Many rules pertaining to the performance of a bris for nonorthodox Jews are flexible–but that the brit milah is to be done on the eighth day after the birth of a baby is not— with certain technical exceptions to be discussed below. Why is this the case? Why is this requirement for having the brit milah ceremony on the eighth day so important?
There are three major reasons.
I. Because God Says So
The first reason is that it is divine law. In Genesis God specifically tells Abraham to circumcise his son Isaac on the eighth day and that all Jewish male newborns are likewise to be circumcised on the eight day in perpetuity.
No special reason is given in the Bible for this specific time frame in which to fulfill the commandment that marks the entry of a Jewish male into the Covenant between God and the Jewish people. But as with many aspects of Judaism, theories and stories have arisen to fill this explanatory vacuum. One such is that seven days represents the “cycle of creation” in which God formed the entire world and then rested for a day. With the work of creation out of the way, it was thus logical that the eighth day be designated as the time for the binding of the Covenant between God and each new generation of the Jewish people.
By see en:Aleppo Codex; scanned by http://www.aleppocodex.org – http://www.aleppocodex.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9663094
II. Biology
Most women having a vaginal delivery in the United States will have the following experience: after delivery, if the baby is vigorous, he or she will be placed on the mother’s chest for skin-to- skin bonding. After about 5 to 10 minutes a nurse will ask the mother if she can take the baby over to the warmer to evaluate the baby and give the baby some medications. These medications are erythromycin ointment to prevent infection of the eyes and an injection of vitamin K to help augment the baby’s blood clotting factors.
Why is this vitamin K shot needed? It turns out that a baby’s blood clotting factors do not mature spontaneously until about the eighth day. Therefore, probably by trial and error, it was determined in ancient times that the safest day for the minor surgical procedure of circumcision was about the eighth day.
Additionally, by the 8th day, a healthy baby is usually strong and stable enough to safely undergo the circumcision procedure.
III. Shabbat
A tradition in ultra-Orthodox communities holds that by performing the brit milah ceremony on the eighth day every baby gets to live through one 24-hour period of Shabbat holiness before having his bris and entering into the Covenant between God and the Jewish people.
Performance of the brit milah ceremony on the eighth day is considered so sacred a commandment that it even supersedes the normal regulations of not “performing work” on Shabbat, Yom Kippur, and other Jewish holidays. Exceptions to this are:
— If the brit milah ceremony is postponed because of a baby’s health issues, the bris would not be subsequently scheduled on Shabbat, Yom Kippur, or other holidays.
— A bris performed for conversion likewise is not performed on Shabbat, Yom Kippur, or other holidays.
— If a baby is born via cesarean section on Shabbat, his bris would be postponed to the ninth day, a Sunday. Likewise, after a cesarean birth a brit milah ceremony would not be performed on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, or other Jewish holidays even if that were the eighth day; the ceremony would be delayed until after the holiday.
Illness
It is very clearly stated in Jewish law that all requirements for performing the brit milah ceremony on the eighth day following the birth of a boy do not apply if a baby is ill or for whatever reason is considered not healthy enough to have the procedure done. This is consistent with all Jewish law which follows the general rubric that Jewish laws exist to enhance life, not for blind fulfillment that would hamper health or life. Health reasons for postponing a brit milah ceremony include:
- Jaundice of the baby
- Prematurity
- Infection
- Being underweight
- Respiratory instability
- Abnormal anatomy of the penis
If a bris is postponed for health reasons, it can be rescheduled on any day at least seven days after the baby’s physician says that the baby is healthy enough to have a circumcision—but, as noted above, not on Shabbat or other Jewish holidays.
Calculating the 8th day
According to the rules of brit milah, the “eighth day” is defined as the same day of the week that a baby is born but one week later. Since by Jewish law a new day begins at sunset, if the baby is born after sunset, that new day defines the starting point for the calculation of the 8th day. There are various arcane rules concerning when a bris should be performed if a baby is born at dusk, but in general it is safer to lean toward doing the bris one day later rather than potentially doing it too early.
It is the custom for a bris to be performed in the morning based on the tradition that a Jew should “rush to perform a mitzvah”. It certainly should be performed before sunset.
Bending the rules
One of the biggest problems for mohels (those who perform the brit milah ceremony) is when they are asked for reasons of convenience, family travel, or other issues to perform a brit milah ceremony on a day other than the eighth day. This is a dilemma because the rule concerning the eighth day is such a vital part of the entire Covenantal ceremony. In the end it is up to the mohel and the family having the bris to determine if reasons for not having the bris on the eighth day are significant enough to warrant violating this honored tradition. Such a situation might arise when (1) there is a death in the family, (2) relatives are delayed in travel by weather conditions, or (3) some other major family crisis occurs. A bris should not be re-scheduled from the eighth day unless there is a compelling reason for doing so.
