Issue of Feb. 20, 2009 / 26 Shevat 5769
To the Editor:
By calling for different standards in the way brisim are performed (Raising bar on bris practices; Your Health; Feb. 13, 2009), it seems that Rabbi Avi Billet has fallen into the same trap that many others have in recent years — using current medical knowledge and practice to invade areas of psak halacha (rulings of Torah law) and minhag yisroel (Jewish custom).
Rabbi Billet himself admits, in the first sentence of his Feb. 10
article, (Raising bar on bris practices; Good Health section) that
bris milah carries a "surprisingly low risk rate." Surprising, indeed.
The rate of surgical site infections in the United States ranges from
2 to 5 percent. Extrapolated to the newborn boys in my pediatric
practice, one would have expected at least seven babies with bris
complications, chas v'shalom (G-d forbid), in the past year. I have
seen two or three in the last five years.
Anyone who has been in the operating room knows that the precautions
taken to prevent infection are numerous, and may even seem excessive
to the lay observer. If a surgeon even touches the back of his
colleague's sterile gown he must re-glove. Antibiotics are routinely
administered at the beginning of each procedure, and the surgical
wound is usually sutured closed. It would seem from Rabbi Billet's
article that even he does not adhere to this level of infection
control. How, then, can we explain this discrepancy between bris milah
and other surgeries?
The reason, I believe, is that bris milah is not a surgical
procedure. It is a mitzvah. The way by which it is performed is
dictated by halacha (Jewish law) and minhag (custom). "Shomer mitzvah
lo yaida davar rah" (One who performs a mitzvah should not know of a
bad outcome). While we need to be aware of developments in the medical
field that are relevant to milah, the medical profession dare not
overstep this boundary. Just as with fasting on Yom Kippur, the
medical opinion needs to be provided by the physician, but the final
ruling is subject to the algorithm in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of
Jewish Law). While sterile technique is not in opposition to halacha,
turning the Kisei Shel Eliyahu (Elijah's chair at a bris) into an
operating table creates a slippery slope and a threat to the
institution of milah as it is viewed by the masses.
As for metzitzah (suctioning blood from bris wound), many poskim
(halachic decisors) have sanctioned the use of a pipette in order to
reduce the risk of infection. Most of the Gedolei Yisroel (Torah
sages), however, have urged that the practice metzitzah b'peh (direct
contact oral suction) should be continued, notwithstanding several
cases of complications which have occurred in recent years. We find
that even though the medical basis for metzitzah b'peh is unclear, the
gedolim allowed its practice on Shabbos, despite the possibility of
chilul shabbos shelo b'makom sakanah (Sabbath desecration when no life
threatening situation exists). They recognized the dangers of
tampering with minhag yisroel. Certainly, the risk of infection is not
altered by having the father perform metzitzah; he may be more
infectious than the mohel.
As a pediatrician, I will continue to provide my medical opinion only
when sought by a rav or a mohel. Parents should consider their own
minhagim (customs) and involve their rav when selecting a mohel,
rather than choose one based on his medical expertise.
David M. Klein, MD FAAP
Bayswater
Rabbi Avi Billet responds:
Dear Dr. Klein,
Thank you for your comments.
Should we be going back to bloodletting with leeches to uphold the
ways of psak halacha and minhag yisroel? Perhaps inoculating and blood
testing go against the laws of chavala (wounding). Please justify your
practices.
The low risk rate in bris allows people to fulfill this mitzvah
without anxiety. They need not be ignorant either. The bris should
have a zero risk rate, which sterility can accomplish.
Your undocumented observation of newborns who visit your practice are hardly what we may call "good statistics."
You say, "sterile technique is not in opposition to halacha." Kudos.
Most metzitza b'peh (MBP) people disagree with you about sterility.
Who said anything about "turning the Kisei Shel Eliyahu into an
operating table?" Since when does cleanliness and sterility make the –
correction – sandak's lap (which is compared to a miz'be'ach – an
altar) an operating table? We want the "offering" to live a long life!
Cleanliness is the key.
Random "Gedolei Yisrael" is meaningless. Bring real sources please.
You are right. Neither father nor mohel should be doing MBP with the
mouth. Either one should use a tube.
Metzitzah with direct contact has no basis in the Talmud, Maimonides,
Tur, Shulchan Arukh [halachic sources], yet you will sooner advocate a
mohel put his mouth on an open wound even though this goes against
everything you ever learned in medical school. Bris is a mitzvah. But
an open wound and bleeding that will not stop on its own requires
medical attention, which direct-contact metzitzah is not.
According to your view of medicine, we'd be better off back in the
Middle Ages when the infant mortality rate was much higher, and was
accepted because people did not know better.
I say, now that we know better, we should do everything we can to
protect our sons.
Rabbi Avi Billet, Mohel
No cop-outs on brother's obligation
To the Editor:
I am responding to the editorial "Nasty views on The View" (Feb. 6,
2009). I share the anger expressed by the writer regarding having
Torah Jews and Judaism mocked on network television. In this new age
of tolerance, Torah Judaism, it seems, is, as always, fair game.
But the issue from the article I wish to address is that of Yivum ––
marrying one's childless brother's widow –– and how nowadays would-be
couples are instructed to perform the mitzvah of Chalitzah instead.
The mitzvah of Yivum is just that: a command in the Torah, and not
just some ancient permissibility; the Torah even first states that the
widow should not marry outside the family. So how can we override this
biblical command (even in the face of polygamy)? The option of
Chalitzah is a Torah sanctioned and sometimes-necessary cop-out, like
divorce. It's not preferred. The Torah is just being kind to us.
Dying without children is a horrendous fate that Hashem should spare
us all from. Yivum provides the rectification. However, the man who
opts to eschew his responsibility to build his late brother's
house/name is held in contempt. In Chalitzah, the woman spits in a
shoe and says, "Such is done for the man who wishes not to build his
brother's house." This is what the honorable man must opt for
nowadays? Yehuda's second son, Onan, was killed by Hashem for
specifically not wanting to build his brother's name/house.
How naive would I be to believe that there exist among the sons of
Israel men of honor who would take on their childless brother's widow
for the sake of Heaven and their dearly departed brother? Is not the
Torah eternal? Doesn't it fulfill our very nature? We should allow
this all-important mitzvah to once again be fulfilled.
But most of all, may we see the time now where the application of
this mitzvah is purely hypothetical.
Ariel Weisz
Far Rockaway