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Brit Milah - The Convenant of Circumcision

Dr. Shiffman was certified as a Mohel at The Jewish Theological Seminary in
New York in 1990. He is pleased to offer his services at your son's Brit.
Please contact him for further information.

The Hebrew word brit means covenant, a pledge or obligation. Brit Milah is the covenant of circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin from the penis, a physical sign of the unique relationship between the Jewish people and God. Sephardic Jews sometimes refer to the rite simply as milah. In North America, the Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish term bris is the most familiar name for the religious ritual of circumcision.

A Bris is the most ancient of all Jewish rituals, and is traditionally celebrated with feasting and song; it is a cause of joy and celebration. Jews have performed the mitzvah of brit milah for 4000 years, from the days of Abraham to the present. During this long history, observant and secular Jews, rabbis and Jews with little or no understanding of the ritual have fulfilled this, perhaps the most difficult of all biblical commandments. Deciding to circumcise your son, especially in a traditional manner, announces your identification with Judaism in a powerful, unequivocal way.

In a midrashic anecdote, the Roman Governor of Palestine, Turnus Rufus, asks Rabbi Akiba: "If God dislikes a man having a foreskin, why did He create him with one in the first place?"

Rabbi Akiba replies that God has created an incomplete world, leaving human beings to bring it to greater perfection. We are therefore in partnership with God to attempt to perfect the world we live in.

There are many partnerships into which a person will enter during his or her lifetime. Most of them, at some point, will come to an end. The brit (bris), the ritual circumcision, is a symbol of our partnership with God. Etched in the flesh of our physical bodies is a permanent reminder that the covenant will never end or be forgotten. On the occasion of his brit, a Jewish boy will also receive his Hebrew name; his family and friends celebrate with great joy.