This week’s Tablet magazine column: The Ungapatchka-ness of the Bat Mitzvah. (It’s like The Passion of the Christ, but with Louboutins.) My issue is really with the cookie-cutter sameness of so many of these ceremonies, as much as it is with the over-the-topness. I didn’t want to write yet another rant about consumerism. What I was trying to say was that the lack of individualization and quirk is as depressing as the sluttiness and loudness. Being reminded by the Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age exhibit of how hard-won the Bat Mitzvah ceremony was in the first place made me long for a more individualistic, thoughtful approach to ritual.