This morning we made the bris, BH on time.  The mohel came a few days before and said there would be no need to come back sooner to check on him, since the baby looked great and when they look like that, jaundice occuring later on isn’t an issue.  That was nice to hear, since it was touch and go with the last two babies as to if it would be on time until the night before the bris. 

Practically speaking, it’s always walking a fine line as far as the time to schedule a bris.  On one hand, the earlier it’s called for, the easier it is for men to come and the longer they can come before they leave to work.  On the other hand, the earlier it is, the fewer women will make it because they’re still busy with their children, carpools, etc.  We called it for 8, which meant that there was a gap between when davening finished and the bris started, so there was no spillover of attendance from the minyan that finished and the bris.  When I walked into the shul at a minute to eight, there were only 3 men and 2 women – I got a little nervous at first!  But people turned up very soon.  The bris was lovely, and I’m so grateful to all of our friends and family who made the time on such a busy erev yom tov to come.  A simcha is really enhanced when others share it with you.

My husband decided he wanted to be sandek this time; it seemed fitting that after catching the baby as he was born, that he would hold him for the bris.  The baby bled more than any of the others, which was a concern, but he seems to be fine now.  We named the baby Shimshon, which was mainly after Rav SR Hirsch, who has been a powerful influence on my husband and his approach to Torah.  But there were alot of other connotations of the name that connected with the time of the year and our feelings about the baby.  My husband very much wanted to name our last baby Shimshon, but it didn’t feel right to me at that time and I adamantly refused – not because I didn’t like the name, just because it didn’t seem like it was meant to be his name.  For this baby, it felt like the right match up of name and spiritual energy.

I was thinking about a few points after the bris, and wanted to share them with you because I think it’s constructive. 

1) If someone invites you to their simcha, they probably would love for you to be there!  This may sound obvious, but I think alot of the time people when invited feel like their presence won’t make much of a difference one way or another, and maybe that the person inviting them was doing it to be polite.  If you can make it, then do it – it makes a difference to the baal simcha.

2) If you do come for the simcha, stay as long as you can.  We noticed that most of the people who came to the bris stayed long enough to grab some food and go.  It’s totally understandable that people are busy, but the mitzva part of the seudas mitzva is at the very end.  It’s important to be there for that – though we had every seat taken for the seuda, by the time bentching came, we were short one man for a minyan.  And we only needed 6 people other than the mohel, my dh, ds16, and fil to complete the minyan.  I’m sure every man who left early felt his absence didn’t matter.  The entire bris and seuda don’t take very long (ours was 1 hour and 15 minutes from start to finish), so if you have a flexible schedule, staying until the end is an easy mitzva to participate in.  If you can’t stay until the end, try to stay at least until the father of the baby speaks; this is his opportunity to share his feelings of joy and gratitude with those who attend and he’s earned the right to be listened to for ten minutes. 🙂

3) Because at the last bris we noticed the reality that people leave early, dh called several of his friends and explained that he’d appreciate if they could stay through the end so we would have a minyan.  He asked them if they thought they’d be able to be there, and a number of them agreed.  Most of them didn’t end up coming, for whatever reason – neither of us think it was because they didn’t care.  Life is busy and things come up.  But my last suggestion is that if you tell someone you’ll be there, then be there.  It created last minute stress when we didn’t have a minyan and we couldn’t find a tenth man for the bentching. 

All in all, it was a wonderful bris and a lovely relaxing day.  My husband and I are both filled with gratitude to H-shem for our wonderful friends and family, for our healthy baby, and for the opportunity to share our joy with all of them.  May we all know only good things!

Happy Shavuos!

Avivah