following in my father\u2019s footsteps \u2014 and hopefully setting up a family tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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. \u201cyappy hour\u201d at the dog park) and the welcoming community.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been married 30 years, and Braver has four children and five grandchildren from a prior marriage.<\/p>\n
Soltz, a clinical psychologist, joined a psychiatrist\u2019s 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.\u00a0 His wife, Leslie, 80, taught English and then special education in San Bernardino\u2019s public schools. They were married in 1971 and have three children and four grandchildren.\u00a0 One daughter lives in San Diego. \u201cThere comes a time when you have to downsize,\u201d Leslie said. \u201cWe liked the supportive health services. The staff is very thoughtful and kind.\u201d\u00a0 All three children and three grandchildren came for the bar mitzvah \u2014 a gathering made more precious, Leslie noted, by her stage 4 ovarian cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n
Braver and Soltz prepared under the guidance of Rabbi Alexis Pearce, the Wesley Palms chaplain.\u00a0 Braver studied with her every two weeks for a year, rereading Jewish texts and relearning trope \u2014 the musical notation that dictates how each Hebrew syllable is chanted.\u00a0 At 13, he said, the melodies came easily; at 83, \u201cit took a lot to penetrate my skull,\u201d so he sang along, over and over, with an MP3 recording of a cantor.\u00a0 His Torah portion told of the Israelites solving a water crisis in the desert after Miriam\u2019s death, of Moses striking the rock in frustration despite God\u2019s admonition not to.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a lesson about impulse control,\u201d he said. \u201cI strike the rock sometimes instead of holding my staff over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Soltz, who grew up attending Hebrew school and cantor\u2019s classes at a 1,200-family synagogue in Kansas City, the ceremony was a message to the next generation.\u00a0 \u201cI thought it would meld with my children the importance of maintaining the tradition,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cTo be a good person \u2014 that is the most important thing. To be good to your wife, to your neighbor, to your children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Braver said, \u201cThe bar mitzvah was a chance to put my arms around community \u2014 my family community, and the community here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a chance to tie a bow around it. Mission accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their story carries a lesson that it\u2019s never too late.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At 13, a bar mitzvah announces the person you are becoming.\u00a0 At 83, it celebrates the person you have become \u2014 and that there are still chapters left to write.<\/p>\n