TRR 70-73

CIRCUMCISION OF TWINS

QUESTION:

If there are twins to be circumcised should there be two separate, complete services? That is to say, should all the benedictions and the prayers be recited for each twin separately? Or may the recited part of the service be in some way merged? (Asked by Rabbi Mark Staitman, Pittsburgh, PA.)

ANSWER:

The prayer part of the circumcision ceremony involves benedictions to be recited by the circumciser and the father and also a special prayer to be spoken in behalf of the child. Surely, then, each child is entitled to the prayer to be recited for its welfare and, one would say, too, that the benedictions preceding the circumcision should, therefore, also be separate for each service of circumcision. As a matter of actual practice, the reference commentary Pit . hei Teshuvah to Shulkhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 265:5, reports that in Egypt it is the established custom, when there are two children to be circumcised at the same time, that every benediction and every prayer of blessing is recited separately and completely for each child.

However although the established custom in Egypt indicates that it is proper to recite the entire service separately for each child, nevertheless the custom in this matter among the Ashkenazim seems to be less strict. The anonymous legal work, Kol Bo, actually cites a Gaon to the effect that the blessings may be merged and gives a proof of that fact from the case of the slaughtering of animals. When an animal is slaughtered, the blood must be covered by dust. But even if a hundred animals are slaughtered at one time, it is permitted to have one act of blood-covering for all of them, (Shulhan Arukh Yoreh Deah 28:9) and recite only one blessing. In fact, one might add as an example of the merging of blessings, the fact that each person must recite a blessing before partaking of food but if people are eating together at a meal, one person may say the blessing for all of them.

At all events, the custom among the Ashkenazim is, as we have mentioned above, more permissive as to combining the prayers of circumcision. Maharil (Jacob Mollin of Mainz) in the 14th century, who is a prime source for Ashkenazic minhagim, says that it happened once that there were twins brought before him for circumcision (incidentally, the Otzar Dinim Uminhagim has the wrong reference for this; this is not in the Responsa of Maharil but in the Minhagei Maharil, “The Laws of Circumcision”). This circumcision took place in the synagogue, as was the custom. Both children were brought together to the synagogue. There were also two mohalim present. The service was combined in this way: One mohel recited one blessing, the other mohel recited another blessing, and the father recited his blessing, but pluralized it. Instead of “to enter him into the covenant,” he said, “to enter them into the covenant”.

The Shullkhan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 265:5) generalizes this merger of rituals and applies it not only to where there are twins, but even when there are a number of children (not related) to be circumcised at the same time. Then there is the same merger of the services and the same re-wording of the blessing of the children from the singular to the plural.

Since therefore there is an established custom among the Egyptian Jews to keep the entire ritual separate for each when there is more than one child to be circumcised, and since contrariwise there is a widespread custom among the Ashkenazim to merge the services under these circumstances, then clearly we are not dealing here with an ab-solute law but only a difference in regional customs. Therefore, it cannot be said that in case of twins there must be or there may not be a merger of the services. We can only consider this a matter of preference; but since we are Ashkenazim, our inclination should generally be to follow the Ashkenazim custom in this matter and merge the prayer part of the service. As to twins, see also Rivash 384.

Isaac Bar Sheshet (1326 Valencia, Spain -1408 Algiers) in his Responsa #384 has a complete analysis of the problem of the service conducted at the circumcision of twins. He marshals almost every commandment at which it is possible to say one blessing or perhaps more than one. For example, the blessing over the lulav which has a number of varieties of plants and could require a number of blessings.

He comes to the conclusion that only one set of blessings should be used for the twins. He cites the following precedence: At the removal of leaven before Pesah, there is a blessing to be recited. If a man searches for the leaven in two or three houses in sequence, he still recites only the blessing for the entire procedure. Also he cites the following: Before the present custom which requires each person called up to the Torah to make the blessing before and after the reading, originally the first of the seven readers gave the opening blessing and the last of the seven readers gave the closing blessing. And so the seven different readings were subsumed under one set of blessings (M. Megillah 3:1, 21b). He ends with a further consideration, that if his reasoning is correct, that only one set of blessings for the twins is required, then one must guard against using two sets of blessings for that would be committing the sin of pronouncing a blessing unncessarily (berakhah sheena tzarikhah).