DovidBT: You asked:
What’s the purpose of the Bar Mitzvah “event”? Not surew hat you mean by the “event” but it is brought down that one makes a seuda when his son on the day that the boy turns 13.
Is it primarily a family reunion, or is a recognition of the boy becoming a Bar Mitzvah? Boy becoming bar mitzvah.
If the latter, isnt it “fake” to give the boy special instruction to present the illusion that he has the ability to read any part of the Torah and/or the Prophets? Just the opposite. A bar mitzvah bochur is normally given the amud for maariv and to lead the zimun to specifically demonstrate that he has attained the age of mitzvos. Since we generally do not allow a child under bar mitzvah to lein or read the haftorah, this comes under the category of demonstrating that he has attained the age of mitzvos.
As someone who teaches boys to lein at the time of their bar mitzvah, it is not an illusion. They actually can read from the torah and I give them the “tools” to be able to become a baal koreh if they so choose.