So You Want to Make a Bris: Everything You Need to Know About Having a Bris for Your Newborn Son

By Henry Michael Lerner, M.D.

Of all the issues that confront Jewish couples when they are having a baby, one that often catches them by surprise is the need to make arrangements--if the baby is a boy--for a bris on the eighth day after the baby's birth. Years ago when most Jews lived in fairly close communities and were more observant of religious rituals, if you were having a baby, you found it easy to get information about having a bris. Now with many young Jewish couples living far from their parents and home communities and having less knowledge about and observance of Jewish customs, such information is less readily available. That is why this book has been written. Its goal is to provide clear, accurate information about all aspects of the modern bris ceremony. The information in this book will help couples (1) make decisions about having a bris, (2) choose a mohel, and (3) understand the medical and religious aspects of this significant family event.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Nov 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781977237361

Henry Michael Lerner, M.D.

Dr. Henry Lerner is an obstetrician-gynecologist who has been in practice for more than forty years. He is also a certified mohel. He has delivered more than 10,000 babies, performed more than 4,000 circumcisions and has officiated at over 500 brises. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Lerner did his obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of California, San Francisco. He returned to the Boston area to establish his practice at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, where he continues to head a nine-doctor ob-gyn group. He has published extensively in various areas of obstetrics and gynecology and has a special interest in the obstetrical complication of shoulder dystocia. He is a retired assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School.

Book preview

The biblical background of the bris

While God’s stipulation that all Jews be circumcised appears in multiple sections of the Bible, it is most thoroughly described in Genesis 17. The essence of this discussion is as follows:

Abraham is commanded to circumcise all males in his household.

Abraham is to circumcise his son Isaac when Isaac is eight days old.

Abraham is to teach Isaac to circumcise his son on the eighth day after birth and to have subsequent descendants continue this practice throughout the generations.

In exchange for performing this ritual and confirming the covenant between God and the Jewish people, Abraham and his progeny are guaranteed that they will:

Be fruitful and prosperous (made into a great nation)

Be as numerous as the stars in heaven

Always have Canaan as their homeland

As confirmation of this divine arrangement, the circumcision of all Jewish males will be a visible sign of this covenant between God and the Jewish people in perpetuity.

Below are the original passages concerning circumcision from Genesis 17:9-14:

God said to Abraham,

As for you, you shall keep my Covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My Covenant you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between Me and you: He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner not of your offspring. But he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money will be circumcised.

So shall My Covenant be in your flesh an everlasting Covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My Covenant.

At this point in the biblical story most of this passage would seem to have little relevance to Abraham, for as yet he has no son (or daughter). However, three verses later, in Genesis 17:16, God states:

I will bless her [Sarah, Abraham’s wife] and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.

Abraham, impiously, laughs at the thought of he and Sarah—ninety-nine and ninety years old respectively—having a child (Genesis 17:17). Abraham responds to God, saying:

Will a son be born to a man 100 years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of 90?

God, ignoring Abraham’s skepticism, responds (Genesis 17:19):

Yes, your wife Sarah will bear a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my Covenant with him as an everlasting Covenant for his descendants after him.

Abraham proceeds to fulfill God’s commandment (Genesis 17:26-27):

Abraham and his son Ishmael [by Sarah’s maid servant] were both circumcised on that very day. And every male in Abraham’s household, including those born in his household or bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him.

When later Sarah actually did give birth to a son (Genesis 21:3 – 4),

Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.

Thus the Bible explicitly commands Jews—Abraham’s descendants—to circumcise their sons on the eighth day after birth. But the scriptures are silent as to how it should be done and what ceremony should accompany the circumcision. As is true of many of the commandments in the Bible, it is only over time, through the accretion of tradition, and by the interpretation of the rabbis that the rules and structures of ceremonies are established. Regarding the brit milah ceremony, the major source of laws and rules defining it were not codified in written form until the sixteenth-century work by Joseph Karo (1488-1575), the Shulchan Aruch (The Set Table), which is perhaps the single most definitive compilation of Jewish law.

It is of interest to note that a careful reading of Genesis does not reveal exactly why God wishes to establish a covenant with Abraham and his people—as opposed to any other individual or group—nor why God chooses circumcision as the symbolic act consecrating and memorializing this covenant. For one thing, at this point in the biblical narrative, Abraham does not have much of a track record as being an especially worthwhile or appropriate candidate to inherit the mantle of being anointed the founder of God’s chosen people. As for circumcision, theories as to why it was chosen as the marker for the covenant between God and the Jewish people abound. Two prominent conjectures held by scholars hold that transfiguration of this organ was chosen because of the