Someone Jewish want to explain this to me?

[Stiofán]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6898403/

I'm not up on my Jewish rituals, but I'd think using your mouth to draw blood from an infant's penis after a circumcision is a little unsanitary and archaic. I understand it's usually orthodox, but really.

[Coot]

People have been sent to prison for that.

[Stiofán]

Speaking of prison and the activities that occur there, I think you need to slow down your avatar animation so we can clearly see that he's using his foot to kick with. :lol:

[Violet1966]

Is that normal? The mouth sucking blood penis thing? :eek:

[Sir Joseph]

Nope.
It origianlly was instituted for health reasons. Kind of like sucking out the venom from a snake.
Today, most people (including Orthodox and what you guys would call ultra-Orthodox) use a sterile tube or syringe to draw out the drops of blood.
It was instituted for safety and doing it today by mouth is not safe. For the past 150 years the tube or syringe was used. It is only an extremely small fringe element that still does it by mouth. I've never heard or seen one done by mouth.

Here's part of a thread in another forum discussing this (there will be many words you don't understand but I'm sure you'll get the gist):
That said, I don't understand why metzitzah b'peh (SJ: What the sucking is called) is clung to with such tenacity when there is clear evidence that it poses a health risk. For longer than 150 years there have been ample halachic (SJ:Jewish Law) backing for using a tube or syringe. In fact, one of the early teshuvas (SJ:Responsas) on the topic discussed a strikingly similar case, of a mohel that passed on a disease (maybe herpes?) acquired from a baby that was the son of a prostitute and passed it on to many boys, some of whom died. The purpose the Gemara (SJ:Talmud) states for doing metzitza b'peh is that it is a healthy measure. It confounds logic that it must continue despite its health risks when halachically valid alternatives exist. The reasoning behind it:

No. There is an ancient Jewish custom that as soon as the bris (SJ: The chop-chop ceremony) is performed the mohel then sucks a little bit of blood out of the wound. Its purpose is similar to sucking venom from a snakebite. There was a concern that the knife was not sterile (to use an anachronism), or rather it was known that sometimes the baby would get sick as a result of the knife used. So blood is sucked out immediately after the bris. The halachic issue of whether one had to do metzitza with the mouth or if an instrument can be used arose over 150 years ago when much more about hygeine was known and issues like the story in the article arose. Today most mohelim either suck the blood out using a tube or syringe that draws a little blood out. Some only do the metzitza, the drawing out blood, only b'peh, with their mouths. Again, this is talking about a real tiny segment of the circumcisions done.<!--IBF.ATTACHMENT_153952--><!-- THE POST -->

[Stiofán]

Thanks Joe. I appreciate the annotations, especially the chop chop reference. :)

[Sir Joseph]

Glad to be of service.
One thing to keep in mind. When was the last time you heard of a story like this?
It's kind of like saying all people in Montana are KKK, anti-Semites or domestic terrorists because the news sometimes mentions people from Montana as being in the above mentioned groups.

[Stiofán]

Yeah, but it could be happening all the time as far as I know, with the mohels simply being healthier than this one. How am I to know unless I ask my learned Jewish friends.

[Sir Joseph]

I understand, but if it happened often, it woudn't just be because the mohel is sick, it would be because the child is sick with disease he caught from his mother and it would happen more often than is reported.
Until hearing about this, I actually never even knew people still do it "manually."

[ethics]

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/nyregion/06rite.html) had raised this issue once again on Friday when the Orthodox made a rally in bashing our Mayor for banning this ritual. Some in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities say the city is infringing upon their religious rights.

It's crazy, of course, and I wonder if these Jews know that just because you have a ritual AND it goes against the public health of your country, that will trump any such ritual.

[joseftu]

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/nyregion/06rite.html) had raised this issue once again on Friday when the Orthodox made a rally in bashing our Mayor for banning this ritual. Some in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities say the city is infringing upon their religious rights.
It goes even beyond that...the mayor is not banning the ritual. He specifically backed down from that. What they're protesting is just a public health education campaign about the risks of the procedure. Nobody's forbidding anything, but it seems that the people who support metzitzah b'peh don't even want to have a word said against it.

Sir J is right that this is a tiny minority of all circumcisions, and I'm frankly not qualified to judge how much of a health risk it is. But I do think that the doctors and scientists of the dept. of public health are qualified to make that judgment. And I do think that Rabbi Niederman and the Central Rabbinic Council are wrong to try to deny the access to information about the procedure.

[Sir Joseph]

For the record, the CRC is Satmar (define that as you wish). They're the only ones making a big stink out of it.

[joseftu]

I was going to ask you about that, Sir J. It seemed to me that it was only Satmar involved in these protests, and I was wondering if there were any other Chasidic communities you know of which practice metzitzah b'peh?

I know plenty of modern orthodox, and they don't do it, from what my friends have told me. I don't think Lubavitchers do, either, although I haven't discussed it with any of the Lubavitchers I know.

(Egalitarian Conservatives like me, obviously enough, don't either...but you could probably have guessed that! ;))

[ethics]

I know for a fact Lubavitchers don't practice this. Well, at least hearing it from a fellow I know. He thought the practice was absurd.

[ravital]

but it seems that the people who support metzitzah b'peh don't even want to have a word said against it.


That is nothing new, and typical of any orthodoxy (in this context, not to be taken as a reference to all "Orthodox Jews" but to uncompromising adherence to a code, a law, or a tradition).