MO Woman

Celebrating Birth

A new article is available on Torah Currents by Judy Slome Cohain about not taking the miracle of birth for granted.

Girls' Simchas: Creativity vs. Uniformity, Part I

My husband and I celebrated the birth of our two daughters with a full-blown simchat bat ceremony. It just felt completely right to show our gratitude to G-d for giving us a daughter, just as we did through a brit milah for our son.

However, both our simchat bat ceremonies and other ones that I have been to, feel different (for better or for worse) from the experience of a brit milah. Obviously, the aspect of milah (circumcision) is unique to the brit. However, even when the simchat bat includes meaningful tefillot, like the brit, it just has a different feel to it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and might change as simchat bat ceremonies become more widespread.