Life-Cycle > Circumcision book
YITSḤAḲ BEN MOSHE, MI- VERONA.
Pinkas Mohel: min ha-shanim 5479-5478 (1719-1728).
Manuscript in Hebrew on paper.
Italy, 1728.
MS X893 Se32
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This manuscript contains the order of prayers and Psalms recited at a circumcision. The mohel who used it, Yitshak ben Moshe, kept a meticulous ledger of the names of 29 baby boys he circumcised (including multiple children from the same families). He enumerates the day and date of circumcision in individual listings, as well as the name of the baby’s father, the man and woman respectively chosen as sandek and sandeket (honorees of the family who hold the child during the ceremony), and the name of the new baby. Every entry concludes with the mohel’s prayer for the child, “God should raise him and merit him to Torah, mitzvot, and good deeds. Amen let it be His will.”