CHAPTER TWO - Birth Ceremonies and Life Beginnings

A: BACKGROUND

8. THE CUTTING EDGE CEREMONY: INTRODUCING THE BRIT MILAH

The Brit milah is perhaps the most strongly observed of all Jewish life-cycle traditions, and certainly one of the most thought-provoking.

There is an enormous irony involved in the Brit ceremony. For many people, the central feature of the Brit is the physical act of circumcision that is performed as part of the ceremony. This is so much felt by many to be the "be all and end all" of the ceremony that, very often, all that happens at the ceremony is the circumcision itself and the attendant brachot (blessings) said privately in a bare hospital room in the presence of the parents and the mohel (ritual circumcizer), or the surgeon (in which case the brachot might well be left out). Even in many public ceremonies, in a room full of people, this same absence of ritual is often the case, with the addition that in a public ceremony, the announcing of the name to those who do not yet know it will likely make a stir.