Retirement brings old practices and new meaning to Squirrel Hill urologist
Months of study lead Dr. Dan Gup to new profession and profound appreciation for millennia-old covenant
Dan Gup is giving back to the community by taking just a little. The retired urologist, and Temple Sinai member, is becoming a mohel.
Overseeing circumcision rites weren’t always on the Squirrel Hill resident’s radar.
“A week before I retired I was talking to a friend of mine at work, a cardiologist who belongs to Adat Shalom, and he asked me what I was going to be doing,” Gup recalled. “I said, ‘You know, ‘I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll do some volunteering, do some traveling, take some Osher courses.’”
Gup’s friend suggested becoming a mohel.
The idea was intriguing, Gup said. “I have a urology background. I like doing procedures. I like talking to families. So I thought about it.”
Gup retired in March and spent April with his wife, Terri Klein, in a Brooklyn rental. Along with visiting family, Gup dedicated his New York stay to considering becoming a mohel. He reached out to several of Pittsburgh’s non-Orthodox rabbis, as well as a Philadelphia-based mohel, about the specialty and learned about the Brit Milah Program of Reform Judaism.
Designed for Jewish medical professionals with infant circumcision proficiency, the program involves a series of Zoom courses where participants study various writings and procedures, officiate a mock ceremony and meet with a beit din (a Jewish court of law consisting of three rabbinic judges).
“To be honest, I was a little concerned when I started thinking about it: Was I really the right person for this? I’m not the most observant Jew. I had to think through that a bit,” Gup said. “But all the rabbis I spoke to were very encouraging. They said that people from different backgrounds come to this program with all different sorts of views on Judaism and how they observe it.”
Gup enrolled and began an eight-week journey. For two hours a week, he learned related liturgy, the history of brit milah and its role within Reform Judaism. Gup came to appreciate the importance of a newborn baby’s name and discovered how to share its significance with those attending a service. He heard from pediatric urologists and mohels about the procedure but also how to establish oneself in the field: where to order equipment, how to create a website, how to get insurance.
“We had some really interesting conversations,” he said. “It was a good course.”
Gup spent nearly 30 years practicing urology, but the Brit Milah Program offered something new.
“I did a lot of adult circumcision, but I really didn’t do any pediatric or newborn circumcisions,” he said.
Mastering prayers and finding meaning in a millennia-old practice is valuable, but surgical competency is where the rubber meets the road.
Gup called on colleagues who placed him back on staff at UPMC and covered his malpractice insurance. Months into retirement, Gup found himself not on a beach or golf course but at Magee-Womens Hospital rounding with its postpartum team.
“They were great,” he said.
All summer, from his East End home, the avid runner rode his bike to Oakland, met the team and worked.
“I must have done 90 to 100 circumcisions with them,” he said. “I learned the different techniques — the Gomco, the Mogen — and got very comfortable doing them. It’s not that different from adult circumcisions, but there are some differences: You use a clamp instead of stitches.”
Gup anticipated training would lead to greater ease performing the procedure. What he didn’t expect, however, was an evolving relationship to the practice.
“For a while, I sort of struggled a little bit with why is this the tradition, why has it lasted? Why is it so important?” he said.
Genesis 17:10 recounts God’s instruction to Abraham that “every male among you shall be circumcised.”
The imperative forms the brit (covenant) between God and Abraham.
Through the Brit Milah Program, Gup studied related texts and began understanding the practice’s foundational ties to Judaism.
“It is a way to mark our connection to our history,” he said. “It’s an outward sign of the covenant and the basis of who we are.”
Reaching that conclusion with such conviction is a bit surprising, he continued. “I think in my younger self, I might have been more challenged by it. But it’s a part of who we are, and I’m not in a position to say it’s not valid or that it doesn’t have a role. It’s a ritual and there’s value to rituals.”
For generations dating back to Abraham, Jews have circumcised their sons. When a parent decides to continue that practice, it’s not just about logic, Gup said. It’s about furthering a bond while also celebrating the role of family and community.
Gup’s sensibilities are part of what make him such a “mensch,” Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman said. “Dan is the kind of guy who will make families feel at ease. He’ll help be a bridge and create a connection between them and Judaism.”
The birth of a child is one of the most “significant and important moments” in a parent’s life, Fellman continued. “To have somebody who you know, who is like you, who identifies and connects with the same set of values and the same community as you do, helps create a whole new set of connections that is wonderful for the community, and wonderful for the individual family, and for the individual person. Dan gets that and he understands that he has a really golden opportunity to help people connect to Judaism.”
Gup said it’s a privilege helping people celebrate such a momentous time.
He doesn’t anticipate Orthodox families relying on his services, he said, as the Pittsburgh Jewish community already has Orthodox mohels.
But for those seeking an alternative, “Dan is filling a really essential need,” Fellman said. “We had a liberal mohel in town for a number of years, but she moved to New Jersey with her family a couple of years ago.”
Gup said he’s humbled by the position and remains amazed by the personal effect it’s had. “I think it’s opened me up a little bit to the Jewish faith and sort of something beyond my medical career, which was very based on science, and very logical and task oriented,” he said.
Becoming a mohel has “helped make me more accepting of things that I don’t necessarily understand. It’s sort of opened up certain connections — that there’s just something beyond the here and now, beyond the present.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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