The Bris

For most Jews, the decision to have a brit milah and a circumcision is simplicity itself. You do.

Living in San Francisco complicates things.

I felt strongly about it, and I wanted to write out why.

First, in bold print, circumcision was the prerequisite act for Abram to become Abraham, father of multitudes, the very first Jew. To have that very first Jewish interaction with the transformative power of the universe, that which allows what is to become what should be, the Jewish people determined that circumcision was required. So every -or nearly every- jewish man since then has been circumcised.

We wanted Asher to be a part of that lineage, both the spiritual attribute and experience of Abraham, but the physical marking of the same.

But why did the Jews ascribe so much importance to this act that they recorded it as a command from God?

I have to backtrack a little here. I believe that there is a transcendent power in the universe that is not indifferent between compassion and sin and that this power is beyond the bonds that control the physical aspect of the universe. I am (highly) doubtful that this power speaks explicitly to people. Instead, the stories in the Torah read to me like a record of the interaction between the Jews and what we call god. When I read the Torah and see some law or prediction ascribed to God, I feel like its a literary trick. Instead of saying, "This is something we have discovered and believe to be true, but could never prove it." They say, "God said..."

I personally don't mind if this makes some judge me to be an ignorant jew, a bad jew or not a jew at all. Reading the Torah this way has been my gateway to explore and honor the wisdom in these crazy stories.

So why did we Abram hear god saying, " Go circumcise yourself?" The oldest image of circumcision is 4,000 years old and lies in Egypt.


But if I had to guess, the Egyptians didn't invent circumcision the moment that image was drawn. Circumcision is practiced around the world by wildly divergent cultures. ost of the semitic people, including Muslims, practice circumcision to this day. Many Pacific Islanders do too, as well as Native Americans and a wide variety of African cultures east, south and west.

There is something about this act of body mutilation that is felt to be a profound key to the world beyond the physical one we live in, touch and feel everyday.

There are those who believe that circumcision is a left-over from the early matriarchal culture that preceded the rise of Jewish patriarchy some several thousand years ago. There are many cultural hypotheses to buttress this claim, but they all come down -as I see it- to the idea that no society controlled by men would choose to self-inflict damage on their "manhood". I've read other explanations suggesting circumcision was a way of protecting oneself from trophy seeking Greek, Phonenician and Egyptian warriors.

What makes sense to me is that any attempt to out a cultural context around circumcision is likely to start far along in the story. Australian aboriginal cultures that have been recording their history on the same set of rocks for 15,000 years practice circumcision. Is this central ritual a Johnny come lately? Whether you start with the Jewish matriarchy that preceded our era's patriarchy, you are leaving out the patriarchy that receded that Matriarchy, and on back into the darkness before the first record that has reached us.

Human beings have been in nearly our present physical makeup for nearly 2 million years and fully Homo Sapiens for more than 200,000 years. We have surviving written records for only the barest sliver of that, less than 3% of that time. What bubbled up out of that time that is now hidden from view? How many permutations of wisdom and culture did circumcision traverse before the cuneiform tablets that survive to our time appeared on the scene?

It seems likely to me that trying to find cultural context for circumcision is like trying to see your own eye or eat your teeth. You'd as soon find a cultural explanation of a mother's love. Sure you can show how present day culture influences that relationship but mother-child bonds arose alongside culture itself.

I know but cannot prove that circumcision traveled the same dim path, side by side with the development of culture itself. So i say, "God says..."

And that is why after the 8th day -it took god 7 days/epochs to make the universe so the first 7 days of a child's life are about instantiating as a physical being. No transcendant ritual can happen before the child is finished becoming first a physical being- our boy had the skin cap on his JJ snipped off in front of a singing and clapping crowd of friend and family.

To welcome him to the community of people who struggle with god's cll to be good and compassionate. To welcome him to the community of the People Israel whose radical belief is that the universe is not indifferent between good and evil, that we are in charge of our own moral destiny and the fate of the universe is in our hands.

Welcome to the struggle for Tikkun Olam Asher Wolfson Temchine.

Wiring up

When Asher falls asleep, he seems to try on a series of facial expressions absent in waking days. Like smiling, smirking, flirting, pursing his lips.

Burping Asher

This would be the face you see when burping young Asherfras. Surprisingly, getting whacked repeatedly on the back soothes the boy.

Asher Dances!

Our little boy seems to be dancing his little onesie off. Said garment was made by Joel for his own boy and features the cover of the legendary punk compilation Son of Oi! (Syndicate, 1983)




Can you guess why we call this cricket legs?

Trip to the Museum

Our very first multi-stop excursion, Golden Gate Park and the De Young Museum. The theme of the day, judging by the pictures we got anyway, was hands, hands and more hands.

We also took our first real family portrait, but that picture will only be posted in our house, ina frame, and you'll just have to come over to see it's jaw-dropping awesomeness.

Asher Wolfson Temchine

This was the initial announcement and was written way late at night and doesn't exactly make a great deal of sense. But out of respect for that late night effort, I'll leave the original post at the top

Asher:
Hebrew for happiness, blessed and fortunate and the tribe of Asher was known for the richness of for their abundant homeland

Wolfson:
The family name of Ben's grandfather, Norman Wolfson. Pop Pop, who died this spring. Pop Pop had three sisters, and three daughters, inlcluging including Ben's mom, who died two years ago.

Picture Set Two

A Day Early. Not a Day too Soon.

My due date was September 2nd. Due dates, as I understand it now, are somewhat educated guesses, based on potentially inconsistent cycles, that may lead us to know the approximately four week window in which the baby is likely to join the world. Yes, not exactly a precise measurement. Babies choose to be born when they need to be, when it is their time. As pregnant Mama, I never held onto the due date as anything more than a pretty good estimate. I just wanted our baby to know s/he was welcome here.

In the end, now our most profound new beginning, all of these potentially faulty, pseudo-scientific, fully leading indicators would prove to be mostly right. I was “early,” – by one day.

Our beautiful 7 pound 13 ounce baby boy screamed his way into the world on Labor Day, September 1st at 4:38 pm.

So, why all the focus on the day anyway, when this story is about my birth and our baby boy? Well, I didn’t start labor on Labor Day. I started on Saturday night, around 11:30 pm. After some 44 hours in labor our son chose Labor Day, just as Ben and I chose one another three years before when we met at a dinner party that very evening. Of course, we believe this to be an early sign of his genius. This belief binds us to a chain, back through the generations, of parents sure that their child is the most brilliant, exceptional and thoughtful child ever born. Seeing fit to have me in labor for 44 hours and to wrap it all up on Labor Day, a holiday, also demonstrates a promising sense of humor.

My birth experience doesn’t live, though, in any of the dates or details or post-birth interpretations. It lingers the hazier spaces between words where I could unleash a deep growl and find a quiet that had its own sound. The two days of labor was the space granted for the two of us to invite the baby to arrive and with that, to move from pregnant to parent, from couple to family. By choosing to labor and birth at home, no one outside of us would name the stage of labor or urge an intervention to move it along when I despaired that surges would never cease. And, I did despair. And, Ben found the words and the touch to bring me back to present, to nothing wrong, to everything on course, just as it was meant to be.

We were nimble, with few, but powerful tools - each other; a big full tub in the center of the baby’s room; our presence and all the inner work we had done to get to this day; phone consultations and then the presence of our gifted midwife Maria Iorillo; my Mother’s supportive mien; and a whole lot of time. We used every one. We found a slow groove doing what Ben dubbed the middle school dance, swaying slowly together through the minute-long contractions that would come quick, then slow, then quick again. When my hope turned to deep doubt, I asked again and again when Maria (our midwife) would come, bringing with her the light at the end of this long tunnel. I was still looking for some outside indicator that birth was happening. And then I wasn’t, realizing that naming doesn’t always help, that saying I moved from this phase to that, knowing how open my cervix was, or even counting contractions, are at best reflections of the thing that is birth, not the birth itself. The exquisite pain and power of birth created more than the space for him to arrive. It created the space for us to arrive.

And, now, six days later, I sit on the very day bed turned sofa where our baby was born, as he and Ben sleep peacefully in the next room. I finished nursing only a few minutes ago and felt him drape his limp arms over my shoulder as I burped him and carried him back to bed. I watched his flickering eyes close and saw his face still. My heart melts once more.

Pictures from Uncle Mike

First Sightings of Asherfras