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    The sandek is an honored person at the bris upon whose lap the baby is circumcised. The origin and development of this custom is quite interesting. It actually dates back to the days of Dovid Hamelech.

    In one of his psalms, Dovid praises God by saying, “All my bones shall say, who is like You.” The Medrash Socher Tov on Tehillim expounds on this pasuk by filling in the rest of the conversation. God said to Dovid, “What will you do for Me?” Dovid answered, “With all my limbs I will serve you. With my head I will bow to you in prayer and wear tefillin. With my hair I will keep the mitzvah of not cutting off the corners of my beard.” Dovid continues by explaining how every part of his body will serve God. When he speaks about his knees he tells God, “I will use them to serve as the sandek at a brit milah.

    In a very unusual comment, the Rema, Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1525-1572 C.E.) writes that one should try to receive the honor of being a sandek. He likens it to making a mizbayach, an alter, with one’s knees and sacrificing incense or ketoret on it. To understand this comparison and why one should run after this honor, the Aruch Hashulchan refers us to a Medrash in parshat Lech Lecha. There, the Medrash tells us that when Avraham performed brit milah on the people of his household, the foreskins were placed in a pile. When the sun shone on them they began to decay and the odor ascended to the heavens. To God, this odor was like the sweet smell of the ketoret and the korban olah that was brought on the altar. The Medrash relates that God says. “When the children of Avraham come to stray from the path of Torah and sin, I will remember this smell and will be filled with mercy for them”. The Yefei Toar explains that because we were willing to spill our blood and allow a part of our bodies to decay while we were still alive, God considers it as if we had offered the choicest of sacrifices.

    The comparison of a brit milah to ketoret is not only an allegorical one, but also a practical one. The Rema writes that a father should not ask the same person to be the sandek for more than one of his children, as the ketoret was not given to the same kohen twice. It turns out that offering the ketoret made a person wealthy. In order to give all the kohanim a chance to receive this bracha, a different kohen would offer it each time it was brought.

    Many have questions on this reasoning. The Noda B’ Yehuda asks that if the sandek is like the altar for incense , then the mohel at the bris is like the kohen offering the incense and, therefore, we should say that the same mohel should not be used twice. This, however, is not the case. The Vilna Gaon also questions this by pointing out that we have never found a sandek who has became wealthy. He writes that the actual reason for this was that it was a custom from the will of Rabbi Yehuda Hachassid. The Aruch Hashulchan offers that the reason one should not give the honor of sandek twice to one person is hidden in the secrets of Kabbalah. He writes that both the Rema and Rabbi Yehuda Hachassid were steeped in Kabbalah and therefore despite the various questions on their reasoning, one should, nevertheless, follow the words of the Rema.

    The custom of honoring the rav of the community or another Torah scholar dates back to the Maharil, Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin (1365-1427 C.E.). The Maharil codified the customs of German Jewry and is very often quoted by the Rema and commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch. Indeed, the Maharil is the source for the Rema’s comments that we mentioned earlier. Although the custom of honoring a Torah scholar is not specifically mentioned by the Rema, it is a custom that seems to have been established and taken root over the generations.

    So we see that the role of the sandek at the bris has a long and prominent history. From Dovid Hamelech’s day till the present, it has always been one of those mitzvahs that allow one to both serve God and yet receive great personal honor at the same time. We also see from this discussion just how precious the mitzvah of brit milah is to our Creator. May we all merit to continuously be involved in performing these and all the other mitzvoth and may they all find favor in His eyes.