Brevity

The young man has emerged from yesterday slightly diminished in body, but, we hope, augmented in spirit.

Yesterday, Ezra had his bris. We staged this "most ancient of Jewish traditions," as our mohelet put it, in our living room among family and friends. We went into it with a certain amount of ambivalence, since our takes on religion and God range from mushy to skeptical. But I think his grandpa John framed it best at the ceremony's beginning. As he described it, the bris is really an act of optimism -- a commitment to living an ethical life and to making meaning in the world. That's a covenant we can get behind.

The ceremony was beautiful -- even Ezra thought so. One interesting tradition that was new even to the good rabbi -- apparently, it is customary to bury the foreskin in the backyard once you've separated it from its original owner. At the ceremony's end, Grandpas John and Mike, Uncle Josh and Papa Gabe went into our courtyard with a spoon and put that thing in the ground. I'm hopeful that a new penis will grow there next spring.

The past 24 hours have been taken up with talking and eating. Mainly eating. Ezra seems to have recovered well, and has been sleeping like a champ much of the day. My cat continues to behave like a crazed old woman waving her broom at the rascally teenagers who have moved onto her block. And all is well with the world.

With love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez