How Mickey Mouse Saved the Bris

Walt Disney might be spinning in his grave.

This morning I had the opportunity to do Hatafat Dam on a two-year-old who had been circumcised in the hospital when he was two days old. Because he is more aware than a baby is – I've more often done this on babies whose parents realized after the fact that this was a necessity for their child's bris - we needed to find a way to distract him from what was taking place.

Before we began, his mother asked me if this will take 4 1/2 minutes. Since Hatafat Dam takes less than a minute from start to finish (most of the time is making sure there is no residual bleeding) I told her 4.5 minutes would be fine. She proceeded to put on a Mickey Mouse video which he watched on her phone during the quick procedure.

 The video did the trick. He didn't notice what was being done, and when it was all over, he was still involved with Mickey Mouse. Of course, I reminded everyone present (just a few very close family members) that what we were doing was for the sake of Covenant, though perhaps a little louder than normal to counter Mickey's voice.

 Walt Disney was known to be something of an anti-Semite (see here, confirmed by a great niece - though of course, there are folks who are trying to whitewash Disney's stellar image). I wonder what he'd think if he knew he'd positively played a role in distracting a two year old when his circumcision was turned into a bris.