It’s an undeniably cruel ritual. It’s the first bris I’ve been to since my nephew’s and the second one at which I find myself crying.
The room’s collective attention is forward, pointed at the mohel and the infant, a surprising number of guests watching through their iPhones, wearing smiles on their faces as they hit record.
My attention is on my cousin, the baby’s mother, her back toward me, standing directly in my line of sight. I can’t see her face, but I wonder what she’s feeling. A woman who had given birth for the first time just eight days ago, about to experience a crucial milestone for her family as her baby enters into our people’s covenant. A milestone that cannot be achieved without inflicting on her baby a level of pain that she is hardwired to protect him against.
I can’t see her face but she’s standing there with the rest of us, still, controlled, watching her husband deliver the baby to the mohel.
After a few words about the joy of new life and the importance of tradition, the mohel pulls out his tools and begins doing what he is there to do, immediately accompanied by the scream of the infant, a scream so primal it awakens the gene of motherhood that is encoded within me, a gene that hasn’t yet been fully activated.
I can’t see her face, but I can tell my cousin is crying. Wiping tears from her cheek while simultaneously fighting them from overflowing. Slowly letting them out as if they’re air bubbles in a shaken carbonated soda can, cautiously opening the lid to let a few out at a time so they don’t explode all over the place. I want to run up to her, hug her, hold for her some of that pain that she is holding for her son. But I don’t. I remain planted in my spot in the standing room audience. Most of us do, remaining quiet, avoiding each other’s eyes out of respect, awe, curiosity, and maybe even horror at the unfolding ceremony happening at the front of the room. Or perhaps the pain released from the child osmosed into our individual humanities and eye contact would make acknowledging the cruelty of it all powerful enough to open a frightening debate between Humanity and Ritual, forces as ancient as they are intertwined.
I can’t see her face, but I know what my cousin is feeling. The feeling of trying not to feel when you’re overwhelmed with emotion.
It comes on like an earthquake. Sudden, unexpected, all-encompassing. Holding back the feelings is like taking refuge under a doorway, not knowing how much longer your world will shake, not knowing if the ceiling above you will collapse, fully knowing that this could be “the big one” and ultimately, the doorway is useless. It feels like driving on the freeway during a vicious rainstorm, barely able to see past the torrential downpour pounding at your windshield, the winds outside shaking your car from all directions, your grip on the steering wheel tightening to control the vehicle, trying to convince yourself that you aren’t completely at the mercy of the forces of nature. I know the feeling of trying not to feel.
I turn to my mother and see her crying too. It’s a familiar, yet rare phenomenon to watch her cry. The wetness of her tears glass over her eyes and the hazel of her irises brighten. As a child, I couldn’t stand the sight. It was just as rare then as it is now, which made it even worse. She rarely cried in front of me so when she did, it felt confusing. I had inherited her deep capacity for feeling, but I couldn’t control it in the way that she could, in the way that my parents wanted me to.
I cried a lot as a child. I cried over things that upset me, things that didn’t go my way, things that I didn’t expect would make me cry. Mostly, I cried about things that scared me. I was worried. I worried for my parents, worried to be alone, worried that something bad would happen to me. I was plagued with fear of the unknown, fear of the pain that was surely waiting for me at every corner. I was a body composed completely of tears, cursed with perpetual emotion; feeling intensely even while fast asleep, even while I dreamed.
Yet my family never wanted me to cry. Crying meant acknowledging that there was pain, pain meant there was a problem, and problems were meant to be solved. They wanted to protect me. They wanted me not to feel pain, but to push through it. I was told there was nothing to be scared of, that my fear had no basis. And as much as I wanted to believe that, as much as I tried to ignore the fear, ignore the pain, and move past it, it was still there. Time and time again, my tears were met with words: “Crying doesn’t solve anything.” It became a dogma I learned to live by, trying my best to suppress my tears when they surfaced, and when I couldn’t, running away to release them alone, feeling the feelings in solitary shame. I remember these words as my cousin’s baby continues to wail in an otherwise silent banquet hall. I listen to him and I’m immediately flooded with emotion: overwhelmed by the baby’s discomfort, joyful for this beautiful blessing in my cousin’s life, and compassionate for myself and all the tears I’ve held back in my own lifetime. How can I ignore this pain when it’s right in front of me, shrieking in my ear? When it’s woven into the purpose of why we’re gathered at synagogue on a Sunday?
I turn to my mother with tears in my eyes. I want to remind her of my feelings. That they remain as strong and as powerful as they did when I was taught to suppress them as a child. The same child that lives within me wants her permission to let them flow and flow and flow, right here in public, in front of everyone. Permission I never received. I want to be the baby at the front of the room, crying as loud as my lungs would allow me, for everyone who loves me to do nothing other than listen to my sobs.
But instead, I hold back my tears with a smile on my face. I let them out slowly, the same way my cousin is doing, the same way my mother had always done. I look at her face and I realize that my family was right: crying doesn’t solve anything.
Here we are, gathered together to witness one of the most important rituals of our people, a ritual that is as crucial a part of the Jewish life cycle as a wedding or a funeral, a ritual wished for by elders through blessings given to young couples (“God willing we see you at your son’s bris!”), a ritual celebrated with brunch and gifts. This bris is happening, no matter what. No matter how much physical pain it brings to the infant, no matter how much emotional pain it brings to his parents, this bris is inevitable.
That’s exactly what my family wanted me to understand. That pain is inevitable. It is as much a part of the human experience as eating or breathing. That I will be faced with pain time and time again, until the day I die. That sometimes I’ll be faced with pain even at the most ceremonious of moments. And maybe they were right. Crying doesn’t solve anything. But where they were wrong–where their message got tragically lost in translation–is the idea that pain is a problem meant to be solved.
Pain isn’t a monster under the bed that needs to be scared away, or an enemy in the battlefield that needs to be defeated. Pain is a vehicle for living. It allows us to come face-to-face with the wholeness of our full beings, of all the emotions that we are capable of feeling, of all the experiences that define life. Here in this room, pain is a blessing. It is a rite of passage, a blessing for a baby, his family, and all of those who are here to witness this ritual.
Crying doesn’t solve anything because there’s nothing to be solved.
We cry not because pain is a problem, but as acknowledgment of our pain, and the pain of others. We cry to honor pain as a core human experience. Only when we acknowledge pain fully, tears and all, can we understand its magnitude; draw enough strength to look it in the eye, befriend it, and live freely alongside it as we navigate our way through its domain that is life. Crying doesn’t solve anything, but it allows us to be free.
The mohel closes the ritual with one last prayer, and the baby, after a few drops of wine, has fallen into a peaceful sleep. My cousin and her husband take their place in the center of the room and share the baby’s name with us. They’re met with cheers, smiles, and applause, and we’re met with a new member of our family. As quickly as the bris starts, it ends, and like every ending, it feels like a beginning.
I find my cousin amongst her guests, receiving kisses and congratulations. I give her a hug–a tight one. I look at her face and I know what she’s feeling because I feel it too: lightness. A lightness that can only be accessed after going through the emotions, letting them out, and honoring what is begging to be felt.
I look at the baby and feel blessed to be a part of this beginning for him. I look at my cousin and recognize this new beginning of hers, the start of her journey into motherhood. I look at my mother playing with my nephew, laughing with him as he explores the room through curious eyes, and I see in him parts of the child that lives within me. I feel a new beginning for her too. One where her emotions aren’t an earthquake or a rainstorm, but are sunbeams. The ones that are only visible against the contrast of dark clouds. The ones that make you take a second look at the sky in awe.
I say a quick prayer in my head. One of gratitude for the day; for the baby’s new life, and the way his cries have breathed new life into my own. Everything feels lighter. I’m no longer carrying unfelt emotions but instead carrying peace. I carry it with me while I’m in the buffet line, chit-chatting with my uncle, both of us piling burekas and salad shirazi on our plates. I carry it with me as I teach my immigrant parents how to pronounce the baby’s name, one they’ve never heard before. I carry it with me while navigating the parking lot, playing Tetris with my car to let another one out. I carry it with me through the canyon and over the hill, all the way back to my apartment.
As I take off my heels, and wipe off my makeup, I remind myself that there will be another bris at some point. There will be more pain at some point. But from this peace, I know that I won’t fight back the tears. I’ll give myself permission to feel all the feelings, welcome them, and invite them to join me for all of the rituals. All of life.
Originally published on obzurvations.wordpress.com.