Pay Cut: May a Mohel Charge for His Services?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

May 29, 2025

VINnews reports:

Veteran mohel R’ Emmanuel Meshulam z”l passed away suddenly in the middle of a brit ceremony. He had served as a mohel for over forty years, performing circumcisions for thousands of infants throughout the years without taking any remuneration for his efforts.

On Wednesday at noon, he arrived as usual to perform a brit milah celebration at a hall near Bilu Junction, adjacent to Rechovot. Just moments before performing the mitzvah, he suddenly collapsed. Emergency medical teams arrived at the scene and performed prolonged resuscitation efforts. He was evacuated to Kaplan Medical Center but sadly passed away, returning his soul to his Creator at the age of 89…

R’ Emmanuel Yechia Meshulam z”l was the son of Rabbi Yosef Meshulam z”l, the former Chief Rabbi of the Yemenite community in Rechovot…

For many years, he worked as a manager at Bank Leumi in the Sha’arayim neighborhood of Rechovot, while concurrently performing thousands of circumcisions.

After retiring, he devoted himself entirely to his life’s mission—circumcising infants without any financial compensation. “I do everything for the sake of Heaven,” he would always say…[1]

Not accepting compensation for bris milah is not merely a matter of personal piety—of “doing everything for the sake of Heaven”—but is apparently mandated by halacha. This article and a follow-up discuss the halachic mandate and some possible dispensations therefrom.[2]

As discussed here a couple of years ago,[3] it is generally prohibited to charge for doing a mitzvah. The Mishnah states:

If one takes his fee for judging, his verdicts are void; for testifying, his testimonies are void; for sprinkling or for consecrating chatas water, his water is like cave water and his ashes are like the ashes of an ordinary burning.

The Gemara explains:

From where do we know these laws? Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: For the pasuk says: “See I have taught you statutes and laws as Hashem, my G-d, commanded me.” Just as I was taught the Torah by Hashem for free, so too, you were taught the Torah by me for free.[4]

This would seem to apply to the mitzvah of milah. Indeed, the Rashba sharply criticizes a mohel who demanded payment for a bris and refused to perform it unless he was paid what he asked:

This mohel, how different he is in his profession from the progeny of Avraham Avinu! Throughout our regions, a poor mohel seeks out the father of the son to perform chesed with him, that he should give him his son to mal gratis, and he sends many friends in order to be rewarded with the mitzvah. But this one—where there is no other professional in the city but him—refuses to mal until the father begs door to door and gives the money to him; he is virtually demonstrating that he is not among the progeny of Avraham Avinu. We must reprimand him copiously, for he does not desire mitzvos…[5]

This position of the Rashba is codified by the Rama.[6]

Curiously, the Rashba makes no mention of the Mishnah and Gemara above, and instead he condemns the mohel on other grounds. Moreover, the Rashba and the Rama explicitly refer to a mohel who refuses to perform a bris unless he is paid. They do not necessarily object to a mohel just requesting compensation or accepting it when freely offered.

The Rambam seems to take for granted that earning a living as a mohel is entirely unobjectionable. He discusses the case of a poor man, a dayan and ben Torah, who earned his living from bris milah. A physician who had a quarrel with the dayan performed a bris within the dayan’s territory and donated his fee to the poor, declaring “I do not need this.” The Rambam sharply criticizes the physician on a variety of grounds, including improper competition (yoreid le’umnus chaveiro/masig gvul reieihu[7]), but he seems entirely supportive of the dayan’s practice of milah for pay,[8] though he doesn’t discuss why. Beginning about a couple of centuries ago, poskim have offered a variety of justifications. The remainder of this article discusses one of the most basic of these, and the follow-up will iy”H discuss some of the others.

Compensation for unemployment (agar beteila/sechar batalah)

The Gemara carves out one major exception to the Mishnah’s prohibition against charging to do a mitzvah:

Karna would take an istira (a small coin) from the non-liable party and an istira from the liable party, and then judge for them…

(The Gemara asks:) And even if he takes it in the form of a fee, is it permitted? But we learned in a Mishnah: If one takes his fee for judging, his verdicts are void.

These words apply to a fee for deciding the din; Karna would take agar beteila (compensation for unemployment).

But is agar beteila permitted? It was taught in a breisa: Despicable is the dayan who takes payment to judge, but his decision is valid…

These words apply when the dayan’s unemployment was not evident, but Karna took compensation for unemployment that was evident. For he would regularly be hired to smell the stock at a storehouse of wine, for which they would pay him a zuz.

As in the case of Rav Huna: When a lawsuit was brought before him, he would say: “Give me a man who will draw water in my stead to irrigate my fields, and I will judge for you.”[9]

Some poskim have accordingly proposed the dispensation of sechar batalah as a justification for mohalim charging. The Sho’eil Umeishiv (R’ Yosef Shaul Natanson) writes:

Why should we reprimand the mohel (who charges for his services)? On the contrary, in a large city we can say that they receive sechar batalah, because he may have to be idle most of the day due to this mitzvah, and they sometimes travel to villages and need to spend Shabbos or Yom Tov there, and they are forced to be idle for many days…[10]

Similarly, the Aruch Hashulchan writes:

I have heard about a certain large city with many Jews and few mohalim, where the mohalim refuse to mal because it disrupts their livelihoods, that the city leaders (tuvei ha’ir) hired one mohel who would not engage in any other livelihood and would receive a fixed stipend for every milah, and it is as though he is hired to the inhabitants of the city to mal their sons. This is very proper, particularly in these times, may Hashem have mercy.[11]

The obvious limitation of this approach is that it would seem to apply only where a mohel has an “evident” opportunity to generate income that he is forced to give up in order to perform a bris. (The Sho’eil Umeishiv’s reference to the need to spend Shabbos and Yom Tov in villages is thus somewhat puzzling, because Jews—with some exceptions, such as chazanim, caterers, and babysitters—do not generally work on those days.) This point is made by the Sdei Chemed (R’ Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini); he notes that the Sho’eil Umeishiv seems to maintain that because a bris sometimes disrupts the mohel’s work, that justifies him charging always. But the Sdei Chemed himself rejects this and limits sechar batalah to those occasions that the bris actually disrupts the mohel’s work.[12]

Similarly, the Nehar Mitzrayim (R’ Refael Aharon Ben-Shimon) strongly opposes charging for milah in general, but he concedes a limited dispensation where it disrupts the mohel’s livelihood or entails expenses:

But if the bris is in another city in which there is no mohel, and he goes from city to city to mal and is disrupted from his work for a day or two in order to go and return, and there are also travel expenses and the like—in situations such as these, he may take sechar batalah and expenses.[13]

[1]Yehuda Dov. Veteran Mohel Collapses During Ceremony—And His Newly Qualified Pupil Completes The Bris. VINnews. https://vinnews.com/2025/05/21/veteran-mohel-collapses-during-ceremony-and-his-newly-qualified-pupil-completes-the-bris/.

[2]This is part of a broader discussion of the parameters of the issur to charge for doing mitzvos, the many contexts in which it is nevertheless common practice, and the various justifications for this that have been offered. These articles will focus on the particular question of charging for bris milah.

Cf. R. Yossi Sprung, Ha’im Mutar Lemohel O Lerofei Lidrosh Sachar Al Bris? Parshas Lech Lecha 5780 and Mohel—Netilas Sachar Al Bris Milah (Din–She’al Ess Harav).

[3]Cash for Kidneys: May One Sell His Organs? Part 1. Apr. 27, 2023.

[4]Bechoros 29a.

[5]Shu”t HaRashba cheilek 1 siman 472.

[6]Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 261:1. Cf. Birkei Yosef ibid. os 3.

[7]As we have noted elsewhere (e.g., here), this teshuvah of the Rambam is one of the earliest known examples of the use of the term “hasagas gvul” in the sense of improper competition.

[8]Teshuvos HaRambam (Blau: Yerushalayim 5720, Volume 2) siman 273 p. 521.

[9]Ksubos 105a.

[10]Hagahos Yad Shaul to Shulchan Aruch ibid., cited in Sdei Chemed (cheilek 8) Ma’areches Rosh Hashanah siman 2 end of os 17 s.v. Shuv hisagti Sefer Ashlei Ravrevei Im Hagahos Yad Shaul (p. 309).

[11]Aruch Hashulchan ibid. se’if 6.

[12]Sdei Chemed ibid.

[13]Nehar Mitzrayim (cheilek 1) Hilchos Milah os 2 p. 101-02.