“I could do the whole bris sounding like Mark Wahlberg.”
The first thing I learn about Moshe as I’m setting up my recording gear is that he grew up one town over from me in Massachusetts. The Boston accent is unmistakable.
“Jump right in…ask me anything you want.”
Why am I interviewing a mohel? Admittedly, I was expecting it to be kinda funny. I figured he must have a good sense of humor about his job, considering most everyone else does. One of the big questions I was going to ask him was if he knew any good mohel jokes (You know the one about the samurai, the ninja and the mohel?), but I never got to that. Like most sarcastic humor, there’s always a serious side hiding behind the yuks. My wife and I are expecting our first child next month. We don’t know the gender. If it’s a boy, we have to make a decision — will we circumcise? We’re determined to decide before the birth. It’s going to be a disaster if we have a crying baby in our arms and we’re not 100 percent clear on the plan.
Both of us are Jewish. Neither is religious. If it’s a boy, our parents will freak out if we leave it intact.
Way before we ever discussed marriage and kids, Lauren (my wife) and I started talking about this. The topic of circumcision came up on our fourth date. Both of us are strongly opinionated in all facets of our lives, but this was one of the few issues that we both were undecided on. What would we do if we had to choose? I would let her decide if she knew what she wanted. She would let me decide if I knew what I wanted. But neither of us knew. It was something we joked about quite a bit until she actually got pregnant.
Circumcision does not fit into our objective world beliefs. We’re hip to the reasons people are anti-circumcision. If you’re interested in that, go look it up online (or check out the comments section). There’s a world of resources and advocacy to that effect. That side of the argument is clear to us and hits home. I don’t think we have much to add to that school of thought. Subjectively, my wife and I agree that it’s nearly impossible imagining not doing it. But the theory, the politics, the emotions and the attachments become a lot more complicated when you’re faced with making a flesh-and-blood choice. To cut and draw blood and to scarify in the name of ancient tribal identity seems insane.
Maybe you read last week’s New York Times article “When Jewish Parents Decide Not to Circumcise”? It turns out we’re not the only ones struggling with this. It’s a real dicey topic.
The reason I’m talking to Moshe the mohel is to understand why he does what he does and why someone might be compelled to utilize his services in 2017. Over the last few months, my wife and I have talked to folks who we think can offer unique perspectives in the hopes that it might clarify our thoughts and our hearts and help us come to a decision. If we have a boy, we want to be ready to either put the best possible circumcision plan into action or assuage our parents’ anger if we don’t. Hence why I wanted to talk to the mohel, whom I figured would have an interesting perspective on the matter.
How does one find a mohel? Just as one finds anything in these modern times — Yelp! Rabbi Moshe Trager is totally rocking it with 62 five-star reviews (and one four-star review). Such glowing reviews you’ve never seen! When I asked around, everyone in the know said I needed to talk to Moshe.
I know this is a polarizing topic. I hope that whatever your view on the matter, you try to read this with an open mind. Whatever side you’re on, I’m guessing most readers here haven’t talked this stuff through with an actual mohel. He certainly offers a unique perspective…
Jason: “How did you become a mohel? How does someone become a mohel?”
Moshe: “So most people become a mohel the traditional way — your dad was a mohel, your uncle or somebody. I was living in Jerusalem 25 years ago, and I had just gotten my rabbinical degree, and I had a little time. My wife was very pregnant with my first son. Now, the mitzvah of doing a bris is very clear: just like Abraham circumcised his own son—literally, my friend—you’re supposed to circumcise your own son, but since we both missed that day in Hebrew school when they taught us how to circumcise, we hire a mohel to do it for us. But if you’re an idiot like me, you go, ‘Wow, that’s the mitzvah? I’m gonna do it.’ So, I knew a mohel in Jerusalem. He was the greatest who ever lived. He died a few years ago. He did over 100,000 before he died—Yosef Weisberg. Seriously the best. Everyone in Jerusalem used him for the last 60 years. Anyway, I said to him, ‘Hey, let me go around with you a little bit. Show me basically how to do it, we’ll do my son’s bris together.’ And he was like, ‘Great.’ He was old. You know, everyone in Jerusalem is old. I drove him around. I carried his bag for him. He was an old Hasidic guy. I loved him. He loved me. We were very close. And by the time I was done with him, I was an actual mohel. And I didn’t even want to be a mohel.”
J: “How long did you hang with him?”
M: “I hung out with him before my son. My son was born in about two months, and once I was already good, I did a short program at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where I circumcised hundreds of kids before they let me become a mohel. That was a more formal program than what I did with Yosef. He was like my mentor. I followed him.”
J: “And he’d let you do it?”
M: “He’d let me do little pieces here and there, but he was the chief mohel of Israel, so he had access to the hospital. He’d go in every day, do all the Arab babies, all the non-Jewish babies that were in the hospital who needed to get it done before they left. So they’d close the door, and I’d do them instead.
[Side note: if you’re like me and don’t know much about the topic, here’s an interesting piece on circumcision in Islam]
J: “And then you got an official certification?”
M: “And then I got a certification from the Chief Mohel of Israel.”
J: “And then you went to Philadelphia.”
M: “And then I went to Philadelphia, and I did it on the side for a couple of years, and I was a full-time outreach rabbi…and I hated fundraising. I couldn’t do it. There was something terrible about it. It was brutal. I couldn’t do it. So I quit. I couldn’t ask a rich person for money. I just wasn’t good at it. So I relied more and more on the mohel thing. There wasn’t a lot of competition in Philadelphia at the time. There was, but they were old.”
J: “You were the hip young mohel?”
M: “Yeah, people wanted to give me a shot. It just worked out; I don’t know. It fit my personality, for some reason.”
J: “What does ‘brit milah’ mean?”
M: “It is the covenant of the cutting. That’s the direct translation. The lines of the Torah give us this commandment that is very clear. ‘mool’ is ‘to cut,’ ‘to circumcise.’ ‘Brit’ means ‘covenant.’”
“[It takes] 30 seconds, and [that’s] not an exaggeration. With the same result — an excellent, beautiful circumcised penis. We’ve been practicing for 3,300 years; we have it figured out. If you want someone to circumcise your son, hire a mohel. All the doctors—the Jewish ones—call me. Even the ones who do circumcisions.”
J: “So, my friend is also pregnant. She lives in Brooklyn. And she is not really aware of the difference between having a bris and doing a circumcision in a hospital, American Medical Association–style. What would you say to her?”
M: “There’s a big difference. Let me explain it to you on a technical level. There are basically three ways to do a circumcision. Three ways—that’s it. There’s a Gomco clamp, a Plastibell clamp and a Mogen clamp. In the hospital they developed these two techniques called a Gomco clamp or a Plastibell. The reason they work so well is because they were developed for interns, residents—people who don’t do them very often. It’s a very safe, easy method to use. The downside to using those particular methods is that they have to tie the baby to a board. It’s called the circumstraint board.
They tie them up like this [pins arms down to his sides], and depending who is doing it, it takes them 15, sometimes 20 minutes to do the circumcision. The good thing is that they’ll take your son away from you and bring them back circumcised. You don’t know what happened. But if you actually saw one or witnessed one, you’d be appalled. It’s really a horrifying thing.
The way we do it is a little bit different. I’m gonna put somebody in a chair, hopefully your father or your father-in-law. I’m gonna put a pillow on their lap. I’m gonna put your son on the pillow. I’m gonna be standing right here, and I’m gonna do the entire procedure on your dad’s lap. It’s gonna take me about 30 seconds, and then I’m gonna hand him back to your wife. She’s gonna nurse him. He’ll forget about the whole thing until his bar mitzvah. Thirty seconds, and it’s not an exaggeration. With the same result — an excellent, beautiful circumcised penis. We’ve been practicing for 3,300 years; we have it figured out. If you want someone to circumcise your son, hire a mohel. All the doctors—the Jewish ones—call me. Even the ones who do circumcisions.”
J: “And are you getting more people who are not Jewish asking because they find out what happens in the hospital? Is that something you do?”
M: “I don’t do it officially. I don’t look for it or anything. I only do it for religious reasons. I’ll do it only if somebody’s values, if it’s important to them. So, the answer is no. I’m very busy doing Jewish circumcisions. If somebody calls me—Muslims call me mostly. They have a tradition to do it at home. More and more people call me who give birth at home. Midwives are recommending me. But it’s not my thing. I like to do a bris. I don’t do this for the circumcision thing. I’m not sure I even agree with circumcising babies, to tell you the truth. I do it for religious reasons.
If you want to have a discussion about why we do this, I cannot give you a medical reason for why this is a good idea. I mean, I think it looks better, and I think it’s easier to clean. But there are cons as well. I don’t really have all the medical reasons why circumcision is a good idea. I can give you some pretty cool ones why it’s not a good idea. But, that being said, we have a 3,300-year tradition. This is something that’s very meaningful to us. And you look at the history of the Jewish people at least over the last couple of hundred years, where, in general, we’ve become a little less religious. People aren’t necessary keeping Shabbat like we used to. People aren’t necessarily having Passover like we used to; kashrut is not exactly what we used to call it. Everybody has a bris for their kid. I’m not saying everybody, but you can’t even believe the folks who call me. Interfaith couples who haven’t been to a synagogue since their bar mitzvah, but they are still calling me to do a bris. I find it to be incredible. We are on some level deeply, deeply connected to this, and there’s only one chance. Even if you’re not sure if it’s the right thing to do or not, just get it done. You get only one chance at it. And if all of a sudden you decide, ‘I wish I had taken the time to have a meaningful ceremony with my eight-day-old son’ — to have a bris like all the rest of the Jewish people did — but you didn’t do it, you kinda can’t make that up. You know, you can’t decide, ‘Hey, he’s 15. Let’s do it.’ It’s not the same thing.”
J: “What would you say to people who say, ‘Wait for him to grow up and choose for himself’?
M: “He’s gonna hate you when he has to circumcise himself. You know what happens? It happens to all those people who don’t circumcise their kid. They go to Israel on birthright, and they meet this gorgeous Jewish girl, and the father says, “Hey, you wanna marry my daughter? No problem. Get your thing taken care of, and come back. We’re ready for ya.” So you know…talk to anyone who got circumcised as an adult, and you’ll see that it’s just not a pleasant situation. We’re talking about 40 to 50 stitches—days and days of recovery. Get your son done when he’s eight days old.”
“I am the only full-time mohel in Northern California who does this for a living. Every other mohel does this on the side.”
J: “So you have a four-star review on Yelp.”
M: “Yes. So, it’s actually the best review I have. If you read the review, it’s fantastic. But at the end she writes, ‘The reason I gave him four stars is that he didn’t actually circumcise my son.’ So here’s what happened. She called me, and she begged me to do the circumcision. And I said, ‘Your son’s a little old. I don’t think I can do it. He’s like two and a half months old’—right off the cusp of where I’m comfortable doing a circumcision. She lived in Mountain View, so I said I’d come over. If I’m not comfortable, I’m not doing it. I don’t do anything that’s not 100% safe. Anyway, I get there, and the kid’s gorgeous. He’s Mexican. He’s beautiful and has big brown eyes. As soon as I came in, he grabbed my finger, and he looked at me, and I said to the mother, ‘Let me just tell you: do this when the kid’s 18. Why would you want me to hold this beautiful kid down, and he’s gonna know everything that happens? Let’s just not do it. It’s not a good idea.’ And I talked her out of it. And she appreciated it, and she wrote it all down. BUT SHE WROTE FOUR STARS BECAUSE I DIDN’T DO IT!”
J: “I read on one of your Yelp reviews that you’ve done over 8,000?”
M: “Twenty-five years is a long time.”
J: “What is the Bay Area mohel scene like?”
M: “I think for a long time the only people here who were doing circumcisions were doctors who were doing it on the side just because there were no mohels. Just like in any other town. You go to some weird town in Nebraska, and there’s probably a Jewish pediatrician who’s happy to do your son’s circumcision. But I am the only full-time mohel in Northern California who does this for a living. Every other mohel does this on the side.”
J: “Do you ever get calls to fly you out of town?”
M: “I’m in Hawaii probably once or twice a month these days. There’s a lot of Israelis in Maui. There’s no mohel on any of the islands.
It’s not as fun as it seems. I fly in the night before. I do the bris in the morning. I fly back by lunch. I’ve done a couple brises in Nicaragua. I’m getting older, so I don’t like to travel as much as I used to, but I go anywhere now from San Luis Obispo to Tahoe to Redding to Reno, all the way up there. Being a mohel in Northern California is not like in Brooklyn, where you have 20 blocks, and that’s your territory. It’s more spread out.”
J: “Do you connect to any sort of — for lack of better word — mystical aspect to it as well? Do you see it that way? Do you feel anything? Do the families feel that?”
M: “It’s a meaningful ritual. It evokes such deep emotion. You’re taking something that you love so much on such a deep, deep, deep level, and you’re gonna put him through it—even though it’s 30 seconds—it’s pain. For you to do that as a parent, it must mean that you’re taking it incredibly seriously and that on some deep level, whether you understand or not, you realize the mystic connection to 3,300 years of history. And it’s something that’s important and meaningful.”
J: “Where do you get ‘3,300’? What is that based on?”
M: “Goes back to Abraham. That’s about 3,300 years—not exact. Supposedly, Adam had himself circumcised, and even Noah and his sons were circumcised, even though there was no Torah or commandment to circumcise. The first commandment to circumcise was Abraham. So that was 3,300 years ago.”
J: “What do you say to people who think that circumcision is child abuse? How is it different from female genital mutilation?”
M: “People correlate it, but I don’t see the correlation. It’s not the same surgery. The result is not the same.”
J: “Maybe another way of thinking about it is the New York Times article that just came out recently. Did you read it?” [I’d sent it to him.]
M: “Yeah.”
J: “Looking through the comments — it’s a provocative topic these days, and the majority of the comments are negative. Anti-circumcision. People are really worked up about it. Some of them are Jewish; some of them are not Jewish; some of them might be saying they’re Jewish. Who knows? They’re Internet comments. And I know objectively myself, if I weren’t Jewish or if it were another tradition, I might feel the same way. I also know that subjectively, it’s really hard to imagine not doing it, and the same goes for my wife. It’s really hard for a lot of reasons, but we know objectively, from an outside perspective, that it seems problematic. It seems like ritual scarification. It’s very tribal. And lot of people say it’s straight-up child abuse. People have told me that when I’ve talked about it. I’m curious what your take on it is.”
M: “This is my take. I’ve always believed that those people who are so rabidly anti-circumcision are really talking about circumcision in a hospital. A circumcision where you tie an eight-day-old baby to a board, and it takes them 20 minutes with no anesthesia or anything to circumcise them. I think that’s a level of child abuse. And I’ve had other doctors I’ve spoken to over the years who’ve said, ‘You know what, Moshe, I’m interested in becoming a mohel. I know how to do it.’ And I’ve said, ‘You have no business becoming a mohel if you can’t do the entire procedure in 30 seconds.’ After 30 seconds, I believe it becomes child abuse. I really do. If you can’t do this correctly…I mean, you’re gonna see it with your own son. I’m gonna put your son on your dad’s lap, and I’m gonna literally gonna pick him up, and 30 seconds later he’ll be sleeping. Sleeping. And I’ll put him into your father-in-law’s arms, and we’ll give him a Hebrew name, and we’ll eat bagels, and we’ll all smile. We’re not gonna smile if your kid is freaking out for two and a half hours after I circumcise him and abuse him, are we? No.”
J: “So you do think when you put a child through the 20-minute procedure, whatever happens in the hospital, you do think that that has some sort of…?”
M: “I think that’s abuse. I really do. I’m not saying 30 seconds is better…but it’s better. Listen, I wish I could do it in one second. It’s something we have to do. When I get to HaShem in 120 years, I’m gonna ask him, ‘What were you thinking? Could you have given us a little prick on the finger or something? This is serious, and we’re doing this, and we’re doing this for you, so you better explain to me why I did this to my son.’ But that being said, HaShem does love us, and he showed us how to do this real quick. Not 20 minutes. And I can understand why people would be upset by this. I have seen that procedure, and it’s upsetting.”
J: “And you think if people saw it done…?”
M: “I’ve turned people so quickly you wouldn’t believe it. I have midwives in northern California who hate circumcision who were literally anti-circumcision activists who have, over the years, seen me do it. You know, a warm, beautiful home where people are comfortable, and people are safe, and it’s done quickly in a loving way on somebody’s loving lap. They change their attitude toward the whole thing. It’s really something different. I’m not saying there’s not a crying baby. There’s nothing we can do about that. The baby’s gonna cry. It’s gonna hurt him for a second. We get it over with really quickly.
I could be wrong. Maybe you’ll talk to an anti-circumcision activist, and they’ll say you’re giving a shock to a baby. We make decisions for our children. Always. We make every decision our children go through. Until they’re at an age to make their own decisions, we make those decisions for them. We vaccinate them; we put casts on their arms when they break their arms; we pierce their ears. We make decisions for our children, and the people who say we should wait to let them make their own decision, they’re idiots. We make decisions for children, our own children. And hopefully we make the right ones. There’s nothing wrong with making a decision for your children. It’s not against his will—everything you do is against your son’s will. Putting a diaper on your kid is against his will. He wants to run around naked and pee on your living room floor. We make decisions for our kids, and we hope that they’re the right things. I’ve read and witnessed and talked to a lot of people who went through a lot to be able to circumcise their children. Talk to Russian folks—I do a lot of Russian brises here. They came to this country and had to get circumcised when they were 18, 35 or 65. When I do a bris for them, and I see their faces, and they’re crying and emotional and so attached to it — it makes me really happy that they can do this in a pleasant, meaningful and beautiful way in 2017. Even in Northern California. It’s impressive. And you’ll do it, too, and it’ll be meaningful for you.”
J: “Unless I have a daughter.”
M: “Unless you have a daughter.”
For those of you wondering about price and logistics…
J: “How do you schedule, and what does it cost?”
M: “You’re gonna want to try to do your son’s bris on the eighth day. When you’re trying to figure out the eighth day, it’s eight days with day one being the day of birth, which means if your wife would give birth today [Thursday], for example, the bris would be next Thursday. Now if she gives birth tonight after sundown, the bris will be on Friday. The day starts at night, just like all of our holidays. The only other thing you have to keep in mind when you’re scheduling is you have to do a bris before sundown, so it has to be done anytime during the day, but my schedule starts booking up as soon as people give birth. So I always just tell people, give me a call as soon as the baby’s born. Just say, ‘Hey, Moshe, 9:30 a.m. next week’—whatever it is. And then I’ll walk you through all the details when you get home from the hospital. But as far as scheduling, call me right away. And then you’ll have eight days to figure everything out.
Price? I’ll give you all the paperwork you need to make an insurance claim. Most people get back between $300 and $500, depending on the fine print on your policy, but pretty much everyone treats me as an out-of-network provider. So my fee is $800. I never didn’t do a bris because someone couldn’t afford it. So if there are any financial issues, you don’t have to jump through hoops or anything—you just tell me, ‘Moshe this is what we’re doing.’ But all things being equal, if you’re making money and life is good, it’s $800.”
