A mohel performs brit milah, the ritual circumcision of a Jewish boy on the eighth day of his life, a rite understood in Jewish tradition as fulfilling the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 17 and observed, with only narrow exceptions for medical necessity, across the great majority of Jewish religious practice regardless of denominational affiliation, making it one of the most widely retained ritual observances even among otherwise largely secular Jewish families. Training for the role traditionally combines apprenticeship under an experienced mohel with instruction in the specific religious laws governing the rite's timing, method and the accompanying blessings and ceremony, and many contemporary mohalim, particularly in North America, also hold formal medical credentials as physicians, reflecting an increasing expectation, though not a universal requirement, that the practitioner combine religious authorization with recognized surgical competence.
The practice has drawn periodic public health scrutiny and, in some jurisdictions, regulatory attention, particularly regarding metzitzah b'peh, a traditional practice among some Orthodox communities involving direct oral suction as part of the rite, which health authorities in several cities have linked to rare cases of neonatal herpes infection, producing an ongoing and sometimes contentious negotiation between religious practice, parental choice and public health regulation that has played out most visibly in New York City health department rules adopted and revised over the 2010s.