Ritual Circumcision

Note to you wonderful readers: This post is closed to comments. However, I would be glad to hear from you if you have my direct contact information AND you have been personally or professionally affected by the issue of circumcision beyond infancy. Thanks for understanding.

I'll begin this entry by referring to this early entry about converting our kids to Judaism. In it I mention circumcising M, who at the time was under 3 years old. He's now 4 and a half. Since that entry, our thinking had changed from "we will do this" to "we will let him decide when he's ready because it's his body." Now we're back to the first statement.

Why? you ask.

I restate: Because we are raising a Jewish family. We don't know how to raise any other kind. And Jews circumcise their sons. M and K were baptized Eastern Orthodox (Christian), so we have to do a conversion with them. Conversion of adopted children, no matter the branch of Judaism, is conditional on the child's confirming the choice later in life (most often by choosing to become bar or bat mitzvah). Peter and I have no problem with giving our kids Hebrew names and doing the mikveh (ritual bath). But we have considered, carefully and very painfully, our obligation as Jewish parents to--well--alter our son's body as part of the conversion process. We've decided we must do it, and soon, to prevent trauma later.

Trauma now to prevent trauma later? you ask. What kind of bullshit is that?

The kind we get from talking extensively with our rabbi, who is also a neighbor and a friend, a deeply ethical man called late in life to the rabbinate who wrestled with the issue of circumcising his own sons. To put his advice in a nutshell: do the circumcision now in as non-traumatic a way as possible to prevent a terrible, continuous feeling of incompleteness later.

He knows Jewish men who weren't circumcised young, haven't brought themselves to undergo the procedure as part of their late-life conversion, and are now judging themselves to be cowardly, dishonest, and other awful things, daily berating themselves for not yet getting the job done.

He knows one teenager who wasn't circumcised in infancy who asked for the procedure when he was twelve to prepare for his bar mitzvah, and who maintains it didn't hurt (he had general anaesthesia) and he's glad he did it.

He knows no boy or man--and neither do we-- who had a ritual circumcision at any point in his life and wished he hadn't. Not one.

So, while we don't want to risk M's wrath later in life for our altering his body before he was old enough to choose for himself, we feel the risk is small if we handle it right.

Why convert the kids at all? you ask. What does it matter whether they're classified as Jews?

The overt reasons: They won't be able to marry Orthodox Jews or "return" to Israel as jews. The subtle reasons: As adults they may not feel whole, or claimed as part of our family, or living a spiritually honest life. Ask any late-life convert why they did it and how they felt until they did; we don't want to wish those feelings on anyone, least of all a person who might be struggling with identity issues because they were adopted.

To answer some immediate questions about the circumcision:
-Anaesthesia.
-We will hire a urologist trained as a mohelet (woman trained in Jewish ritual circumcision) who has worked with plenty of children, including that 12-year-old who had no pain.
-We will consult with the mohelet, our rabbi, our pediatrician, and perhaps some mental health and/or adoption professionals to help us discuss the situation with both kids.
-We will do it within the school year, while M is too old for certain little-kid fears about losing body parts but too young to overhear elementary school rumors about penises.
-We will probably do it in the winter, around the time of K's kindergarten consecration religious school ceremony, so both kids will be recognized in some special way. And of course we'll throw a party, so the kids will have happy memories.

Thanks for reading.