tice can be traced back to the Byzantine tradition.^72 This would explain why
the custom can be found in both Ashkenaz and Italy.^73 For example, in the
thirteenth-century Italian book Sefer haTanya, the circumcision ritual de-
scription includes two ba’alei brit, the “big” and the “little” one.^74 This seems
to be a variation on the Ashkenazic custom of having one ba’al brit. In con-
clusion, although we cannot pinpoint the exact time when this custom origi-
nated, it was clearly part of the Ashkenazic tradition. I would also suggest that
the frequent mention of ba’alei brit in twelfth- and thirteenth-century sources
points to a new and heightened importance of its role.
Although the terms sandekand ba’al britdo not appear in earlier sources,
we should perhaps look for people who might have filled the same role, even
if they were called by other names. Obviously, someone had to hold the baby
on his lap at the circumcision ceremony. Most sources from before the me-
dieval period, however, mention only the father in this capacity and do not as-
sign much importance to the holding of the baby. See, for example, a Gaonic
source attributed to R. Nissim Gaon:
The elders of the generation told me that on the day that [my] father, our teacher,
Abba Aluf, brought me into the covenant, when he came to the synagogue with
me on his arm, he sat for one moment on the prepared chair and then he stood
up and placed me on the other chair of circumcision. And after he went out, they
asked him what the reason for this was, for [they said that] they had never seen
anyone doing this. And he said, I have learned from the elders that this prepared
chair is for Elijah and he is the angel of circumcision and I sat on it with the child
so that perhaps he would bless the child for me, that he find wisdom in his
blessing.^75This story describes a different custom that does not include the ba’al brit. The
father brings the baby to synagogue and holds him. No additional figure, such
as the ba’al brit, is mentioned.
The thirteenth-century author R. Isaac b. Moses mentions the holding of the
baby by someone other than the father and attributes this custom to R. Sherira
Gaon (ca. 906–1006). He says: “Like R. Sherira Gaon said: It is a custom in
Israel to prepare a chair covered with a mantle next to the ba’al brit out of re-
spect for Elijah of blessed memory who is called the angel of circumcision.”^76
R. Isaac’s quotation from R. Sherira is meant to explain the custom of Elijah’s
chair and not the role of ba’al brit. This custom with the chair is indeed one
that can be dated back to Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer (eighth century), where no
mention of a ba’al brit is made.^77 It is unclear from this source whether this
role is performed by someone other than the father and if in fact the ba’al brit
is part of the same set of practices we are familiar with for Ashkenaz. Since this
reference to the ba’al brit appears only once, in an Ashkenazic source of the
thirteenth century, the claim that that this was a widespread Gaonic custom
seems far-fetched.