The espoused theory is that a bar or bat mitzvah serves as a ritualized entry into the Jewish community – the point when a child takes on the obligations, challenges and opportunities of Jewish life. For too many, however, the celebration is just the opposite. Bar and bat mitzvahs have become a graduation from Jewish engagement.

Fewer than 50 per cent of Jewish teens are involved in ongoing Jewish experiences. In many communities – both geographically and religiously defined – this number drops to under 10 per cent. Framing its Campaign for Youth Engagement, the Union for Reform Judaism notes that 80 per cent of children who become bnei mitzvah will have no connection to their synagogue by the time they graduate high school.

Jewish teens are involved in non-Jewish extracurricular activities at astounding rates. Nearly 97 per cent of Jewish teens in a recent study were engaged in extracurricular activities, but only seven per cent cite a specifically Jewish activity.

Why is this the case? There’s no one reason. Parents do not reinforce the importance of Jewish activities. Jewish teen programs lack both the resources and the momentum to fulfil their mandates. The drive toward university pulls teens into resume-building activities. Teenagers question structures of religious conservatism. The list goes on and on.

Complicit in distancing teens from Jewish engagement is the current structure of bar and bat mitzvahs. In order to have a bar or bat mitzvah, many synagogues require enrolment in day or congregational schools from Grade 4 onward – an incentive that antagonizes children and encourages them to drop out as soon as they have chanted their Torah portion.

In a similar vein, parents and synagogue leaders are so concerned about their child’s performance at the bar or bat mitzvah that the curriculum in the years leading up to the event is focused on the skills and knowledge needed for that one day, circumventing more exciting and engaging topics.

So what can be done? The solutions are as varied as the challenges.

In some Reform congregations, confirmation, a group ceremony for high school students, has successfully lengthened teens’ engagement in synagogue learning. In other cases, however, confirmation has merely delayed graduation day.

Recently there has been a call to ban bar mitzvahs. Patrick Aleph, the outspoken founder of Punk Torah, argues in a recent Kveller article that bar mitzvahs don’t accomplish much, are a modern invention that don’t promote Jewish continuity, represent a welfare cheque to synagogues, and make adults look like hypocrites.

Banning bar and bat mitzvahs is an unrealistic suggestion. The ceremony does mark an important celebration of Jewish life, carries a significant emotional connection, and plays countless other educational, financial and structural roles in the ecosystem of Jewish living.

At the same time, it’s time for change. The Union for Reform Judasim and Hebrew Union College have launched the B’nai Mitzvah Revolution. In partnership with 14 congregations, they’re piloting and studying new models for bar and bat mitzvahs that will transform the ceremonies’ role in Jewish development.

This kind of experimentation is critical, but it requires the buy-in of synagogues, rabbis, educators, communities, parents and children. Only through such a collaborative effort can bar and bat mitzvahs serve as the bridge rather than the roadblock in a child’s movement from pediatric to adult engagement in Jewish life.