Your little girl has just been told that in the eyes of Jewish law she is now a young woman. You can hardly believe it – wasn’t she just a baby five minutes ago – and haven’t you got to stand up and speak coherently and logically to all these people any minute now?

Not easy if you just might cry – that is unless you’ve prepared your words – and yourself – well in advance.

And what about the Bat Mitzvah girl herself? She will want to do just as well with her speech as she did with her D’Var Torah. The time needed to prepare the words and practice their delivery is exactly the same.

Are you the person making the speech to her? It’s great to have been asked – but to know how to begin and end, to say nothing about the bit in the middle is very hard work.

Make sure she will love what you say, and that she will always be happy to remember your words.