Earlier this summer I was in the midst of my second trimester of pregnancy (another boy!) and began to think about hosting a bris this fall. After more than two years, I was excited to finally host a (small) party in our home.
The plan was to keep the guest list minimal and go big on the decor and the cake. After all, what is a party without cake? As summer faded to autumn, so too did my vision of a “return to normal” event. It became clear that thanks to this ever-evolving pandemic, an indoor party with a newborn baby and a postpartum mom was not a safe idea for our family.
So we will be hosting a Zoom bris. I never could have imagined that after a year of attending everything from a funeral to a bar-mitzvah on Zoom, that we’d now be planning a virtual event of our own.
While it was fun and distracting to think about the bris over the summer, my thoughts right now are totally consumed by prayers for a healthy and happy delivery and baby. Over the last year plus, it’s become absolutely clear to me, that the greatest blessing of all is our health and wellbeing. This shift in perspective has given me time to reflect on what aspects of my older children’s brit-milot that I want to be sure are part of this upcoming virtual experience.
In my book Expecting Jewish! I talk about how stressful planning a bris is: to be just eight days postpartum, hosting a party as your newborn undergoes a surgical procedure is just a recipe for a hormonal meltdown. There was always, for me, a great tension between wanting to share the joy and mitzvah of a bris with lots of family and friends versus wanting to cocoon and hide away for those necessary post partum recovery and bonding days.
And now, with a virtual bris, I can actually experience the best of both worlds, with no tension involved. We can invite whoever wants to join (including my extended family who live all across the world) and don’t have to worry about the house being tidy, the food arriving on time, or all the potential germs. I can’t imagine our ancient rabbis would have ever envisioned this or a digital world period, but I trust that they have empathy for situations in which it would be difficult to gather. After all, a bris does not require the ten-person minyan that other Jewish lifecycle events do.
We hope to have many many days to celebrate mitzvot together in person again, but for now we will be thankful for our health and every blessing we have.
About the Author:
Marion Haberman @MyJewishMommyLife
Marion Haberman is the writer and content creator for the most popular ‘Mommy YouTube’ channel focused on being a Jewish mom. With over 4 million total views on her YouTube/MyJewishMommyLife channel and Instagram, @MyJewishMommyLife, Marion shares her experiences as a mother focused on living a meaning-FULL Jewish family life. Her award winning social media platform is full of lifestyle inspiration, Jewish family home ideas and conscious parenting advice. Marion’s first book, a non-fiction guide to Judaism and pregnancy titled Expecting Jewish! is currently available for preorder.