The New Jewish Baby Book

Title: The New Jewish Baby Book: Names, Ceremonies & Customs - A Guide for Today's Families
Series:
Published by: Jewish Lights
ISBN13: 978-1580232517
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Overview

The New Jewish Baby Book is a guide to rituals and celebrations attendant upon the arrival of children into the world and into the Jewish community. Given the diversity in the Jewish community, there is information for intermarried, interfaith and GLBTQ+ families. The book includes a complete description of brit milah (the covenant of circumcision), a comprehensive guide to brit bat, (covenants for daughters), and information about adoption in Jewish tradition.

The New Jewish Baby Book is full of practical ideas for Jewish ways to greet the arrival of your bundle of joy and celebrates the profound wonder and the awe of new parenthood.


Excerpt

Every Jewish Baby is a link in a chain that extends back to Sinai, when according to Midrash (the Jewish literature of biblical interpretation) the souls of all Jews — even those yet unborn — were present for the giving of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

Every Jewish baby is a triumph of life over death, especially after the annihilation of so many Jewish children in the Holocaust.

And every Jewish baby embodies the ancient longing for redemption; for a world as innocent and peaceful as a newborn’s face.

A story is told: God commands us to perform countless acts of love. How can we begin to obey such a difficult commandment? The answer lies (or soon will lie) in your arms. In every smile, every diaper change, every sleepless night, every lullabye, every wordless prayer of thanks, in the unending ways we care for and teach and protect our children, we perform countless acts of love. And the world is made holier. And so are we.