Seudas bris — סעודת ברית

A Bris can be performed without a meal, and the mitzvah is fulfilled. But our tradition does not treat the seudah as decoration. It is brought in halacha that making a seudah on the day of the Bris is itself a mitzvah, and the meal that follows is a seudas mitzvah in its own right — the moment a child’s entry into the bris of Avraham Avinu is not merely carried out, but rejoiced over.

What the child receives from it

• A mitzvah done with simcha. The same act, done with joy, is not the same act. His Bris is remembered by everyone there as a simcha, not as a procedure.
• The brachos of everyone present. At the seudah those gathered bless him that he grow to Torah, to chuppah and to maasim tovim. Those brachos are said over him in the first days of his life.
• The zechus of the assembled. Jews coming together to rejoice at his entry into the covenant is itself a merit, and it accompanies him.
• A community that has received him. He is not brought into the bris privately. He is brought in before his people, and they sit down together over it.

What the Rebbe of Rachmastrivka told an American

In Av 5779 an avreich came before the Rebbe of Rachmastrivka shlit”a in Yerushalayim and mentioned that he was making a Bris for a grandchild. The Rebbe, hearing he was American, asked how a seudas bris is conducted in America. He was told: a few platters of cheese and some sandwiches, and people take a little home with them, because everyone is hurrying to work and nobody wants meat in the morning.

The Rebbe found it hard to believe, and called in a second American to ask whether this was really so. It was.

The Rebbe instructed that man to go back and make seudos for each of his sons: a minyan present at the least, good fish, generous בשר בקר, fine wine, zemiros of bris milah sung aloud, and the tzibbur blessing the father and the child with a glad heart. At each seudah he was to announce which son it was being made for, by name. And he did — six seudos over a few days. When he returned to Yerushalayim some time later, the Rebbe asked him: and what about your own seudas bris? That one had been milchig too. So another was made, for himself, before ten men who blessed him.

The Belzer Rebbe, the Maharid zt”l, said much the same. To a man who asked a bracha that his son should have a chushek for learning, he first asked whether a seudas bris had been made. It had not — the family had been struggling, and there had been only a little mashke in the beis medrash after the Bris. Gather ten men, the Rebbe told him, make them a seudah in place of the seudas bris, and sing shiros v’sishbachos there — and through that your son will come close to the Torah. And he said further: the segulah for a child to grow into a talmid chochom is to give בשר בקר at the seudas bris.

Both accounts are brought by Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Kovalsky shlit”a in Mesikus HaDaf HaYomi.

Every family should have this, and no family should have to explain why they cannot.

If you would like me to arrange the seudah, I can — it simply has to be ordered in advance. And where the cost is a difficulty, for whatever reason, there is often a sponsor. You need only say the word when we speak.

Three ways to do it

The Magen Avraham writes that this seudah is made with meat and wine, for simcha (Orach Chaim 249:6). B’dieved poultry or fish is enough, but it is proper to be mehader for בשר בהמה — and it is for precisely this reason that meat is permitted at a seudas bris even during the Nine Days. Wine belongs on the table for the same reason.

Tell me which of the three suits you and I will take care of the ordering.

If the seudah could not be made on the day

It happens, for every kind of reason, and it is not lost. Where the Bris itself was postponed — for jaundice, say — the seudah simply belongs to the day the Bris actually takes place, and is a seudas mitzvah in every respect. Where the Bris was on time but the seudah was not, it can still be made afterwards. Speak to me and we will arrange it.

Both of the accounts above are exactly this: seudos made long afterwards, for sons already grown, and in one case for a man’s own bris. It is never too late.

At the seudah itself

These are the things the Rebbe told that avreich to do:

• Have at least a minyan present
• Serve good fish, generous בשר בקר, and fine wine
• Say aloud which child the seudah is being made for, by name
• Sing the zemiros of bris milah
• Let those present bless the father and the child with a glad heart
• Before bentching, say נודה לשמך בתוך אמוני
• At the end of Birkas HaMazon, say the HaRachaman for bris milah