Snip the Tip

Yes, it is time for the inevitable circumcision post. Despite the lovely cross that decorates the wall behind me and my brother-in-law in the photo I posted previously, we will continue the ancient ways of our Jewish heritage. Yesterday was eight days after Marcus arrived in the world, and thus his covenant with God was made, albeit at the doctor's office with a regular rabbi saying a blessing. There are not to many mohels wandering around Iowa, and thank goodness even fewer with these weird plush moyel scissors.

Happily, the procedure went off without a hitch. The doctor told Dana she could give Marcus some infant Tylenol if he seemed to be in pain, but she said he slept sounder last night than he had since he came home on Monday. I'm not sure what that indicates, but I'm glad all is well.

However, for a more disturbing circumcision story, let's go back in time. While I was in Iowa over the weekend, the rabbi visited my family in the hospital and gave the new parents a book on raising a Jewish baby. I began reading it, and was fascinated by the story about how Moses's son came to be relieved of his foreskin.

Basically, the father is supposed to do the job, but Moses was too busy leading his people around the desert, and forgot. Zipporah, the baby's mother, then took matters into her own hands. Using a flint knife (the tool of ye olden days), she sawed off the kid's foreskin. The baby was fine (or as fine as a baby can be after being cut up by a flint), but the book reported that Zipporah was supremely pissed that she had to see to this task herself. (I see her point: if she's gotta birth the damn thing, the least Moses can do is circumcise it - she's already traumatized enough.) So she went up to Moses, and bitterly flung the foreskin in his face.

Now that is the way to end both a circumcision and a story.