New York Teens Celebrate Their Post Bar Mitzvah Lives

In a day and age when many young Jewish men opt out of communal involvement after their bar mitzvahs, the teenagers at Chabad-Lubavitch of Orange County could be something of an anomaly. But there’s no mystery, says 16-year-old Alec DeRoss, who with his other friends celebrated the close of a successful year with a summer barbeque and pool party. “It’s awesome to have a rabbi who is outgoing and loves to have fun,” DeRoss says of Rabbi Pesach Burston, director of the Goshen, N.Y., center. “He understands the way we think and can relate to us. He will teach us about being kosher, and then take us on a kosher hunt” in a grocery story.