Finding a Mohel in South Florida

A web search for a "mohel in south florida" or "mohel in florida" may have brought you to this particular page.

Ought you just go with the top search engine listing?

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH

Everyone who has any media sense or savvy will have nice pictures and guarantees of a beautiful ceremony. Of course that's what you'll find. After all, don't we all do the same thing?

Yes, and no.

Yes - we all do a ceremony, we all do a circumcision, and we all take care of your son.

No - it's not all the same.

The Color White

Nothing represents cleanliness and purity more than the color white. Any image you have in your head of heaven likely includes puffy white clouds and white angels dressed in white garments (to use an anthropomorphic image). A bride wears white on her wedding day, and in Jewish tradition, the groom wears a kittel as well when he and his bride complete the marriage ceremony under the Huppah. White garments (Tachrichim/n) are also placed on the deceased before they are placed in a coffin or are buried directly in the ground, as per the custom in Israel. It is also a widespread custom to wear white on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. There are various reasons given for this, but the attempt to live a symbolic life of purity on these days is unmistakable.

Is the Mohel a Doctor?

This has been coming up a lot lately.

I wear a lab coat at the brisses I do (as you can see under my tallis in the photo on the right), for a few reasons:

1. It looks official
2. It looks clean - can't argue with the whiteness of white (who said I can't be profound?)
3. The lab coat has deep pockets for me to put the things I need accessible at different times through my bris workings.

For people who don't know me, though, it makes them think I am a physician. Which I am not.

Sterility and Cleanliness - Can't Emphasize Enough

Circumcision as Surgery - An Observation

Today I accompanied a pediatric surgeon friend of mine to the O.R. where he performed a circumcision on a three month old baby.

Those who do circumcisions strictly for non religious reasons have many options for how to do it. They can do it in the doctor's office, in their home, in the hospital with local anesthetic, or in an Operating Room, under general anesthesia.

It is a different kind of experience, watching a procedure I knew so well, and a result I am so familiar with, done in a completely different way. Surgeons have the luxury of all the time in the world. There is no crying baby, no nervous mother who only wants the baby to stop crying and for the mohel to leave him alone. And just about any error in the course of the procedure can be corrected right away without anyone being the wiser.

Emphasis on Sterility

There is no compromising on the sterility of the procedure in the operating room. Sterile drapes are put all around the surgical field. All instruments have the same level of sterility as for open-heart surgery. The surgeon and his assistant do a full scrub before donning their surgical robes and sterile gloves.

And why should they act any differently? They have a responsibility to assure that the risk of infection is minimized under their watch. At all costs.

The beef

I understand that the nature of a bris makes the sterility degree of an operating room nearly impossible to achieve. And thankfully, the bris usually heals without complications and without problems.

But...

• I see too many mohels operate without gloves.
• I see too many mohels who wash their hands and then touch everything from the baby's clothes to a briefcase on the floor before starting the bris.
• I see too many mohels operate after putting their "sterilized" instruments onto a laundered diaper cloth handed to them by the baby's mother five minutes earlier.
• I see too many mohels who have no regard for sterility, and explain their ways by virtue of their unverifiable track record and their inability to change their ways after having done things this way for decades.

There should be no tolerance for anyone treating your baby and his fresh wound any differently than how a fresh wound would be treated by medical personnel in a doctor's office or under close to O.R. conditions. Mohels are not perfect, but they can be much better.

While infections are uncommon (rare), they should be non-existent. And infections in a baby which come from the bris can be life-altering if not deadly.

Cleanliness and Efficiency

If you were to ask me what are the top criteria I think anyone should seek in any mohel, I would say to check two things: his cleanliness and his efficiency.

Each of these has different components, and I will try to be brief:

Cleanliness

Cleanliness includes:
* The way he presents himself. If he looks polished, he is polished. If he looks like a slob, he probably is a slob.
* Maintaining a sterile field. It is very hard to maintain an absolutely sterile field in the public setting of a bris, but it is possible to do your best. Sterile drapes, gloves, bandages, and packaged instruments sterilized in an autoclave machine should all be standard.
* He should use a wastebasket for any packages, paper towels, diapers or used gauze pads he uses, to eliminate any mess which might turn people off.
* While there will be bleeding at a bris, he should keep it to a confined area, and be able to minimize any bleeding from straying beyond the immediate bris area

This leads into our second component...

Efficiency
* He should come on time and set his instruments in place in time for the designated hour.
* Everything he needs (diapers, wipes, receiving blankets, gauze, wine, kiddush cup, etc.) should be set up before the ceremony begins.
* The actual circumcision should take a minimal amount of time.
* Bandaging the baby should be a quick ordeal.
* Unless he has been asked to speak by the parents (often to explain the ceremony), he need not speak except: to "M.C." (if there is no other), to give the father and sandak quiet instructions, and to tell the father when he is to appoint the mohel his "shaliach" - messenger - to perform the mitzvah on his behalf.