“It seems that this susceptibility stems from the fact that vitamin K which is essential to blood clotting is not produced in sufficient quantity until the seventh day of an infant’s life. If vitamin K is not produced in the intestines until the seventh day then clearly the first safe day for performing circumcision is the eighth day.

“Another essential substance for blood clotting is prothrombin. As the diagram [which accompanied the newspaper article] shows based on the discussion in Holt Pediatrics the amount of prothrombin present on the third day of life is only 30 percent of the normal amount such that any surgery performed on a child on that day is liable to cause serious hemorrhaging. We see in this diagram that prothrombin reaches a level even higher than the norm — 110 percent! — on the eighth day. After the eighth day the level falls until it stabilizes at 100 percent of the norm. Thus an eight-day-old baby has more prothrombin than he will have on any other day of his life. In terms of the blood-clotting benefits of vitamin K and prothrombin the optimal time for performing bris milah is the eighth day.”

What siyata d’Shmaya! The women were beside themselves and the new grandmother sat in silent thought. Finally she asked quietly “But how did the Torah know about the eighth day? There wasn’t any research about vitamin K and prothrombin in those days.…”

I laughed out loud. “The One Who gave the Torah created the whole world didn’t He? Including vitamin K and prothrombin right?”

I didn’t ask her directly what she planned to do about the bris but I heard later from one of her friends that the bris had taken place on time.

On another occasion I was asked to serve as sandek at a bris – not in Israel but in frigid Moscow. And I couldn’t hold the boy on my lap because he was 20 years old and considerably larger than me. Since brissos for adults are common in that part of the world a more suitable way of performing the sandek’s duty has been developed by holding the subject’s head during the operation. As I recall ten bochurim all burly young men were circumcised that day in the Moscow yeshivah.

I was also honored with reciting the brachos and as another deviation from the norm when each newly circumcised young Jew announced the Jewish name he had chosen I was hushed when I came to the words “kayem es hayeled hazeh l’aviv ul’imo [let this child thrive with his mother and father].” None of the boys’ fathers were Jewish.

But such technicalities don’t matter at the end of the day. Much more important was the vort I’d heard from one of the gedolei Yerushalayim which I told over at the seudas bris: It is known that the Jewish People’s right to Eretz Yisrael lies in the merit of the mitzvah of bris milah. And as the Ramban writes a future day will come when the Jewish People will return to Eretz Yisrael and large portions of the People will have forgotten the Torah completely. There will be just one mitzvah that they fulfill and that is the mitzvah of bris milah. And yes this is the reality we have witnessed over the past few generations.

The Zohar says that the children of Yishmael the Arabs come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu claiming that they have a right to Eretz Yisrael since they are also descended from Avraham Avinu and they are also circumcised. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu answers them “Yitzchak was circumcised on the eighth day and entered the world of kedushah immediately whereas you only perform circumcision at the age of 13 and your milah is incomplete.” So they will have rights over Eretz Yisrael as long as Bnei Yisrael are in exile the Zohar states. Rabi Chiya wept at this and said “What trouble the Arabs will make for us when we begin to return to Eretz Yisrael in their attempts to prevent our return!” And this too is the reality we see today and there is still no end in sight to this conflict with our cousins the wild desert-dwellers.

I went on to tell these young men who had come eager and fervent back to the Jewish People “You know Yishmael did have a strong argument against Yitzchak. They could say ‘It’s all very well for you Yitzchak to talk about being circumcised on the eighth day. You were just a baby; you had no say in the matter. But I was circumcised at the age of 13. My self-sacrifice for the mitzvah is much greater than yours!’ But you young men living here in Moscow are the answer to Yishmael’s argument. You’ve just undergone bris milah at an older age and with even greater self-sacrifice than his. In your merit the geulah will come. Your mesirus nefesh is now stopping the mouth of Yishmael leaving him with nothing to say. And I can now return to Eretz Yisrael feeling safer than I did before.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 439)