Too Much Skin in the Game

City health officials are investigating the death of a baby boy who was one of three infants to contract herpes after a rabbi circumcised them.

Ten days after Rabbi Yitzhok Fischer performed religious circumcisions on twins last October, one died of herpes and the other tested positive for the virus, according to a complaint filed by the health department in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Under Jewish law, a mohel — someone who performs circumcisions — draws blood from the circumcision wound. Most mohels do it by hand with a suction device, but Fischer uses a practice rare outside strict Orthodox groups where he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin.

“My client is known internationally as a caring, skilled, and conscientious mohel,” Kurzmann said.

I would like to think I am tolerant of all religions, but I have to ask - where does it say in the Torah that this needs to be done orally!?!