Finley past through another Jewish right of passage the other day, his pidyon haben. Well it actually happened last week, Dec.16th, but I’m just getting around to writing about it now.
What is a pidyon haben you ask. Well a pidyon haben, or "redemption of the firstborn son," is a ceremony wherein the father of a firstborn male redeems his son from the temple by giving akohen (a priestly descendent of Aaron) five silver pieces, 31 days after the baby's birth. There is a bunch more back story, but I wont bore you with the details.
Now a days it is tradition to use silver dollars in lieu of silver pieces. Since I also was a first born son, my dad brought up the same silver dollars that he had used to redeem me…or at least that is what he claims. Three of the coins were from the early 1900s. But two of the coins were from the 1980s, clearly after I was born. Did he think we wouldn’t notice! Either way, it was a nice token to have and now pass down to Fin. (In case you are wondering, after the ceremony you trade the silver dollars for paper money. The money is used for tzedakah, aka charity).
So early on Wednesday morning my dad, Allison, Finley and I headed off to Temple Emunah in Lexington. We got there for the morning service and we did the pidyon haben right afterwords. The Rabbi and the small group of congregants there that morning were all very nice. Finley was calm the whole time and all went smoothly.
The 5 silver coins are now sitting on my dresser at home. I inherited the dresser from my father a few years ago, and the same coins had once sat on that same dresser, in his possession, for 30 years until he gave them to me. Now it is my turn to keep them on the dresser until Fin can use them.
What is a pidyon haben you ask. Well a pidyon haben, or "redemption of the firstborn son," is a ceremony wherein the father of a firstborn male redeems his son from the temple by giving akohen (a priestly descendent of Aaron) five silver pieces, 31 days after the baby's birth. There is a bunch more back story, but I wont bore you with the details.
Now a days it is tradition to use silver dollars in lieu of silver pieces. Since I also was a first born son, my dad brought up the same silver dollars that he had used to redeem me…or at least that is what he claims. Three of the coins were from the early 1900s. But two of the coins were from the 1980s, clearly after I was born. Did he think we wouldn’t notice! Either way, it was a nice token to have and now pass down to Fin. (In case you are wondering, after the ceremony you trade the silver dollars for paper money. The money is used for tzedakah, aka charity).
So early on Wednesday morning my dad, Allison, Finley and I headed off to Temple Emunah in Lexington. We got there for the morning service and we did the pidyon haben right afterwords. The Rabbi and the small group of congregants there that morning were all very nice. Finley was calm the whole time and all went smoothly.
The 5 silver coins are now sitting on my dresser at home. I inherited the dresser from my father a few years ago, and the same coins had once sat on that same dresser, in his possession, for 30 years until he gave them to me. Now it is my turn to keep them on the dresser until Fin can use them.
The kohen is accepting the coins and reciting prayers holding them over Finley.
We're reading prayers together next to the Rabbi.
No comments:
Post a Comment