The Real Reason My Son Cried at His Bris (2-Minute Mommy Peptalk)

The Real Reason My Son Cried at His Bris (2-Minute Mommy Peptalk)

Yoni’s most painful “memory” from his bris.


This past Shabbat morning around 8 AM, my youngest, 4-year-old Yoni, woke me up.

“Eema!” he whimpered, “My bris was on Chanukah, and there were sufganiyot there! But I didn’t eat a sufganiya at my bris! So I want to have a sufganiya NOW!”

Yoni’s older siblings thought this was hilarious, and they asked him several times over the course of Shabbat about his sad bris. And each time, his regular mischievous smile was replaced by a look of pained misery as he “remembered” his bris.

Another story about Yoni.

On Chanukah, we had Yoni’s birthday party. And my daughter who always makes the family birthday cakes decided that she didn’t feel like making a cake. So instead, she bought a can of whipped cream, sprayed it onto a plate, covered it with candies and jellies and sprinkles, and presented it to Yoni with a sparkler on top.

This morning, on the way to gan, Yoni told me: “For my next birthday, I also want a whipped cream cake! That’s my favorite!”

So this morning I was thinking about these two stories.

How Yoni decided that his bris was an awful experience because he didn’t get a sufganiya. And that a pile of whipped cream prepared in 11 seconds flat by his older sister was the best birthday cake of his life.

And it reminded me, how arbitrary our judgments often are. How easy it is to decide that a day or a child or a husband or a life or a mother (and most likely that mother being judged is you) are good or bad.

But often, like Yoni’s bris and his whipped cream cake, the decision that something is good or bad is nearly entirely in our hands.

And when we make that effort to see the good in our lives and in those around it, we empower the good. By making it bigger in our hearts, we make it bigger in reality, in our lives and in those around us, as well.

2 comments

  1. What a GREAT insight to derive from this!

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