I have always loved the mitzvah of brit milah. As a woman, this might seem surprising, as I have heard from many friends how terrified they were at their sons’ britot. However, for me, my three sons’ britot provided some of the most spiritually significant moments of my life.
One of the reasons I have always cared for this mitzvah is because my beloved father, Michael Osband, z”l, was a mohel. My father was a pediatric oncologist, and while my mother was pregnant with me, he learned how to do milah in the event I would be a boy. He performed the britot for my three brothers, for many children of close friends, and sometimes for sick children who needed their britot to be performed in the hospital. We even had a special tree in our backyard where the orlahs (foreskins) were buried. One of my brothers’ and my favorite pictures of my father, reproduced here, is the one we refer to as the brit picture. The picture reminds me of a Caravaggio: The background is dark and black and was taken immediately after completing my brother’s milah. My father is wrapped in his tallit as he is holding my brother in a pillow with his hand wrapped in tefillin. My father’s right pinky is in my brother’s mouth, comforting my brother, as he looks outward, not focused on the photographer, but clearly very deep in his own thoughts. To our family, this picture represents my father’s commitment to our tradition and the tight embrace of love and faith in which we were all wrapped.
My father loved to take his daughter (me) and sons with him to perform this special mitzvah. In fact, one Yom Kippur, when I was young, my father was asked to do a brit in an adjacent town. He took my brother and me with him so that we could accompany him to perform this mitzvah on Yom Kippur. When I think back to the times I went with him, I am touched by the fact that my father loved to take his daughter with him as much as his sons. Accompanying him taught me to appreciate the power and mystery of brit milah, even though it is a mitzvah that many women find difficult to connect to.
I know that there are some who may question how one can love one’s child and at the same time inflict pain on him through brit milah. I have never felt this contradiction. Instead, I have understood how the britot of my three brothers were some of my father’s holiest moments on earth, when he brought his children into the brit of Avraham.
I have also been blessed, like my parents, to be the mother of one daughter and three sons. Each one of my sons’ britot was a different experience and unique in its own way. The brit of my eldest son, who is named for my father, was performed by my husband and was an intensely inclusive experience. There was much pain in knowing that my father was not there to perform his brit, and some comfort in that this baby would be given my father’s name. The rabbi who officiated at the brit milah gave us a few ideas of how to incorporate women into the ceremony. Some of these ideas included women entering the main sanctuary to observe the brit, and a chain of women consisting of aunts, sisters, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers forming to pass the baby from the entrance of the sanctuary to the bima where the kvatarim (godparents) were standing. Last, our rabbi suggested that I stand up front alongside my husband, allowing me to be a full participant in the mitzvah and not an observer trying to peer through a mehitza.
The britot of my other two sons were, for a variety of reasons, not as inclusive as the first. But when I reflect on the brit of my eldest son, and share its memory with others, I am reminded that this ritual can be expanded within the Orthodox world to be more inclusive of women.
Entering my sons into the covenant with God was a mystical moment in my life, greatly influenced by the experiences I was blessed to have with my father, z”l. These moments were made even more powerful when I was given opportunities to participate in the ritual of my own sons’ britot. It is my prayer that my husband and I will be able to transmit the meaning of brit milah to our daughter and sons as it was taught to me.