By the Grace of G-d2nd of Tammuz, 5717Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greeting and Blessing:

I was pleased to receive the news that your daughter Naomi gave birth to twin boys, and that the Bris is to take place tomorrow. May G-d grant that your newly-born grand children enter the Covenant of our father Abraham in a happy and auspicious hour, and that their parents bring them up to a life of Torah, Chuppah and Maasim Toivim, to be a delight and real Yiddish and Chassidish Nachas to them and to you.

The significance of a Bris, as the name implies, is a "covenant" with G-d. It would therefore, at first glance, seem illogical that this covenant be entered into by an infant only eight days old, and be valid and binding.

The answer lies in the very act itself, which shows that the Covenant between a Jew and G-d is not connected with reason or emotion. For, in truth, the relationship binding Jews with G-d ("Ye are children unto G-d, your G-d"¹) is of a much higher order than even the natural relationship between parents and children. Because in the latter case, the parents give the child physical existence, while G-d’s share in the child extends both to the body and soul, creating a natural and essential bond between the Jew and G-d from birth. which transcends reason and emotion. The Bris, therefore, is the actual and physical counterpart of this innate Covenant, to be sealed in the flesh. Hence, the intellectual and emotional state of the infant is of no consequence.

However, G-d commanded that the Jewish boy be eight days old when the Bris is carried out, not only in order that the infant be better fit physically for the circumcision, but especially in order that he be sanctified by the Shabbos. For the Shabbos is a memorial to the Creation (i.e. G-d's manifestation in nature) as well as to the Exodus from Egypt (i.e. G-d's manifestation in supernatural miracles). Thus the boy enters the covenant already strengthened and sanctified by the first Shabbos in his life, and grows up to serve G-d with an inner faith which transcends all human reason and emotion.

With the blessing of Mazzal Tov