Mohel have the training, they designate a "mohel". The mohel is specially trained in circumcision and the rituals surrounding the procedure. Many "mohalim" are doctors or rabbis (and some are both) or cantors and are required to receive appropriate training both from the religious and medical fields. Traditionally, the "mohel" uses a knife to circumcise the newborn. Today, doctors and some non-Orthodox "mohalim" use a perforating clamp before they cut the skin. The clamp makes it easier to be precise and shortens recovery time. Orthodox "mohalim" have rejected perforating clamps, arguing that by crushing and killing the skin it causes a
If This Is a Man (German for "sub-humans"), and to Levi's examination of the degree to which it was possible for a prisoner in Auschwitz to retain his or her humanity. The poem explains the title and sets the theme of the book: humanity in the midst of inhumanity. The last part of the poem, beginning "meditate", explains Levi's purpose in having written it: to record what happened so that later generations will ponder (a more literal translation of "meditare") the significance of the events he lived through. It also parallels the language of the "V'ahavta", the Jewish prayer that commands followers to remember and