On the junior high soccer team we were taught to hold our hands protectively over our manhood during a kick on goal lest a soccer ball impact our sensitive area.
This is merely a pragmatic expression of the Freudian fear of castration that boys grow up with. At least sensitive, mother-loving nice Jewish boys.
So when it was time for my twins to have their bris, I was a mess. Here, first of all, was not one but two opportunities for an accident. Adam and Jack were tiny little red squirming things only six days from leaving the hospital and eight days from leaving their mom, and here were a bevy of relatives and friends noshing on coffee cake and rugelach waiting to observe the sacrificial removal of my boys’ foreskins.
I was not happy about this and I hated everybody in our apartment, I saw them as threats to my little boys. Here I was, their born and sworn protector, about to give them up to the rabbi we got via word-of-mouth, a stranger, really, for snipping.
What kind of father was I? Well, a circumcised one. And a Jewish one. I handed over each boy, one at a time, turned my head at the scalpel movement, but stayed with them during every other aspect, prayed to God for a perfect outcome, breathed a sigh of relief after Adam was done, sweated and fretted as Jack went for his turn, and then all was well and good. I also felt more connected to Abraham getting ready to sacrifice his son, to the testing of one’s faith.