Today was Avi’s Bris. We spent a lot of time searching for a mohel: there are a number of psychological phases you go through when you’re tasked with finding someone to take a knife to your 8-day-old son’s precious parts. How do you find such a person? Yelp was no help at all and Find-A-Mohel.com wasn’t even registered (can you believe that someone is all over www.1800dentist.com but Find-A-Mohel.com is still available?!?). We ended up getting a recommendation from a woman in Holly’s pre-natal swim class. When we called to “interview” the recommended mohel, all of our combined brainpower could muster one meaningful interview question: “How many of these have you done?” Rabbi Chanan Feld’s answer: “I don’t know. More than 6,000.”
Sold.
Anyway, we still hadn’t met him face-to-face and Holly had her fair share of nightmares. All fears were allayed, though, when we opened our door at 9:45 AM this morning and welcomed this man into our home:
Rabbi Feld, master mohel
Seriously. From there, it was all a breeze. Can’t you just tell by looking at him? And he lived up to all expectations: Rabbi Feld left the crowd of 20+ impressed with a wonderful and brief service and a flawless “surgery.” He has our highest recommendation for anyone in need of mohel services in the Bay Area.
Enough about the man with the knife. We were delighted by all of the friends and family who joined us from across the country: zayda, grammy, and great aunt linda from Boston, Second Cousins Dan and Rebecca from Seattle, friends and family from all over the Bay Area, and a surprise visit from some of Holly’s bestest friends from Seattle, Misty and Birgit, whom we found sitting in our den at 10 AM. The surprise brought Holly to tears. Pictures of the entire day are now up in our Photo Gallery.
