Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: December 04, 2017 10:54PM
CateS Wrote:
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> You have to pick your scabs first? That sounds
> unhygienic.
No...you wait until the scabs flake off naturally.
In our conversion-to-Judaism class, the males who were converting had to get either their circumcisions, or their symbolic circumcisions (for those who were already circumcised; in the symbolic ones, a sterile surgical needle is used to produce a single drop of blood from the head of the penis, and the appropriate blessings in Hebrew are being said at the appropriate times during both of these processes), during a specific time frame (I think it was two or three weeks), so that any scabs from those procedures would have naturally flaked off by the time we (as a class, since we were using the Pacific Ocean as our mikvah) did our mikvah dunks, each of which dunks was supervised by our teachers.
Each male in our class who was converting was given a list of names of participating M.D.'s who were also qualified Jewish mohels. Our male classmates picked whichever doctor they wanted, made an appointment for the procedure, and then went in to the doctor's office, at the appointed time, like any other patient.
According to the post-procedure reports (we, the women in our class, were quite intensely fascinated by all of this!!!), the doctor came into the treatment room, introduced himself, put on his Jewish ritual clothes (kipah and prayer shawl) over his regular doctor's scrubs, said the blessings in Hebrew, did the procedure, and then said the blessings in Hebrew which are for after the procedure, and appropriate post-op treatment was given for sterilization and bandaging. Instructions were provided to the patient on how to take care of the surgical wounds until full healing occurred, the doctor signed the circumcision certificate in his capacity as qualified Jewish mohel, the circumcision certificate was given to the patient...
...and then, at a later time which can be predicted with some accuracy, the scabs would have naturally flaked off, and the fairly-newly-circumcised (or symbolically circumcised) man was ready for the mikvah (another of the essential three requirements of a valid conversion to Judaism: circumcision or symbolic circumcision for males...the mikvah...and appearing before a rabbinical court, which is called a Bet Din).
(The third requirement, appearing before a Jewish ritual court, turned out to be not scary in the least...although most of us were trepidatious beforehand. The "judges" on the court were our rabbi/teachers, and we all knew each other well by that point, so while we converts were all aware of the gravity of what we were doing, there was also a concurrent and happy sense of "WE DID IT!!!"...and more than a bit of light-hearted humor, too.)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2017 10:59PM by Tevai.