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Ekev: Cutting Away the Foreskin

8/4/2012

 
I had the honor and pleasure last week of attending the bris of a baby boy. I've written before about b'rit milah and how the ritual has a timeless quality. Witnessing it, one feels connected to all the generations reaching back into the Jewish past and forward into the future, all joined by an ancient covenant. 

This bris felt every bit as magical. Both mother and father seemed deeply and sincerely overjoyed to make their son a part of eternity through this ritual.
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The mohel's table is a strange mixture of the modern and the ancient—surgical instruments and a tallit bag, anesthesia and a kiddush cup
I am, of course, aware that there are people who feel uneasy about Jewish ritual circumcision. There are some who find it difficult to accept what they regard as cosmetic surgery for an eight-day-old boy, regardless of its spiritual significance and regardless of ample scientific evidence of circumcision's health benefits. I make no apologies for it. The ritual is emotionally difficult, even for those who most deeply appreciate its meaning. That difficulty, I think, is part of what makes the ritual so meaningful.

Looking over the table that the mohel set up for the bris, I saw a strange mixture of the modern and the ancient—surgical instruments and a tallit bag, anesthesia and a kiddush cup. Even after thousands of years, a bris still juxtaposes our fear of blood and pain with our reverence for the sacred and eternal. We confront our fears and our awe all at the same time.

There is a fitting connection to ritual circumcision in this week's Torah portion (Ekev). Moses stirs the Israelites with these words:

See, the heavens and the heaven's heavens belong to Adonai your God, the earth and everything on it. Yet Adonai fell in love with your ancestors and God chose you, their descendants, from all peoples, just as today. So, cut away the foreskin of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. (Deuteronomy 10:14-16)

The reference to cutting the "foreskin of your hearts" is dramatic, maybe even wince inducing. It is an uncomfortable metaphor for us, and it is meant to be so. We should feel uncomfortable about our reluctance to appreciate the gifts we have received.

With beautiful words, the Torah reminds us that we live in a universe that is wondrous beyond our ken. (What on earth are "the heaven's heavens"? It can only mean something that is a mystery to our feeble understanding.) Yet, despite our seeming insignificance in this vast reality, we have been given gifts of immeasurable love—life and earth, thoughts and feelings. We should live in perpetual gratitude. So, why do we forget so easily? Why do we dull our minds to the miracles around us and within us?

Moses pleads with us to remember. He extols us to cut away the barrier that stifles our awareness. And that, I think, is also the meaning of the bris. We are meant to be reminded, uncomfortable as it may be, of the fact that we are made of vulnerable flesh and blood ... but we are so much more. We are feeble creatures that, yet, can be joined in covenant with God. We are temporary and transient, yet we can be in dialogue with eternity.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Ekev: Deuteronomy vs. Job
Brit Milah
IWe link
8/5/2012 12:03:21 am

Thanks for making the connection between brit mila and "cutting away the foreskins of your heart". I am a regular reader of your blog from Germany. As you may know there is a lot of discussion here about circumcision because a muslim doctor was brought to a local court after complications of a circumcision.

People here are not against circumcision because of the aspect of "cosmetic surgery". Most arguments point at the right of the child to have a "complete body" and not a mutilated one and this is higher than the right of freedom of religion.

Reb Jeff
8/5/2012 12:51:34 am

Thanks for the comment. I suspect that talk of a right to a "complete body" is actually cover for something deeper and darker, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic sentiments. Jewish tradition teaches that we are born "incomplete," without knowledge, understanding, strength or ability--and also without the covenant. B'rit milah is seen as a step toward completion, not incompletion. Perhaps the "complete body" folks are just substituting their own pseudo-religious ideas for the religions they dislike.

Reb Rachel link
8/5/2012 01:09:23 am

I struggled with my own son's brit milah. I knew it was the right thing to do; I wanted him to be entered into the covenant in this way; and yet when the day came, I was a weepy mess, my heart in my throat.

Some of that, to be sure, was postpartum hormones. And some of it was sleep deprivation. But some of it was my own physical and emotional response to the reality that someone was going to hurt my son. Of course we do things which hurt our children all the time, for their own good; vaccinations are an obvious one. But this was harder for me, or hard in a different way.

It's a funny thing to admit, isn't it? But I think we do no favors to the parents we serve if we ignore the reality that for some of us, this is a really difficult commandment to fulfill.

Reb Jeff link
8/8/2012 04:21:08 am

Hi, folks. What I discovered after I put up this post is that there is a concerted effort by people who are ideologically opposed to circumcision to attack anything on the web that talks about it in positive terms, even when it is in the context of a religious obligation. That's okay. They have a right to speak their peace, just as I have the right to set the terms of the discussion here.

I'm not interested in discussing the medical merits of circumcision. I am not a medical expert and no one should come to this site looking for medical expertise. Even those who believe that circumcision is an unnecessary choice based solely on medical criteria should be able to respect that, for some people, it is a matter of religious duty. That should be the end of the conversation. If it's not for you, you can take the conversation elsewhere.

I have turned off the comments on this post.

The point of this blog is to discuss creating and nurturing joyful Judaism, not to castigate Judaism. I know that some folks will want to debate whether ritual circumcision can ever be joyful. Sorry, I don't.

If you came to this site looking for a place to make your point about protecting baby's from an ancient ritual that has profound meaning for Jews and Judaism, you have come to the wrong place. C'est la vie.


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