Metzitzah B'Peh Status Quo To Stay In Place For Months Due To Storm

Superstorm Sandy delayed so many court cases and did so much damage to NYC courts that the hearing that was set for later this week to determine when the city's new informed consent requirement for circumcisions involving metziztah b'peh, direct mouth-to-bleeding-baby-penis sucking done by the moehl after removing the foreskin, would be enforced has reportedly been indefinitely delayed.

Arutz 7 reports:

…As a result of the Sandy-related delay, the injunction has been extended. The regulation had been scheduled to go into effect on September 30 [but was delayed for a short time by the mutual consent of the haredim suing to block the measure and the city until the haredi case could be heard in a hearing].

Attorneys for both sides said that it would likely be months before the hearing could take place at least two courthouses in Manhattan were badly flooded during the hurricane, and that the court calendar has been severely impacted. Many cases, especially those in which injunctions have been issued, are likely to be kept on hold for months, as the now-hampered court system attempts to work its way through the backlog.

Comments

[Disappointed]

I thought you grew up and stopped using that coarse expression, but I guess I was wrong. D

[Shmarya]

That "course expression" is 100% correct.

Metziztah b'peh is "direct mouth-to-bleeding-baby-penis sucking done by the moehl after removing the foreskin."

No reason to disguise what it is to please the likes of you.

[jancsibacsi]

Disappointed-- The truth hurts doesnt it,thaTS good there is hope for you, if it bothers youre conscience

[David]

So THAT'S the real reason for the storm - to protect MBP.

[Yoel Mechanic]

Let's consider a hypothetical (designed to elucidate attitudes). Let's suppose MBP was 100% "germ free", with no risks of any kind. Perhaps someone invented an amazing antiseptic spray, or some kind of star trek technology. Ask yourself: how would you feel about this when safety is no longer an issue?

How do you feel about all sorts of tribal rituals from around the world? there's a wide variety of tribal markings, piercings, for all kinds of traditional "reasons" and "meanings" (and perhaps unknown reasons to outsiders). How you you feel about these?

[Yoel Mechanic]

Disappointed: perhaps you should look into the concept of how words (and expressions) can have denotative and connotative meanings.

[Yochanan Lavie]

I guess they're waiting for the MBP storm to blow over...

[danny]

Yoel... taking your "germ-free" hypothetical situation as real, I would still be 100% disgusted by MBP, solely for the pedophilic overtones of that brutal custom.

Sucking the genitalia of a non-consenting infant should be criminal in all cases.

[Torvald]

The storm had nothing to do with it - the court is clearly paying lip service to the ch'nyucks.

[Adam Neira]

The fact remains that MBP should be banned.

P.S. Interpreting current events and natural disasters to discern their higher meaning is a task best left up to very special souls. A person so endowed is known as a Na'vi.

[Adam Neira]

"Israeli researchers break new ground in study linking herpes to brain damage." (Published Mon. 13th Nov. 2012)

I also read recently (VIN 19th Sep.) that Rabbi Moshe Tendler stated that some cases of children with special needs in various communities may have in fact been a result of infection after birth resulting from herpes and other diseases transmitted to newborns by a mohel. But the predisposition to denial of what really happens to children in various communities gets swept under the carpet.

I repeat...Some disingenuous people are saying that to raise this issue of informed consent for MBP will lead to non-Jews pushing for a ban on bris altogether. The issues are quite separate. You can make a valid case for bris milah on many counts, but there are no valid cases for oral to wound MBP that can be mounted when an informed audience is present.
It also seems that some people want this debate to go away, because they are frightened that if this minhag/custom (the practice is not a law described in the Pentateuch out of one of the 613 commandments) reaches the attention of various people, including uninformed Jews and non-Jews the public opprobrium will be great. Thus they can hide in the shadows and take advantage of the laziness and distraction of vox populi.

Evil always fears the light of truth.
The NYC Board of Health should stick to their guns, and all concerned people should support the informed consent plan. The rights of children have been neglected since Abraham was a boy, but if Judaism is not about protecting and defending purity and innocence, then what is it about in 2012/5773 ?

[Adam Neira]

To Danny,

To clarify one point about this issue. Metzitzah B'Peh is not child sexual abuse. You cannot level the accusation of sexual intent from the Mohels. Also the ceremony takes place in a public, relatively open forum so there is no element of entrapment, secrecy, intimidation or silencing which is present with cases of CSA. The problem with MBP is that it is a simple case of a procedure leading to an increased risk of disease which should be banned in this day and age. Like the education campaigns in poorer nations of the 50's and 60's which taught people that the simple act of washing hands could prevent cholera and other diseases. No great mystery here.

On small points of principle do empires thrive or implode.

[jancsipista]

Adam Neira-You dont make any sense how is it not child sexual abuse when it is done on the sexual organ, are you brain dead?

[A Yid]

Posted by: jancsipista | November 12, 2012 at 08:40 AM

And when for example a mother washes her little 1 year old son including washing his sexual organ is that also "sexual abuse"?!

PS.Just because you can call someone "moron" and "brain dead" that doesn't prove your point. Just makes you look rude and stupid to people reading this.

[...]

Janc was molested ask him he'll tell you. Leave janc alone.

[Disappointed]

My point was not whether MBP is right or wrong.

What I meant is that Shmarya seems to get off using the expression "penis-sucking".

If he would be describing someone having a sexual liaison, would we not find it strange if he would insist on describing it in graphic coarse terms?

[MoishieCohen]

Newsflash.

I found a Charedi blog which discusses the MBP issue. And shock horror! Some of the Charedim actually talk sense and are not totally in favour of it, blindly ignoring the medical issues!

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2012/10/19/metzitzah-and-the-halachic-process/#comments

[Rueven Aharon]

I wonder if Hurricane Sandy blew down anybody's eruv. Given what eruvin consist of (oftentimes, telephone wires and poles), it wouldn't surprise me.

[A Yid]

Janc was molested ask him he'll tell you. Leave janc alone.

Posted by: ... | November 12, 2012 at 09:53 AM

I am aware of that. Does that give him a lifetime licence to say rude and stupid things without criticism?

[jancsibacsi]

A Yid- A yid unaseihel ,try to think for a minute when someone touches you on youre sexual organ then how would you like it the baby has no say in what is being done to him its the easiest thing to do to overpower the helpless they key word is power here be it in the rebbishe world or any other place religion tells us to be kind to those who are down or helpless everything that you learn is actually not practiced in fact the opposite is done what i am saying is those in power thrive on the helplessness of those who cant fight back tragecally this is what yiddishkeit amounts to in todays wrols power mony and koved respect theeese 3 things destroyed our religion .

[Deremes]

jancsibacsi has has a perverted mind.

So far good news that tyrant Bloomberg will have to let Jews practice bris milah as it suppose to be.

[jancsibacsi]

Deremes --It takes one pervert to know another pervert ,so dersheker youre one youreself

[A Yid]

Posted by: jancsibacsi | November 12, 2012 at 12:30 PM

Crime of sexual abuse requires intent. Just like a mother washing her young son including washing his sexual organs is not guilty of sexual abuse , but fondling sexual organs with a sexual intent would be sexual abuse so to a mohel is performing a a bris a ritual that is not sexual, mbp an action that was believed to be curative and is now remains as a part of a traditon is by no means a sexual act.
You can argue against mbp on health grounds if you want , but don't start new blood libels. This doesn't just hurt the chareidim whom you dislike ultimately this type of slanders end up hurting Jewish people as a whole.

[jancsibacsi]

A Yid- Just today i read that in germany they again want to criminalize brit milah saying its genital mutalation ,you dont get it since we live in a world where it isnt done by most people they see it as barbaric savage dont try to blame me for hurting other jews ,by the way i can go back in my families history 500 years i have lots of hassidim in my family and a decendant of famous poskim i wont go into it but the way brit milah is done today is a shame on us all jews the world sees what vile behaviour we do to helpless child this mbp is the straw that broke the camels back,with all the rebbes defending it its despicable you cant get lower then this.

[Pagan]

jancsibacsi, I sympathise with your position. But please don't call it "brit milah". The Jews have not practiced brit milah for over 1800 years. What they do today is "brit peri'ah", and is a very different thing. It has nothing to do with God, Abraham or Torah; it was invented by a bunch of sick rabbis in the Hasmonean era. And what was made by man can be unmade by man.