On the Margins

What a day... All the guests are laughing and singing their lungs out. They threw a party for this kid, and he's crying. Granted, he's only eight... days, that is. Eight days old and throwing one of the loudest tantrums I'd heard in years. The grownups don't give it a second thought, as they twirl around the room in a delirious haze of wine and merriment. They named the kid Isaac, but he sure isn't laughing. Still reeling from the shock, I'll bet.

The smell of brisket and kugel drifts from the kitchen, mixing with the sweet wine on everyone's breath. Aunt Rose is arranging platters with the precision of someone who's hosted these gatherings for forty years. She catches my eye and nods toward Isaac with that knowing look that women master—part sympathy, part inevitability. Life goes on, her expression says. This too shall pass.

He won't remember a thing, the grownups are thinking. It's tradition, not to mention a health benefit. Can't argue that. Anyway, it's not up to me to chime in. I'm only halfway in the pool, so to speak. I know the Tanakh—the Tanaka Papers, as I call them—but can't agree with the underlying sentiment.

Uncle Harry raises his glass again, wine sloshing over the rim onto his good shirt. He doesn't notice. Nobody notices much of anything right now except the celebration. "L'chaim!" he bellows, and the room echoes back like they're in some ancient cave, voices bouncing off the walls my sister painted last spring. Cheerful yellow. For the baby's room, she'd said, though Isaac won't be sleeping in here for months.

The mohel packs his instruments with the efficiency of someone who's done this a thousand times. Maybe he has. His hands are steady, practiced, while Isaac's father—my brother-in-law Michael—looks green around the gills. Michael converted three years ago, learned enough Hebrew to stumble through the prayers, keeps kosher when my sister's watching. But standing there holding his son, watching the blood on the gauze, he looks like he's questioning every choice that led him to this moment.

I recognize the expression. It's the same one I wore at my own son's brit eight years ago. The same pale confusion, the same desperate hope that doing the right thing and feeling the right thing were somehow the same. Michael catches me watching and attempts a smile. Poor guy probably thinks he's supposed to feel blessed, connected to thousands of years of covenant. Instead, he just looks tired.

Eight years. Kenny's in second grade now, reads chapter books, argues about bedtime. Sometimes I catch him touching the scar, absent-mindedly, the way you worry a hangnail. When he asks me about it—and he will, eventually—what am I supposed to say? It's tradition, son. We did it because that's what our people do. But which people? The ones who never questioned, or the ones like me who question everything?

Last month, Kenny came home from a playdate asking why his friend Tyler "looked different" in the bathroom. I fumbled through an explanation about different families, different traditions, watching his seven-year-old mind try to process the idea that not everyone's body tells the same story. He accepted it the way kids accept most things—with a shrug and a request for snacks. But someday he'll want real answers, and I'm not sure I have them.

"You're being awfully quiet," my sister Naomi whispers, appearing at my elbow with a plate of rugalach. She's glowing the way new mothers do, though Isaac is her third. Practice, maybe, or just relief that it's over.

"Just thinking," I tell her.

"Dangerous habit." She smiles, but there's something searching in her look. Naomi knows me too well. We grew up in the same house, sat through the same Hebrew school classes, watched our father lay tefillin every morning like clockwork. But where she found comfort in the routine, I found questions. Where she saw connection to something larger, I saw obligation without choice.

"Remember when you asked Rabbi Goldman why God needed foreskins anyway?" she says quietly, glancing around to make sure no one's listening. "You were twelve. Mom was mortified."

"Still wondering," I admit.

"I know." Her hand finds my arm, squeezes gently. "But some questions don't have answers that make us feel better. Sometimes faith means acting despite the questions, not because of certainty."

The room is starting to empty. Cousins gathering coats, friends making promises to call soon, the elderly relatives moving slowly toward the door with their walkers and careful steps. Uncle Harry is still singing, off-key, something about the golden city. He'll be the last to leave. He always is.

Isaac has finally stopped crying. He's sleeping now in Michael's arms, tiny fist curled against his father's chest. From here, you can't see the bandage. You can't see anything but a baby boy, eight days old, dreaming whatever babies dream.

"He's beautiful," I say to Naomi, because it's true and because it's expected.

"He is." She pauses, watching my face. "You know, you don't have to carry the weight of every tradition on your shoulders."

But that's just it—I do. Because I'm halfway in the pool, treading water between belief and doubt, between the family I was born into and the person I've become. Because I love these people, love this noisy, complicated, wine-soaked celebration of continuity. Because when Isaac grows up and asks his own questions, someone should be ready with honest answers.

Uncle Harry finally puts down his glass and shuffles toward us. "Beautiful ceremony," he says, patting my shoulder with his heavy hand. "The boy will grow up strong. A real mensch."

I nod and smile, because Uncle Harry means well, because tradition says I should honor my elders, because sometimes silence is the kindest response. But inside, I'm still thinking about Isaac's cry, about choice and covenant, about what it means to be bound by decisions made before you can speak.

Uncle Harry was there for Kenny's brit too, said the same words, made the same predictions. He's been saying them for decades, watching nephews and great-nephews join the tribe through blood and blessing. For him, it's simple—you do what was done to you, what was done to your fathers and their fathers. The chain remains unbroken.

But chains can bind as easily as they connect.

The house grows quiet as the last guests leave. Naomi disappears upstairs to nurse the baby, and Michael starts collecting wine glasses, moving like a man grateful for simple tasks. I should help him, should stay and clean up, should be the good brother-in-law.

Instead, I find myself at the door, keys in hand, looking back at the cheerful yellow walls and thinking about Kenny at home, probably sprawled on the couch with his chapter book, completely unaware that his father spent the afternoon wrestling with faith.

Tomorrow I'll call Naomi, tell her the ceremony was beautiful, and ask how Isaac is adjusting. I'll mean every word. But tonight, I'm driving home to my own questions, my own son, my own careful navigation of the space between tradition and truth.

Kenny will probably still be awake when I get home, reading under his covers with a flashlight, thinking he's getting away with something. I'll pretend not to notice, the way my own father pretended not to notice when I did the same thing thirty years ago. Some rebellions are too small to fight, too precious to crush.

Halfway in the pool, still treading water, still trying to figure out which direction leads to shore.