#SOLSC24
Our daughter and son-in-law asked us to host the bris for their week old son, Zachary. Of course we’d do everything possible for our new grandson and his parents. So we hosted his Bris today in our home.
It was a lovely gathering of less than a dozen immediate family members and the doctor, who was to perform the ceremony and circumcision. Our son-in-law, Josh, set up a zoom for relatives and friends to join the ceremony from all over the world at ten o’clock our time. I am not a very religious person as I search to try to find meaning in the traditions that seem barbaric to me. My husband and I had asked (more like begged) our gynecologist daughter if she could arrange to have the circumcision in the hospital and later arrange a baby naming service in a temple. I kept thinking that cutting the foreskin of a male sex organ should occur where there are safety measures in place. But, her husband and his mother, who are more observant than us, felt a traditional Bris at home was essential. Rabbi Harold Kusher writes, “The message to the one who is circumcised: The covenant involves pain and sacrifice as well as honor and sanctity. And it is part of who you are, banded into your flesh at birth.” We are talking about an innocent eight day old infant who the truth is, would be considered Jewish simply because he was born to a Jewish mother. He didn’t need to have pain and sacrifice to gain honor! As the doctor cut into poor little Zachary, he laid drunkenly on my country wooden kitchen table covered in a tablecloth that had been moved in front of the stone fireplace in our den, I cried. Zachary cried a touch, but the Manischewitz wine had calmed him down. Throughout the circumcision I cried. I cried for Zachary. I cried because I missed my father, who had passed five years ago, and would have seen the importance of this ceremony. Zachary’s Jewish middle name is Abraham, after my father. I had placed a picture of my dad on that kitchen table. I took hold of that picture and held it tight.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Eva KaplanSea glass, found on beaches, is naturally worn and smooth by tide and time,. As a wife, mother, Bubbe, teacher, reader & life-long learner, and of course, sea glass collector, I aspire to use writing to help me understand myself and the world around me. Archives
March 2024
Categories
|