Rabbi Roundtable: Aug. 31, 2026

In partnership with the Atlanta Rabbinical Association, the AJT’s monthly Rabbi Roundtable brings together spiritual leaders from across Atlanta representing each denomination.

For this month’s discussion, each spiritual leader was asked the following question: What Jewish ritual, teaching, or custom do you believe families too often overlook when planning a simcha?

Rabbi K’vod Wieder

In my experience of serving a pulpit in Southern California for the past 15 years, the most common element overlooked in the planning of a simcha is Hashem – the Divine Presence. Whether a brit milah, baby naming, b’nai mitzvah, birthday, anniversary, or wedding, the attention becomes too focused on the individuals being celebrated and their personal needs. As a result, the celebrations can be exclusive, cutting out people in the community; they can direct massive amounts of resources to celebration itself instead of tzedakah; and they can be too focused on the outward appearances instead of the holy values that the individual, couple, or families seek to live.
This approach to simchas is no one’s fault – it is a reflection of the highly individualized culture that we are immersed in. But as we repeat in Psalm 136 – Give thanks to Hashem for Hashem is good, G-d’s kindness endures forever, all the blessings of our lives, not only what we have, but what we can create and aspire to be is only because of this One Loving Presence that we are a part. When our celebrations become an expression of gratitude for the Whole we are a part of, we may make different choices. We may want to find ways that our entire community can participate. B’nai Mitzvah celebrations can include the entire class, not just the people that the child feels connected to. We may use the celebration to raise awareness of certain social issues and encourage tzedakah instead of gifts. And the content of our simchas can focus on the values and deeds of the people involved, acknowledging the influences – the great chain of transmission of values that we all inherit.
Of course, in this approach, the individuals being celebrated are also part of the Divine Presence and there is space for personal tastes and attention to the uniqueness of the people we are celebrating. And there are also the financial limitations that need to be honored and worked with. But if we can let an awareness of our gratitude to G-d be the driver of our simcha from the very beginning, then the entire experience of the planning and execution becomes completely different, more fulfilling and more holy!

Rabbi Mark Goldfeder

The custom families most often overlook is the oldest one in the book: inviting people who can’t repay the invitation.
The Rambam writes that someone who celebrates a festival with his own family behind closed doors, while the poor and the lonely have nowhere to eat, hasn’t fulfilled the mitzvah of simcha at all. He has a phrase for it, simchat kreiso, the joy of his own stomach. It sounds harsh, but he’s making a warm point: in Jewish life, joy was never designed to be private property. It’s meant to spill over.
I’ve watched families plan weddings and bar mitzvahs with real love and real care. They’ll audition three bands, agonize over the flowers, and rework the seating chart more times than I’ve redrafted a brief. None of that is wrong. But somewhere in all that planning, it’s worth asking one more question: who around us hasn’t been invited to anything in a long time? Every community has these people, and usually we know exactly who they are, the ones we always mean to have over and somehow never do.
So, add a table. That’s the whole suggestion. Seat the widower from shul, the new family still making friends, the lonely student far from home. It costs almost nothing against the total, and it changes what the event is. Years from now, nobody will remember your centerpieces, including you. But the guest who assumed she’d be forgotten, and then found her name on a place card, will remember that night for a very long time. So will your children, who were watching.

Rabbi Jason Holtz

The biggest moments in most b’nai mitzvah services are when the newly minted 13-year-old reads Torah and delivers a d’var Torah, a speech or sermon about the Torah portion. They’re doing this because they’re maturing into adulthood. Yet in most synagogues, while plenty of adults occasionally read Torah or give a d’var Torah, it’s 13-year-olds who do it far more often. How did a moment meant to mark a 13-year-old’s maturing become defined by something adolescents do more than adults?
A little over a year ago, the grandparents of one of our b’nai mitzvah students gave the d’var Torah the Friday night before their grandson was called to the Torah. They grew up in Ukraine under the Soviet Union, when Jewish life was heavily suppressed. They discovered the beauty of Torah later on, as mature adults. What they wanted to teach was not just about that week’s Torah portion, but that learning and teaching Torah is not just for 13-year-olds.
The grandparents could have taken an easier honor that weekend, like reading a short passage from the siddur or helping to dress the Torah. Those are important honors, but they don’t demand the same hard work to prepare.
That’s what I think some people miss – all the things that b’nai mitzvah do, such as reading Torah or giving a d’var Torah, are significant in part because those are things that adults do. So, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, can take on those big roles, too. Maybe they read Torah the same Shabbat as the child becoming a b’nai mitzvah, or maybe they give a d’var Torah on a different Shabbat. Either way, not only does it not take away from the child’s moment, it makes it more special. It shows that becoming b’nai mitzvah is the beginning, not the end.

Rabbi Bios:

Rabbi K’vod Wieder, Conservative
Rabbi K’vod Wieder received a master’s in counseling at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in 1995 and after nine months of Judaic learning in Israel, realized he wanted to dedicate his life to the Jewish community.
He then worked as the assistant director for Chochmat HaLev, a Jewish meditation center in Berkeley, Calif., as a program director for the Jewish Federation of Sonoma County, and as director of a local and national Jewish teen philanthropy program for the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.
He began Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies in 2006, becoming ordained in 2012, after which he was hired as a full-time rabbi at Temple Beth El of South Orange County. Since July 2026, Wieder has been the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom in Atlanta.

Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, Orthodox
Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is the CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Inc. He has served as the founding editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and, by presidential appointment, as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.
Goldfeder has taught law across the country and around the world as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law, Spruill Family Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, director of the Restoring Religious Freedom Project, and as a visiting professor at Georgia State University School of Law, Florida Southern College, University of Padua (Italy), Scuola Galileana (Italy), IDC’s Radzyner Law School (Israel) and Bar Ilan Law School (Israel).

Rabbi Jason Holtz, Reform
Rabbi Jason Holtz serves as the senior rabbi of Temple Kehillat Chaim in Roswell.
Beyond the synagogue, he teaches at Senior Enriched Learning (SEL) in Roswell, where past classes have included How a Rabbi Reads Genesis and A History of Big Ideas that Changed the World.
Rabbi Holtz was ordained at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and has previously served congregations in Arizona and the United Kingdom. He is active in the Atlanta Rabbinical Association, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and serves on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta.