Re: Converts hit new Israeli barrier

On 2007-11-15, cindys <cstein1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<flaviaR@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fhghbd$p79$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PLEASE tell this woman that a mohel is MUCH LESS PAINFUL!
I've read the terrible stories of doctor/hosptial circs - you,
yourself know how quick it is for Jewish boys done by a rabbi!

Yes, I am telling you to forget the religious arguments for once!
-------
The issue here is that her child has already reached the age where he will
require a hospital procedure with general anesthesia. (We had the same issue
with our sons who each arrived at age 4 months, and the adoption agency
didn't permit elective procedures, so we had to wait, at a minimum, until
the adoption was finalized six months later). The issue is that general
anesthesia becomes considerably less risky when the child is at least a year
old, and generally, it is not recommended for a child under age 1 for an
elective procedure (because of the risk). So, we waited until our sons were
a bit older.

You can also find a mohel who will work with a doctor to do the
procedure. The mohel in Baltimore has worked for many years with a
doctor in Baltimore to do hundreds (if not thousands) of brissim on
Russian Jews moving to the US. For the boy's age, general anesthesia
will probably still be desired, but there shouldn't be a reason a
mohel couldn't be present to do half of the work.

The older son was not circumcised until he was 1-1/2 years old. The second
son was well over 2 years old. The reason we waited so long in the case of
the older child was that we wanted a mohel. There was no mohel in Rochester
at the time, and it necessitated flying in the mohel from Brooklyn (he had
previously lived in Rochester and had OR (operating room) privileges at one
of the local hospitals). This would have been a very expensive endeavor,
needless to say, so we waited until he had occasion to be in Rochester for
other matters (Chabad flew him in to perform brissim on some teenaged
Russian Jews). We were able to schedule the OR for the same day, so we
avoided having to pay his plane fare. As it turned out, it was all a waste
of money and effort because in our ignorance, we did not know that we needed
to bring an entire beis din (not just a mohel) into the OR for a bris l'shem
geirus (a bris being done for the purpose of conversion). Apparently, the
mohel misunderstood, and he thought we just felt more comfortable having a
mohel make the cut rather than the surgeon. For the Russian teenagers, there
was no problem because they were born Jews, but no one ever explained to us
that for wannabe converts, we needed a beis din for the bris as well as for
the mikveh, and the result was that my older son ended up requiring hatafas
dam bris (drawing a drop of blood) at the mikveh anyway. So, we may as well
have just let the surgeon do the circumcision because in the end we gained
nothing by having the mohel.

Except a more practiced, manual hand. :-)

With the younger son, we knew better, and the reason he never had his
circumcision until he was well over two years old was that it took me months
and months to arrange for a beis din to be present in the OR. The hospital's
stipulation was that all members of the beis din had to already be in
possession of OR privileges at their hospital. I finally managed to secure
three shomrei mitzvos physicians from the community, all of whom were on
staff at the hospital. One of the three was a urology resident who performed
the circumcision. He even brought a bottle of Manischewitz right into the
OR. (It was also difficult for me to get permission to be present during the
bris because hospital policy is that relatives can't be in the OR during
someone's surgery. I actually had to go all the way to the executive
director of the entire hospital to get special permission. In the end, only
one parent was permitted to be present).

Wow!

<snip>

All in all, my point is that these things can get very complicated. For
someone who isn't particular about having a beis din in the OR, (as the
woman in question isn't), it's much easier to just go with having a
pediatric urologist (who's already on staff at the hospital) perform the
procedure and then do hatafas dam bris at the mikveh (which the overseeing
rabbi often insists on anyway, even when there was a bris l'shem geirus in
the OR, and even when it was performed in the presence of a beis din).

Susan's point wasn't about the halacha, it was about the actual
procedure; the methodology the urologist uses is far less pleasant (as
if it weren't already unpleasant enough), so she was recommending
using the mohel in any event. So while it may procedurally be easier
for the parents, it's not necessarily the preferred way of doing the
procedure, medically speaking.

Tim

--
Timothy A. Meushaw
meushaw@xxxxxxxxx

.

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