Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Lech Lecha

No Pain, No Gain?

November 7, 2024

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and you and your offspring after you: For every male among you to be circumcised.

Bereishis 17:10

Is experiencing pain a requirement to fulfill the mitzvah of bris milah? Many poskim have addressed this question in the context of whether it is permitted to anesthetize a baby prior to milah.

The Imrei Yosher rules that pain is required, based an opinion in the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah) that Avraham experienced pain during his bris and received a double reward for the mitzvah as a result. He therefore rules that any type of anesthetic is forbidden.

Other poskim are also strict: The Tzitz Eliezer cites the importance of mesorah and observes that in previous generations, anesthetics weren’t used during a bris. R’ Moshe Feinstein forbids it due to the potential danger involved in anesthesia, but he says that topical anesthetics may be permitted. The Sheivet Halevi forbids anesthesia in an adult because the nimol must be awake, either because mitzvos tzrichos kavanah or because appointing a mohel to be one’s shliach to perform the bris only works if he is awake during the bris.

Other poskim, including the Maharsham, R’ Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, and R’ Ovadia Yosef, argue that there is no need to experience pain during a bris, and the Midrash does not mandate it. In addition, they say there is no concern of shlichus or mitzvos tzrichos kavanah when a person is functioning normally but simply sleeping, and tradition alone is an insufficient concern to render anesthesia forbidden.

Some contemporary poskim say that in a regular infant bris, it is preferable not to use anesthesia, but in a more complicated bris, like that of an older adult or one that will be especially painful, it is permitted. This is the approach of the Sheivet Halevi and R’ Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, as reported by the Nishmas Avraham.