Well, technically, a week ago tomorrow, Kenny did his part to fulfill the covenant between God and Abraham. While I'm very proud of him, I'm happier knowing that he will have absolutely no recollection of the event, and since I stepped away at the moment of impact, neither will I.
On the day Kenny was born, one of the phone calls I made during the initial notification round was to the mohel, Cantor David Landau. The cantor came highly recommended by friends, and as we found out in the delivery room, also performed the bris for one of the anesthesiologists who helped sedate Overboard for the c-section. It was pretty humorous when, amongst all of the preparations to cut Overboard open and get Kenny out, multiple hospital staffers asked us if we had picked out a mohel yet.
The cantor was an extremely amiable man and did a fantastic job from start to finish. He was very reassuring to the understandably nervous parents and had a soft touch for the "man of the hour."
Before the ceremony, the cantor explained to me that, technically, according to ancient Jewish tradition, *I* was supposed to perform the bris. He also mentioned that it was my prerogative to select someone else to do so, and that he might be qualified for the job. I wisely agreed and he proceeded to tell me all about what was to come.
During the ceremony itself, Grandma Jackie brought Kenny into the room and presented him to the mohel. Grandpa Alan was in charge of soothing Kenny during the bris itself, as our well-equipped mohel had an elaborate contraption that Kenny was strapped to, in order to eliminate any unnecessary movement. Great Grandpa Jesse was in charge of Elijah's chair, and Grammy Shirley took care of the prayers over the wine and bread. Overboard and I had our parts to speak, but mostly tried to tell ourselves that this ceremony had been performed for thousands of years now, and Kenny was in good hands.
After the initial prayers, the mohel asked the assembled crowd to speak aloud their wishes for Kenny and his life to come. People said beautiful things about health, happiness, success, love and learning. Knowing this was a serious occasion, I bit my tongue and refrained from asking for "a healthy wrist shot."
When the time came for the mohel to do the actual cutting, Overboard and I both opted to look away. While she merely glanced off towards the wall, I moved to the back of the room and used the tallest man I could find to block my view. While this may seem like an odd, even cowardly, thing to do, I say this: I don't need flashbacks of that moment. I don't need memories of the act itself. I don't need anything besides knowing that the man did a good job. And to be honest, I think I made the right move.
Instead of looking, I did sneak peeks at "Uncle Shoes" every so often, to see what his facial expressions could tell me about the proceedings. Shoes' gaze went from curious to frightened to queasy to obvious empathy. Luckily, he never got that "Oh good lord, what did that man just do?" look, so I felt secure.
Kenny, subdued on sugar water and Manishevitz (same thing, right?), took everything like a champ and only put up a fuss for a minute or so. Maybe he was in shock, but he was quiet afterwards and slept contentedly in the mohel's arms.
Afterwards, like we do at the end of any good Jewish event, we ate deli.
