LECH LECHA
DECISIVELY INCISIVE
The issue of circumcision has been in the news lately, and not for positive reasons. A campaign to ban the ancient ceremony, spearheaded by a Jewish man no less, was led in the city of S. Francisco this time last year. It was, thankfully, soundly defeated. There have been similar pushes elsewhere in the United States. All of this ongoing commotion is despite the well-documented overwhelming health benefits from circumcision.
Even more recently, a court in Cologne, Germany, citing “bodily harm” reasons, shamefully banned circumcision. That is, in the entire country. While the blood of over one million children slaughtered by that country is still not dry, the irony of telling their Jewish citizens not to “hurt” themselves or their children is not missed…
Countries and court systems which seem to have no inhibitions allowing abortions that can potentially be much more harmful than circumcision, suddenly have a problem with the “barbarousness” of circumcision.
The Jewish practice of circumcision has been a favorite target of anti-Semitic countries and nations throughout history. The ancient Greeks and Romans reveled in disallowing it and even murdering the parents for doing so. This trend continued even as recently as the USSR with their communist agenda bent on obliterating any vestige of Judaism from their “utopian socialist heaven,” as they applied great pressure and persecution regarding Jewish people practicing circumcision.
Historical enemies of the Jewish people have understood that harming the practice of circumcision would not just hurt the Jewish people and their tradition of how they raised children, but would go a long way to impede the future of the Jewish people as well.
Circumcision, or, as is commonly referred to in Jewish lingo, “Bris” (which means “Covenant”), is one of the fundamental laws of Judaism. The overwhelming majority of Jewish people, including those who consider themselves non-observant, will have their newborn sons circumcised.
According the Talmud and Jewish law, circumcision is so critical that it precedes everything, even the study of Torah. That is evident from the Torah itself: In three places, the Torah mentions how it, the Torah, is a covenant between the Almighty and His people. Regarding circumcision, the term “Bris,” or covenant, appears a total of thirteen times.
This is the reason the Bris is taken so seriously, and why, indeed, the common word for it is “Bris.” [It must be pointed out that, according the Talmud, women are created with the covenant ingrained within them from birth. In the words of the Talmud, “A woman is [born] as though she is already circumcised.” (Avodah Zarah 27,a)]
The popularity of this ritual is rooted in the end of this week’s Torah portion, “Lech Lecha.” The Torah states: “G-d said to Abraham: ‘as for you, you should keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you, throughout their generations…: Every male among you should be circumcised… at the age of eight days’.” (B’raishis (Genesis 17:7-12.)
The connection of the ritual of circumcision to the patriarch Abraham is so strong that, to this day, the blessing recited by the father as the circumcision takes place contains the reference to Abraham. This is a tradition that has generally been followed for over thirty-five centuries.
The question, though, begs to be asked: Let’s face it: This ritual is not fun. It requires snipping off a piece of skin from a sensitive area in the body. There is blood involved, and many somber faces around. There is an inevitable crying 8-day old infant. The “Mohel,” the one performing this ritual, must be highly-qualified, steady-handed, and extremely skilled. He is entrusted with a ritual with serious medical ramifications. So solemn is the atmosphere that those from Jewish Ashkenazic traditions do not recite the “Shehechiyanu” blessing, usually recited at happy and exciting occasions, as pain of the child is unavoidable. (Those from Jewish Sefardic traditions celebrate the overwhelming excitement of the boy’s entry into the covenant, despite the pain of the newborn.)
The Torah is very clear, throughout its many laws, rules and mandates, that personal harm, in any form, is to be avoided at all costs. Judaism teaches that one’s body is on loan from the Almighty. It is up to the individual to do whatever necessary to take care and look after one’s body. Any form of mutilation – aside from some minor ear piercing, and so forth – is strictly forbidden to the highest degree. It is a grave sin to inflict a wound either onto oneself or onto a fellow human being. When it comes to medicine, Jewish law is, once again, very clear: One must do whatever it takes for healing and for health. The body is holy, for it is the vehicle with which one serves the Divine Creator.
And yet, the Torah is very clear about the Bris: It is a covenant, etched and inscribed onto the very skin of every male, done so amid blood and pain to a helpless eight-day old infant. Come to think of it, it does seem barbaric! Could the Creator of all things not have come up with something less vicious?
It is all about the Bris, a covenant. The word “Bris,” translated into English as covenant, implies an unbreakable pact between two parties. A “Bris” in Hebrew means that whoever is joined and united with this concord and treaty will never, and can never, be removed and ended from the bind of this covenant. The circumstances may change, the world may change, but the covenant will not – even if it may make no sense to humans. The rainbow promise, for instance, is an example: After the Flood of Noah, there was a Bris, a covenant, made between the Almighty and the inhabitants of the earth. Represented by the rainbow, there will never again be a universal flood to wipe out all living creatures. This is a binding promise, never to end, no matter what, even if the dwellers on earth do not deserve it.
It is for this reason that circumcision is performed on a completely helpless infant, one who can neither react, nor think, nor even appreciate the magnitude of what is happening. The Bris is a covenant between the infinite and unlimited Almighty, above human logic and comprehension. Since the intention is a Bris, an eternal covenant which transcends logic or circumstances, it is preferred that the person with whom the Almighty is forging this Bris be in a state where logic and appreciation do not get in the way. As soon as humanly possible, which is on the eighth day of life, the Bris is performed.
Since, as mentioned, this ritual is what connects a person to the Almighty for all eternity, two other details of this ritual also emerge: 1) That it be performed not just with the person, but actually upon the person; and 2) That it remain with the person for life.
And so, the Bris is designed to be on the actual flesh of a person, and to remain on the flesh as long as the person lives. In this manner, the circumcised will, in every single moment of his life, be physically imbued with the awareness and reminder of this Bris, this unbreakable connection with the Almighty.
This mandate of the ritual circumcision, then, is unlike any other commandment presented by the Torah. In all other instances, the person and the material with which one performs the commandment are two distinct entities. Once the hand has dropped charity into a box or into the hand of the recipient, the directive has been fulfilled. The hand then goes one way and the money another way. It is the same with words of prayer, eating Matzah on Passover, lighting the Menorah on Chanukah, or honoring one’s parents: Once the ritual has occurred and the obligation has been fulfilled, the person moves on his or her own way.
Being circumcised, however, means that the person spends the rest of his life with this directive. It will follow him wherever he will be, 24-7, even to the grave.
This is why this lifelong connection begins in so visibly physical and bloody a way. The connection is designed to permeate the person in the most complete way, even his flesh and blood of one of the lower extremities.
It is this innate and complete connection, this “Bris,” that has led the Jewish people throughout their history. And, for whatever reason, it is this connection that has been targeted by the enemies of the Jewish people.
The unique spiritual benefit applied precisely to the physical body is lost on all those who claim, from a “humanitarian” standpoint, that circumcision should be stopped. This is an insignia, an emblem, incised onto the very body of every Jewish boy, so that, as long as he lives, he will be constantly aware of who he is, and to Whom he is eternally bound.
SUMMARY: It takes a physical mark on the flesh of every male to ensure that the spiritual connection remains constant.