Can Bar or Bat Mitzvah Expenses Be Addressed in a Florida Divorce?

At a Glance

Even if your child’s bar or bat mitzvah is still years away, if you are facing divorce, the best time to address who pays for it is during the divorce, since Florida courts have no clear authority to order payment for a religious celebration once your case is final.

• Florida law gives courts authority to address education and extracurricular costs, but that authority does not necessarily extend to religious celebrations.
• Florida courts have shown real reluctance to make decisions tied to religious practice absent an agreement between the parents.
• Waiting until after your divorce is final often means you have lost your best chance to put an agreement in writing.
• Addressing it now, while you are negotiating your parenting plan or financial agreement, gives you far more control than hoping a judge addresses it years from now.

If your child’s bar or bat mitzvah is still a few years off, you might think it is too early to bring up during your divorce. It is not. Picture the moment you are working toward: your son or daughter standing before the congregation, Torah scroll open, yad in hand, reading from the portion they have spent months preparing. That moment deserves to happen without financial disputes hanging over it. Right now, while you and your spouse are already working through a parenting plan and financial agreement, you have a real opportunity to decide how these future costs will be handled. Once your divorce is final, that opportunity may be lost.

What Florida Law Says About Support Costs

Florida law gives courts real authority over some of the costs of raising your child. Under Florida Statutes § 61.30, courts calculate child support using set guidelines, and judges have discretion to add costs like education expenses and extracurricular activities on top of the base support amount when the circumstances call for it. Our guide to child support in Florida walks through how these guideline calculations and add-on expenses typically work.

A bar or bat mitzvah celebration sits in a more uncertain category, and that uncertainty is exactly why you might want to address it now, rather than leaving it open ended for later.

Why Courts Treat Religious Celebrations Differently

Florida courts have made clear they want to stay out of disputes over a child’s religious upbringing. In Abbo v. Briskin, 660 So. 2nd 1157 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), a Florida appeals court explained that when parents disagree about religion, the decision belongs to the parents, not the court, holding that a child’s religious upbringing is “no proper business of judges.”

That reluctance runs alongside a separate, older case, Schatz v. Schatz, 356 So. 2d 892 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978), where a Florida appeals court upheld an order requiring a father to pay for his children’s ongoing Hebrew school and Sunday school as part of his child support obligation. The father argued this violated the First Amendment, but the court never ruled on that question. Instead, he essentially lost on a technicality, as it found he had waived the argument by not raising it at trial, and noted that both parents were Jewish and had treated religious education as part of the children’s welfare all along.

Read together, when both parents agree, or at least do not object, Florida courts are comfortable enforcing an order tied to religious upbringing. But when a parent objects, there is a decent chance a court would find it has no authority to order either parent to pay for a bar or bat mitzvah at all, leaving the decision entirely voluntary. Schatz also dealt with ongoing religious schooling, not a one-time celebration like a bar or bat mitzvah, so even less is settled when it comes to a potentially wedding-sized celebration of adulthood with a band, a venue, and a catering bill.

If you try bringing this issue in front of a judge absent an agreement, or if you wait and hope a judge sorts this out years from now, you may find the window has already closed, and the decision on how bar or bat mitzvah expenses get paid essentially become ad hoc. If you and your spouse decide it now, while you are already negotiating your parenting plan and other child-related expenses, you sidestep that uncertainty entirely.

Practical Ways to Structure an Agreement on a Bar or Bat Mitzvah

Once you agree that a bar or bat mitzvah is worth addressing now in an agreement, the next question is how to split the costs. There is no single right answer here. What matters most is choosing an approach that feels fair to both of you and writing it down clearly. A few common approaches divorcing parents in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota have used include splitting costs evenly, splitting costs proportionally, dividing by category, or one parent covering costs up to a set amount.

Splitting costs evenly means each parent pays half of all expenses related to the celebration, regardless of income. This works well when both parents earn similar incomes or when you simply want a clean, easy-to-follow rule.

Splitting costs proportionally could mean that each parent contributes based on the pro rata income percentages indicated in your child support guidelines.  This is a number that is oftentimes already used to determine how other children’s expenses, such as uncovered healthcare costs or daycare costs, will be calculated. For example, if, after dividing assets and debts, you have 75% of the family’s income, and your spouse has 25% of the family’s income, then you might pay 75% of the bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah expenses and your spouse will pay 25%.  This option may be especially helpful when there is a discrepancy between the parents’ incomes.

Dividing by category means splitting responsibility along natural lines instead of splitting every bill in half. For example, one parent might take on the venue and entertainment, covering the party itself, while the other parent handles the donation to the synagogue or shul, honoring the religious side of the occasion. This can feel meaningful to both parents, since each is contributing to a distinct part of the day.

One parent covering costs up to a set amount means, for example, one parent agrees to pay up to a set dollar amount toward the celebration, with the other parent responsible for anything beyond that.  This could be helpful if one parent has a budget and the other is a bit more open ended, and there are disagreements on how to contain expenses.

Whichever approach you choose, the goal is the same. You want language specific enough that neither of you is guessing what the other person agreed to when the invoices start arriving.

 

Decide What Your Bar or Bat Mitzvah Agreement Actually Covers

While you are thinking about how to split costs, it helps to decide what your agreement is actually covering. Some parents agree upfront to split every cost tied to the celebration (regardless of whether they are agreed upon costs), using whatever formula they choose. Others prefer to agree only on specific costs as they come up, leaving room to discuss and approve each expense closer to the date.

If you choose the second approach, you will also want to decide how those individual agreements get documented. Some parents prefer a formal, signed writing each time a cost is approved. Others find that impractical, and instead agree that a text message or email (or similar communication) confirming the decision is enough. Both are valid choices. What matters is that you and your spouse agree on the standard ahead of time, so there is no confusion later about whether a conversation counted as an agreement or was just a passing comment.

Working through these choices is exactly the kind of decision that benefits from support. A Collaborative facilitator or neutral financial professional can help you and your spouse talk through the options calmly, without the pressure of a courtroom deadline, and help you land on an approach that fits your family.

How Collaborative Divorce Can Help You Address This

If working through decisions like this one, calmly and with real input from professionals sounds like the right approach for your family, Collaborative Divorce may be worth considering.

In the Collaborative Divorce process, you and your spouse each have your own separate lawyers, giving you each independent legal advice throughout. Rather than preparing for a courtroom battle, your entire team, including your attorneys and any neutral professionals you bring in, works solely toward reaching an agreement outside of court. Discussions generally happen in private conference rooms or video conferences rather than in a public courtroom, giving you and your spouse room to talk openly about things like future celebrations, education costs, and family traditions.

One feature of the process gives both spouses real peace of mind. If the Collaborative Process ends without an agreement, or if either spouse decides to file a contested pleading, every Collaborative professional involved, including both attorneys, must withdraw from the case. They cannot turn around and represent either spouse in litigation. This means everyone on your team stays focused on resolution from the very beginning, greatly mitigating against the lawyers escalating the case into a courtroom fight as then they would be fired.

The Collaborative Process also has a strong track record. An analysis by Family Diplomacy Managing Attorney Adam B. Cordover and Dr. Randy Heller of Nova Southeastern University, examining nearly 300 Florida Collaborative cases from 2014 through 2024, found an 85 percent success rate, meaning the vast majority of couples who started the process reached a full agreement without going to trial. That review was originally published in the Florida Bar Family Law Section Commentator. Of course, no attorney can guarantee a particular outcome in any divorce case, and every family’s situation is different.

For a decision like planning ahead for a bar or bat mitzvah, having a neutral financial professional or facilitator in the room can help you and your spouse talk through the practical details, from cost splitting to documentation, without either of you feeling like you are negotiating alone.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Florida court order my ex to pay for our child’s bar or bat mitzvah?

Not on its own, in most cases. Florida courts have authority to order payment for things like education and extracurricular activities, but they have shown real reluctance to make decisions tied to religious practice. If this issue reaches a judge without a prior agreement or where one parent objects, there is a decent chance the court would find it has no authority to order either parent to pay for the celebration at all, leaving the decision entirely voluntary.

What happens if we do not address this during our divorce?

If you wait, you may find that the best window to lock in an agreement has already closed. Once your divorce is final, a court is unlikely to step in and order payment for the celebration itself, which means the decision would simply become voluntary on both parents’ part, with no way to enforce it if one parent later changes their mind.

Do we need a formal contract every time we agree to pay for something related to the bar or bat mitzvah?

No. Your divorce agreement can specify that agreements about specific costs need to be in writing, but that a text message or email confirming the decision is enough. You do not need a signed document for every purchase.

How far in advance should we address this in our divorce?

Even if the celebration is years away, it is worth addressing now, while you are already negotiating your parenting plan and financial agreement. Revisiting the topic later, after your divorce is final, is much harder and often requires returning to court.

Can a Collaborative Divorce professional help us work out these details?

Yes. A neutral facilitator or financial professional trained in the Collaborative process can help you and your spouse talk through cost splitting, documentation, and other future expenses in a calm, structured setting, without the pressure of a courtroom deadline.

Contact Family Diplomacy

We invite you to reach out to us at (813) 443-0615. You can also directly schedule a confidential virtual planning meeting or contact Family Diplomacy: A Collaborative Law Firm by clicking the button below to discuss your situation and explore whether Collaborative Divorce is the right path for your family.

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