On a Texas Army Base, a Bris in a Military-Issue Sukkah
by Yisrael Eliashiv – chabad.org
It was an unusual Sukkot gathering at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, a mix of service members in uniform mingling with civilians who had been cleared to enter the base.
After all, it isn’t every day that a brit milah (or bris) takes place on a U.S. Army base—let alone in the Army’s own sukkah.
The meal inside was no caterer’s work. Every dish had been prepared in the Jewish chaplain’s own kitchen, and all of it was for the guest of honor, an eight-day-old boy who had not yet been given his name.
‘Obviously in the Sukkah’
Most notices for a brit simply give a time and an address. The one sent by Chaplain (Maj.) Menachem “Mendy” Stern, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi who serves as the Jewish Army chaplain at the base, also asked whether the receiver needed a base pass.
Stern’s part in the occasion had begun weeks earlier, when a Jewish service member stationed on base had told him she was expecting.
The day after Yom Kippur, she called again, telling him the baby had arrived. It was a boy, and she and the baby were both doing well.
“I immediately started the coordination to bring a mohel,” Stern said.
A reserve military chaplain who is also a certified mohel was available, and they arranged to fly him in. That left the question of where to hold the celebration.
“Obviously, because it was Sukkot, it would be held in the sukkah!,” Stern said.
The Army’s sukkah stands behind the Stern home on base, which also has the installation’s only kosher kitchen. Every year, soldiers help the rabbi put up the sukkah before the holiday and take it down when it ends, and Jewish troops use it throughout Sukkot.
The Army traditionally pays for the mohel, Stern said, but not for the rest of a bris. His wife, their daughters and a daughter’s friend, who was visiting for the holiday, did all the cooking and baking themselves. The result, Stern said, “was a meal that could rival the best of the best kosher caterers in New York or Miami.”
‘Could Not Have Planned It Better’
About 30 guests came, roughly half military and half civilian.
Before the ceremony, Stern and the mohel, both officers, gave the family what’s known in military lingo as a “mission brief,” the step-by-step briefing soldiers receive before an operation. They explained what would happen and showed the family the instruments, sterilized and sealed.
Stern served as sandek. The baby’s aunt and grandmother carried him in. A Jewish chaplain from the nearby Air Force installation recited the blessings as they welcomed this child into the Covenant of Abraham and gave the boy his name: Shraga Feivel ben Avraham.
Earlier that day, just after the tables had been set, Stern felt rain begin to fall and went outside expecting the worst. A hurricane had been forecast to hit the region that day. Instead, a brief drizzle fell from what looked like a cloudless sky and stopped almost as soon as it started.
Stern counts it as hashgacha pratit, Divine providence, along with everything else that came together.
“It was beautiful,” he said. “We could not have planned it better.”