Back to Issue Seventeen

 

"He Learned His Voice Could Not Destroy the World" by Richard Jeffrey Newman

He Learned His Voice Could Not Destroy the World

1

 

A bris, I read last night in God’s Phallus,

by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz,

is guarantee a naked Jewish man

is never naked of God’s commandments,

that his penis will shine, the Midrash says,

like the perfectly cut diamond

a queen puts on for her king’s eyes only,

which I guess is why this morning

I remembered yeshiva-bocher-stepping

with Yossi Weiser when I was twelve

back to the two-story house we’d been in

for Havdallah the night before. “Remember,”

he said, as we walked in the open front door,

“just like you weren’t mechalel Shabbos

when you left that twenty dollar bill in the wind,

be here now with proper kavanah,

and HaShem will wipe your slate clean.”

 

2

 

“When they placed you in your Uncle Max’s lap,”

my grandmother told me—I was seven years old

and wanted to know if it had hurt—“he put

a few drops of red wine on your lips

to keep you calm.” Then she gently pinched

a bit of belly flesh she knew would tickle.

“That’s what it felt like,” she laughed with me,

and since I had no reason to doubt her,

I was not prepared when the cut came

that Yossi and I were there to celebrate

for how the boy I assumed

would giggle as I had done

screamed, and,

as the kvatterin carried him

to where his mother waited,

silent with all the other women

on the floor above us,

kept on screaming,

and no doubt continued to scream

till the comfort she gave him with her body

helped him feel again at home in his.

 

Nor was I prepared for how,

as soon as the mohel did his job

and the boy’s pain filled the room,

the men started laughing and singing,

some of them clapping and dancing

in heavy steps that shook the walls—

Siman tov umazel tov umazel tov usiman tov!—

or for Yossi’s hand on my shoulder

pushing me to join in,

or how I allowed myself,

like that money I let the wind keep,

to be swept along,

shaking the hands held out to me:

the father’s, the sandek’s,

the man from the previous night’s Havdallah,

who smiled like I could be his own son,

each of us now doubly beautified,

making our way to the dining room,

where the seudah the women had set for us

awaited our collective hunger.

 

 

 

 

Notes:

 

God’s Phallus by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (Beacon Press 1994)

 

Bris: Jewish ritual circumcision.

 

Yeshiva-bocher-stepping: A yeshiva bocher is a boy studying in yeshiva; when I was in yeshiva we were expected always to walk quickly and purposefully, as if we were rushing to fulfill God’s commandments.

 

Havdallah: The ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat and a return to the regular week.

 

Mechalel Shabbos: In violation of Sabbath law.

 

Kavanah: Intention; you are supposed to perform God’s commandments with a proactive intention to do so.

 

Kvatterin: Literally messengers, the people who carry the Jewish boy about to be circumcised from his mother’s arms to where the procedure will actually be performed.

 

Sandek: The man who is honored with the privilege of holding the boy in his lap while he is being circumcised.

 

Seudah: A meal prepared for a special occasion, like a circumcision, or for a Jewish holiday.