Celebrating A Birth

I was happy to read Sandee Brawarsky’s article, “The Eighth Day, For Girls” (Celebrations, Nov. 21).
When I was pregnant with our first child, we knew it was a girl. Like Sharon
Siegel, my husband and I were also committed to having a bat brit for our
daughter on the eighth day of her life. We began the ceremony by explaining
to our guests that what we would do for our son, we will do for our daughter.


Our Conservative rabbi led a service that welcomed our daughter into the
covenant by reciting the same prayers (with a few gender language tweaks) and
performing the same rituals (substituting the circumcision with a tallit
wrapping ceremony) used in a brit milah. With a new due date approaching, we
don’t yet know the gender of our second child. But there’s one thing we know
for sure: If it is a boy, we will begin the brit milah with the same sentiment as
we began the bat brit: What we did for our daughter, we will do for our son.