Pidyon HaBen

{Note:  Pidyon HaBen (redemption of the firstborn son) is a Jewish ceremony wherein the father of a firstborn male redeems his son by giving a Cohen (a descendant of Aharon, the High Priest) five silver coins, thirty days after the baby’s birth}. 

The following article was written by Tal Gilad in Hebrew and translated into English by Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks.

From here to there, I find myself, one day in a Pidyon HaBen ceremony, at some friends’ home. The last time that I attended such an event was at my son’s Pidyon HaBen which too place twenty years ago.

I must admit that I do not get excited by events in which the subject of the event is not asked whether he wishes to be there or not. The same is, more or less,  true for weddings but there, at least one still has the theoretical option to jump out the window and escape to Ben Gurion airport, a privilege which one does not have at the age of one month. Make no mistake, I am all for it, I just pity the baby and his parents surrounded by salivating aunts and uncles who possess a sense of humour older than wine.

Still, a pleasant surprise awaited me as soon as I arrived, when I realized that the ceremony will be conducted by my dear friend, Yechiel Safra (yes, that same one from the programme “It is Language Time”), one of the most amazing people that I was fortunate to meet.

 It was clear that this occasion, was not going to be boring. However, one glance at the audience, raises doubts in me: the scenery is entirely secular, most of whom look younger than the spectacled-bald-enlightened breed that is travelling to attend critiquing an exhibition in Berlin.

The parents themselves look like children, a bit stressed, trying to smile. The father is still not certain about handling the child, gets advice and light reproof from female relatives. Oy, how well I remember this.

The ritual commences and I realize how convenient it is to be a guest and not a frightened parent. You can listen and even understand when the mother is reading certain explanations from her notes. And then she invites Safra. The well experienced fox stands up and while walking starts chanting with his thundering voice, the proper Biblical trope, “And G-d spoke unto Moshe…..” I am always envious of people who do not need a microphone and who were blessed with the voice that I only have when I have a cold. The sudden attack finds the spectacled-bold unprepared and in need of that split second to grasp the cynicism. They tense up and you realize that it suddenly interests them. No, it is more than mere interest. It is something that is reminiscent of methods used to locate spies: someone behind them utters something in their native tongue and checks to see who instinctively turns, before they contemplate their move. No use trying, Judaism is there, in all of them, underneath a crust that is much thinner than we believe.

Safra does not hold the baby and does not raise him upward, as they did to my son twenty years ago, a moment where my blood froze and a decision to become a Buddhist ripened. It turns out that it is not an essential or inseparable part of the ceremony. For a second, I retroactively get upset but in no time return to the present. Here, the parents continue to hold the baby. And those who remember what being a fresh parent knows how comforting it is to all involved.

“Firstborn son, you shall redeem after thirty days,” I did not know the explanation it formed the Hebrew acronym of “Bresheet,” (in the beginning). The origin of the text is, of course, associated with the tenth plague that preceded the Exodus from Egypt, which spared the firstborn sons of Bnei Yisrael. “And each of firstborn sons you shall redeem.” Jews enjoy doubting themselves. There is a cosmopolitan halo about it. The Exodus from Egypt? No proof! We are enlightened, scientific, and hopelessly sober.

Many of the researchers who are, with all due respect, no less scientific and sober than the bald-spectacled above, are fairly certain that the Exodus from Egypt did take place. A blend of shreds evidence, the Egyptian Ipouwer Papyurs which even the enlightened of the enlightened will have to chuckle while reading the text and at least say: “ This, of course, proves nothing, yet it is interesting” and, mainly, the use of that very rare commodity, common sense.

There is no reason for the presence of such a popular story if it has no basis in reality. Nations do not invent story that describe themselves as originating from slaves who had escaped. It is a story that outlines  an ongoing, not always complimentary, story which involves many people and generally sounds credible.

The ceremony continues, a mixture of light and heavy, the course of redeeming the baby is performed according to all rules and regulations. What would you prefer the baby or the shekels? Surprisingly enough, the father elects to have the baby and we reach the stage of Birkat Cohanim.

And then comes the genuine great surprise.

Some of the participants (not only the uncle with the kippah from Nes - Tziona which everyone seems to have) mumble lines from the blessings along with Safra. I know because I learned it from my son. But where in the world does a Tel Aviver who produces a feature and has a cat, know it? And here – unbelievable, or, in fact, why not – there appears a little tear. Not one facial muscle moves, the young man sits with folded hands, no one would have noticed if not for the wipe, as if by happenstance, of the eye and quickly reverts to folding his arms. Someone once told me that there is not one person in Yisrael who is secular.

Safra concludes, explains a few points and leaves us all with a smile. The mother ends with a few Torah words and everyone’s attention is shifted to the plates. All of this in less than a quarter of an hour, a feel-good timeout and unveils in you what you truly are. Secular or observant, Leftist or Right wing, a believer or very lucid. A Jew.

Shabbat Shalom.