Dear Husband

I have written several notes to the father about what is expected of him before and during the bris.

Here is one about the things the father needs to do, and one about whether/when/if the father opts to make the incision himself. Now I venture out of mohel role for a moment, as I talk to you as a friend and a father, who was a husband before being a father, and more than likely before becoming your friend.

Part II - a note to grandparents (please share with parents or in-laws, but only if it will be helpful to your situation

Dear Husband,

Congratulations on the birth of your new son! I am sure this is a moment you have been waiting for - for a long time. You have a boy, a son who will carry your name, to whom you can teach everything you want, from sports, to interests, to Torah, to the great upbringing you will undoubtedly provide for him.

But this is not a letter to you, the father. This is a letter to you, the husband.

Look at the woman who just gave birth to this child. Remember that for nine months she endured a pregnancy and all that goes with it. Whether she loved her pregnancy or hated it, whether she had cravings or did not, whether she was more beautiful than ever or pregnancy did things to her (ie morning sickness, bloating, etc) you could have never imagined, whether she got pregnant easily or it was an ordeal (which you both went through), remember that she went through all of this for YOU.

You have a mitzvah to have a child. She does not. She may WANT to have a child, but it is her choice. She becomes the vessel through which you fulfill your obligation to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."

Conception takes a second. Pregnancy is a long ordeal. Your job is simple. Hers is much harder.

And remember who will more likely experience more sleepless nights (especially if she is nursing)? Who is likely to be more involved in the raising of your son?

Please don't think I am accusing any father of shirking his responsibilities as a father. 

But don't forget your responsibility as a husband. Appreciate your wife, the mother of your child. Love her. Cherish her. Honor her. Respect her. Be patient with her.

Birth is a stressful time. The bris could be a very stressful time. It requires a different kind of resilience to make it through this time period with no regrets.

I am so happy to report that I have seen incredible acts of kindness and chesed and concern and care displayed between husband and wife and vice versa in the days when I am present in the home, shortly after the birth (before bris), at the bris, and certainly after the bris.

At the same time (and this is why I write to you, husband of Amazing Woman), I have seen too many people get into regrettable arguments (in my presence!) over what are usually (in my opinion) the silliest of things - about the honors for the bris, who will be involved, etc; about who will change the diaper, who will get the diapers or the wipes, whose turn it is, etc; over who contributes more to this marriage...

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! And I'll add an "oy vey" for good measure! Even if you need to have the fights, please PLEASE have them AFTER I leave. 

But I wonder if it is even necessary, dear husband. Because you should be looking for EVERY opportunity to give your wife a break, to not have to make her climb stairs, to not have her run around looking for things, to not have to change every diaper. And if she is forgetful or if she gets impatient, or if things don't go exactly your way, let it go. The only pass I'll give you is if the baby is exclusively nursing (a move I applaud and encourage, for the baby's sake - as long as Mommy can handle it), you don't have to feed him.

Remember why you got into this in the first place - marriage, baby, the whole megillah. The baby should enhance your love, admiration, respect for and appreciation of one another. He should not bring about unnecessary stress and tension between you.

As to how you deal with your in-laws? For that you're on your own. :)

I care about your dear and precious wife who has done more for you in the last week months of your lives than you could ever do for her. God bless her. And you should too.

All the best

Avi Billet

Amazing Bris Experience

I posted this on Facebook, right after the fact, but here is the account of last week's bris: 

Most amazing bris experience today! The father of the baby recently converted to Judaism (Orthodox), and while the baby today is his third son (Jewish mother, of course!), it is the first time he participated in the mitzvah of bris milah as a Jewish father who has the mitzvah to circumcise his son as per our Covenant. 

Easy to say he was the most emotional person in the room, "This is BIG, Rabbi. Isn't it?"

Yes it is. I haven't seen people dance at a bris in a long time, but the men in the room grabbed him (he was sandak as well!) and danced in circles singing "Siman Tov UMazal Tov."

It was AWESOME - this is what Bris Milah is all about. It's a little sad that we need these kinds of reminders of why we celebrate and how to celebrate, but we all got it today.

Truly a special bris. Honored to have been a part of it.

The Father's Role

Bris milah qualifies as one of the commandments incumbent upon a specific individual (in this case the baby's father) who can opt out in the event he feels unqualified or inadequately trained to perform it.

He can't shirk the responsibility completely, but he can hire someone else, in this case a mohel, to serve as his agent to accomplish the mitzvah on his behalf. Which most fathers opt to do. [here's a story of a father who opted to do the bris]

What is the father's role at the bris?

Post Op Bleeding - The Myth of the Bleeding Vein

When done properly (and barring extremely rare circumstances), a mohel should never be faced with a situation in which he requires medical intervention to help stop bleeding post-op.

Between the various coagulating bandages which are available, and the never-fail "if you put enough pressure on it it will stop bleeding" method, with a little time and patience, bleeding can be put under control.

I have been blessed that I have not had to make such a call in my career. I did have one case about six years ago when my following textbook procedures did not seem to work. We called a doctor, and he offered to take care of it if I couldn't get things under control. With my next effort, however, the bleeding stopped. Thank God.

It is important to me (for obvious reasons) that the baby not be bleeding when he is turned over to his parents after the bris. This is why I always check and change the bandage immediately after the bris, so I can give the baby the proper attention. For better or worse, the bris takes a very small amount of time. Some babies clot very quickly and my bandage-change takes 2 minutes. With some babies it takes a little longer. A Five-Minute-Pressure-Application usually does the trick on more seemingly-difficult cases. [It's never pleasant for a mom to be in the room, unless she is totally calm and collected, during this time. Some choose to stay in, some choose to stay outside. But the baby is usually crying during this time (unless someone is putting a pacifier in his mouth), until I let go and close up his diaper.]

Because I put so much care into this, and know that some babies bleed more and some bleed less, and also that much of the aftereffects are heavily influenced by the bandaging, the amount of time doesn't affect me. Of course I would love for all babies to be a "chick-chock" case with no extra time. But we are all human and imperfect, so we do our best.

Which leads to the myth. I have had some fathers call me after their son's bris, clearly concerned that something went wrong. These always happen when I did not do the bris, which I would venture to suggest is the reason they are calling me instead of the mohel they used. In some cases the father himself did the bris (which I offer as an option to fathers, but most decline), and in some cases the mohel did the whole thing. 

Note: when "the father does the bris" it is set up for him by the mohel, leaving him with the relatively simple task of excising the foreskin by cutting along a metal plate (see the photo in method #2). 

Also Note: The first time anyone does a circumcision, there might be a feeling of "how did I just do what I did?" which accompanies a feeling of "I ruined this child for life." Which isn't true, but it might feel that way.

So the father says to me, "It took a lot of time for the mohel to stop the bleeding. He said I cut a vein."

Well, let's see. There are veins in that section of anatomy. When otherwise healthy skin tissue is excised, it stands to reason a vein will be cut. But not a major vein, whose repercussions could be quite disastrous. Unless, when the mohel in question set things up, he set up a circumstance, where the father (who does not know otherwise) removed too much skin from the shaft!

The way I see it, there are two possibilities:

1. The mohel set things up improperly and did not guide the father properly in the act of the circumcision excision.

2. The mohel had a difficulty with the bandaging (possibly related to previous point, though not necessarily), and felt the best way to explain his challenges was to blame the father for the mohel's mistake.

The bottom line is this:

Problems arise when too much shaft skin is removed (the original shaft skin should be as close to the corona of the glans as possible - give or take a couple of millimeters). Bleeding challenges can arise in any circumstance. It is the skilled mohel who knows to remove the proper amount of foreskin, and who can then get the bleeding under control - sometimes in very little time, and sometimes with a little more time and patience. I have seen what look like open "bigger veins" in a freshly circumcised penis, but with pressure (like with the rest of it), the bleeding stops. I do believe God would not have given us this commandment, to be done in this manner, if complications would arise on a regular basis. A mohel should own up to his own inadequacies (if he has them) and should not fault a vein, a father, or anything other than himself if not everything goes smoothly. 

A reminder for all parents to read this important posting about what can go wrong at a bris

Emotions Overtake Us

At today's bris, the baby's father served as the mohel.

You may ask, "what does that have to do with you?"

I'll answer: I set it all up for him, and he was the one who said the blessing and did the incision. And why not? It is, after all, the father's mitzvah!

As long as you know what you're doing, and have an awareness of the anatomy and what takes place at a bris, this can be the most genuine way for a non-mohel father to perform the mitzvah.

When The Mohel's Wife Gives Birth to a Boy

My wife gave birth to a little boy on Shabbos morning! Really!

We are so excited and so blessed.

When our oldest was born, a girl, people asked me if I was disappointed. Of course I wasn't disappointed. (In the fifty percent chance of the child being a boy, I was excited about the prospect of a bris until the doctor said "It's a girl," and she was (and is) beautiful, healthy, and the joy of our lives.) Becoming a father is one of the most altering moments in a man's life. Any remaining ego in one's marriage disappears as your life becomes one of complete focus on doing everything for the sake of the child.

At the same time, I called my mohel teacher, Rabbi Sasson, to tell him my wife gave birth to a girl and he said, ".תמיד זה כחה. למוהלים נולדות בנות" - "It's always that way. Mohels always have daughters."

Two Things Everyone is Saying

1. Everyone's a comedian. "I can recommend a good mohel." "Who's going to be doing the bris?" "Have you called the mohel yet?" "We had a great experience with so-and-so. You might want to call him." "I guess we all know who the mohel is!"

Do people make such a fuss over the identity of the mohel before their other friends' brisses?

2. Many people ask: "Will you be doing the bris yourself?" I don't know what the source of this question is... unless people are thinking that doctors don't operate on their kids or immediate family.

To answer the question - Yes. I will be doing the bris.

The Ideal Mitzvah of Bris

The reason I will be doing the bris is because that is the ideal mitzvah. Every father is supposed to do the bris himself. (Genesis 17:10-12: It's worth reading the whole chapter) But since most fathers are not trained to do it, it is much safer to have a mohel do it.

In this case, since the father is a mohel, the father will do the bris.

The first baby to be circumcised in the Jewish tradition was Yitzchak, who was circumcised by his father Abraham on the eighth day of his life. (See chapter 21, verse 4)

In an ironic twist, our son was born on the day we read the Torah portion describing the origin of the covenant - the Bris Milah (Genesis 17), and his bris will, please God, take place on the morning when we read the Torah portion describing the birth and bris of Yitzchak.

Pretty cool, no?

A number of years ago, my wife wrote an article about being the mohel's wife, and her impressions of anticipating the birth of our first child.

Now we will joyfully bring our son through this reaffirmation of our commitment to the covenant, as we continue to celebrate his arrival and the joy he brings to us, our family, our friends, our community, and the collective nation of Israel.