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Lifecycles
Mazal tov. Here is what happens Jewishly in the first weeks — the bris on the eighth day, the naming of a daughter, pidyon haben at thirty-one days — and who to call for each.
If you have had a boy, make it early. The bris is on the eighth day, the eighth day arrives quickly, and a mohel’s calendar is not infinitely elastic. Call 408-910-2034 from the hospital if you like — people do, and it is not an imposition. Tell us the date and, if it was near sunset, the time of birth. We will connect you with a mohel and help with the room, the food and the people.
If you have had a girl there is no eight-day clock, but there is still a reason to call in the first days: the naming happens at the Torah, the Torah is read on particular mornings, and it is nicer to plan which one than to discover you missed three.
Brit milah — the covenant of circumcision — goes back to Abraham, and it is the oldest continuous practice the Jewish people has. It is performed on the eighth day of a boy’s life by a mohel: someone trained both in the medical procedure and in the halacha that governs it. The two are not separable, which is why a bris is not simply a circumcision performed by a doctor, and why a circumcision done in hospital on day two does not fulfil the mitzvah.
The count starts on the day of birth, and the Jewish day starts at nightfall. That single fact is responsible for most of the confusion about dates, so give the mohel the birth time and let him work it out.
A bris on its proper eighth day is held on that day even if it is Shabbat. A bris that has been delayed — for the baby’s health, or after a Caesarean birth — is not. And a delay for health is not a concession: if the baby is jaundiced, underweight, or the pediatrician is not happy, the bris waits until he is well, and the eighth day gives way without a second thought.
It is shorter than almost everyone expects. Ten minutes of ceremony, and then a meal.
A chair is set aside and left empty — the chair of Elijah, who is said to attend every bris. The baby is carried in, usually by a couple honoured as kvatter and kvatterin; being asked is a real honour and there is nothing to prepare for it. He is placed briefly on Elijah’s chair, then held during the circumcision by the sandak, the person given the day’s central honour, often a grandfather. The mohel performs the circumcision. The father says a blessing about bringing his son into the covenant of Abraham, and everyone in the room answers with the line that is said at every bris: as he has entered the covenant, so may he enter Torah, marriage, and a life of good deeds.
Then a blessing over wine, and the baby’s Hebrew name is announced — this is the moment he receives it. He gets a drop of the wine. He cries, briefly, and settles faster than the adults do. Someone will already be putting out food.
The meal afterwards is a seudat mitzvah: part of the day rather than a reception bolted onto it. It does not have to be elaborate. Bagels and herring at nine in the morning is a completely traditional bris.
Parents worry about the crying, and about watching. Both are normal. Nobody minds if a parent steps out of the room, and nobody will notice.
A girl receives her name in shul, when her father is called up to the Torah and a mi shebeirach is recited for mother and daughter with the baby’s name said aloud. The Torah is read on Monday and Thursday mornings, on Shabbat, on Rosh Chodesh and on festivals, and the custom is to name at the first reading the family can reasonably get to after the birth. There is no deadline, and no eight-day pressure; some families come as soon as the mother is up to it, others wait a few weeks so that relatives can travel.
Families very often follow it with a kiddush or a brunch, and sponsoring the kiddush that Shabbat is the standard way to do it: the whole community eats, the name is announced, and a room full of people who have never met your daughter says mazal tov.
You will also hear the term simchat bat, and in some communities it means a ceremony held at home with readings and blessings. That is a custom of recent generations rather than a halachic requirement. Chabad practice is the naming at the Torah, and a celebration around it as large or small as you like.
A Hebrew name is not a decorative second name. It is the name a person is called to the Torah by, the name on their ketubah, the name used when the community prays for them if they are ill, and the name on their grave. Chassidic teaching goes further and treats the name as the channel through which a soul is bound to a body — which is one reason parents are told to take the choice seriously and are also told, firmly, not to agonise over it.
The Ashkenazi custom that Chabad follows is to name a child after a relative who has died, most often a grandparent or great-grandparent, and not to name after a living relative. Sephardic families do the opposite and name after the living, honouring a grandparent who is present to hear it. Neither is a mistake; they are two customs, and a family follows the one it comes from. In a marriage joining the two, ask.
A few practical notes. A child can carry more than one Hebrew name. The Hebrew name and the English name do not have to match, though many families like them to echo each other. If nobody in the family has a name you want to use, choosing one you love is entirely legitimate. And if you are stuck between two, that is a good conversation to have with a rabbi rather than a decision to make at 3am.
If you are an adult who never received a Hebrew name, or you do not know what yours was, that is fixable and common. Ask, and it can be sorted out.
Pidyon haben — redemption of the firstborn — applies to a boy who is his mother’s first child, born in the ordinary way, in a family that is not kohen or levi on either side. It comes from the Torah’s claim on the firstborn, and the ceremony is the father redeeming his son from that claim by giving five silver coins to a kohen.
It happens on the thirty-first day of the baby’s life, and is postponed to the following day if the thirty-first falls on Shabbat or a festival. The ceremony itself takes about five minutes: a short exchange between the father and the kohen, two blessings, and the coins handed over. Then, as with everything else in this list, a meal.
The conditions are narrow enough that most families do not have one, and people are often surprised in both directions. If you think it might apply, ask rather than assume — and if you are an adult who never had one and should have, you can do it for yourself. That happens more often than you would think.
Two more markers arrive before school does. A boy’s first haircut, the upsherin, is held on his third Hebrew birthday, and is the day he begins wearing a kippah and tzitzit and learning his first letters. Girls begin lighting a Shabbat candle of their own at three, alongside their mother. Both are customs rather than obligations, and both are lovely, and the office will help you mark either.
Call the office on 408-910-2034, or send a message. We will connect you with a mohel, help you find a kohen for a pidyon haben, arrange the shul for a naming, and help with the food and the room — here, or at your home, whichever suits.
What a mohel charges is his to quote and not ours to publish, and no family has ever been turned away over it. If cost is a worry, say so on the phone. It will be handled quietly and it will not change how you are treated.
The day of the birth counts as day one, so a baby born on a Tuesday has his bris the following Tuesday. The Jewish day begins at nightfall, which is the part that catches people out: a baby born on Tuesday evening after dark was born on Wednesday as far as the count is concerned. If the birth was anywhere near sunset, do not work the date out yourself — give the mohel the time of birth and let him do it.
A bris that falls on its proper eighth day is held on that day even when it is Shabbat or Yom Kippur — it is one of the few things that sets Shabbat aside. But that applies only to a bris on time, after an ordinary birth. A bris delayed for any reason, or following a Caesarean delivery, is not held on Shabbat or a festival. This is exactly the kind of detail to hand to the mohel rather than decide at home.
Then the bris waits. A baby’s health comes before the eighth day, without argument and without exception — this is halacha, not a leniency. The mohel will speak with your pediatrician, and once the baby is well the bris is held as soon as he is cleared. A delayed bris is still a complete bris; nothing is lost.
Her father is called to the Torah and a blessing is said in which her name is announced for the first time. The Torah is read on Monday, Thursday, Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh and festivals, so the naming happens at the first of those after the birth that the family can get to. Many families add a kiddush or a brunch. Some communities also hold a home ceremony called a simchat bat; that is a custom rather than an obligation, and Chabad practice is the naming at the Torah.
A boy who is his mother’s first child, delivered naturally, whose father is not a kohen or a levi and whose mother is not the daughter of one. A boy born after a miscarriage, or by Caesarean section, or into a kohen or levi family, does not have one. It is held on the thirty-first day. If you are unsure whether it applies to your family, ask — the conditions are specific and the answer is often not the one people assume.
No. There is no membership at Chabad and none is required for any of this. Nobody will ask what you observe, where you daven, or whether you have been here before.
Mezuzah, a kosher kitchen, Shabbat — the first practical steps, one at a time.
Sooner than you think. Worth knowing it is here.
A first Shabbat as a family, shared with everyone glad to hear the news.
Thirteen years is not as far off as it sounds.
Nobody expects a family with a newborn to organise this from a website. Call 408-910-2034 and say when the baby was born; the office will take it from there, including the parts you have not thought of yet. If it is easier to write, send a message and somebody will call you back.