The Sandak, the Gaon and Common Sense

The honor of the sandak

The sandak holds the baby on his knees during the circumcision. This is no mere honor. The sandak is considered the “ba’al habrit,” the master of the covenant.

Being sandak “brings wealth”

Rabbenu Peretz explains why the honor of sandak is not given twice to the same person. The Gemara in Yoma says that a Kohen who had offered the incense, the blend of spices burned in the Temple, never offered it again, “because the incense brought wealth.” So the privilege was shared among the Kohanim. The same goes for the sandak: each son gets a different sandak.

The Rema writes the same (Yoreh De’ah 265:11): “the sandak is like one who offers incense,” and so two children are not given to the same sandak.

The Vilna Gaon and common sense

The Vilna Gaon rejects this reasoning: “His words have no basis… and we have never seen a sandak grow rich.” In his view, the custom comes from the will of Rabbi Yehuda HaChasid, not from wealth.

It is interesting how far the Gaon was willing to go with common sense. One could ask the same question about many things people do as a “segulah,” and even about certain prayers: it is hard to see, statistically, that they help. Sometimes we hear a story in which the segulah worked. But here is what the author of “Darkhei David” wrote, in his introduction to tractate Sotah, about “the masters of segulot” and the stories told about them: “Usually there is a small handful of people to whom all the strange stories happen, because they really need an excellent psychiatrist.”

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