The Bris: October 15th 2006

My friend Naomi (Jewish of course) said it was the best bris she had ever attended. Normally women and men are separated from at the event and everything is read in Hebrew and there's minimal participation. Ours was totally different. Not surprising since we're a non-traditional family to begin with.

Even though I'm not Jewish and therefore Dante isn't either, we opted to have a Bris. It also happened to fall on the Simchat Torah or "rejoicing of the Torah", a very happy day for the Jewish people, so I learned. Dante wasn't thrilled. Rahav found a reformed mohel to perform the ceremony. We invited about twenty friends (Jewish and not) and made it a meet baby Dante celebration, oh and watch him get cut. We provided bagels, lox, coffee, wine and entertainment for everyone..

It was a wonderful ceremony full of beautifully crafted text and inspirational messages focusing on family and faith. . The Mohel (need to find his name and link to his web page) created a personalized program and selected key thoughts and versus from the torah which were so reverant and emotional. My heart melted and I teared up a few times. Rahav and I took turns reciting versus, me in English and he in Hebrew. Everyone joined in for several versus too. Both of our mothers were present and were given the honor of lighting the candles (albeit scented votive ones) to bless those close to us who have since passed on.

The snipping ceremony was difficult for me to watch. Rahav got to do the actual slicing. These are modern times after all. First the umbilical cord and now the foreskin.. What's next. His first tattoo? Dante fared well through the process with some initial wailing and then dozed off for the rest of the day.

Oh. My sister Lori gave birth to baby Jared, her third, on this special day too.