Michael is invited to his nephew’s bris after years of religious divergence and estrangement from his orthodox Jewish family. Immediately upon arrival, Michael, a doctor and trained mohel, determines that his sister’s eight-day-old baby is “unfit” to be circumcised. His father, Yekusiel — who Michael hasn’t seen in nearly a decade and who is clearly very ill — disagrees with Michael, citing his superior expertise as a long-time mohel and rabbi. Yehudis, the mother of the child and older sister to Michael, is in between the two characters, knowing they’re opposing beliefs and also hyper-aware of the ways they’ve hurt each other in the past.

As the circumcision hangs in the balance, Michael and his family recount the ways they disagree, the ways they’ve hurt each other, and try to find some semblance of connection in their disconnection. Michael’s parents feel stabbed in the back, since not only did Michael leave their religion, he also became an internet personality who openly wonders about the origins and causes for anti-Semitism. Michael, for his part, has felt unseen, misunderstood, and rejected by his parents since he was very young, from the first moment he expressed any desire to live a different kind of life. Both pains for both sides seem intractable.