The Importance of Circumcision in Jewish Law

Originally published on Huffington Post

There are few aspects of Jewish life that have been debated as heatedly as circumcision. It's physical. It's permanent. It effects an area of the body that most people today won't even discuss in proper company.

Most recently, the citizens of San Francisco, Calif., faced a potential vote on whether to make it a misdemeanor to circumcise any male under the age of 18. The referendum, which was to be held in November, will not take place because California Governor Jerry Brown has passed a law banning any bans on circumcision.

While many Americans were surprised by the proposal, and great debates raged on the Internet, this would certainly not have been the first time that circumcision has been outlawed. The most famous prohibition of circumcision occurred when the Syrian-Greeks sought to force Hellenization on the Judeans (in the era of the Maccabees and Hanukkah). Performing a circumcision on one's child became a capital crime. The Syrian-Greeks found circumcision particularly offensive because of their own culture's devotion to the beauty and perfection of the human body. The ancient Greeks are renowned for their sculptures and naked athletics. From the perspective of Hellenistic culture, the male body represented perfection. It was therefore unconscionable that the Jews should alter it, or maim it, especially by Divine decree.

According to Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar, as quoted in the Talmud: "Every precept for which Israel submitted [themselves] to death at the time of the royal decree [of the Syrian-Greeks], e.g. idolatry and circumcision, is still held firmly in their [the Jews'] minds" (Shabbat 130a).

Brit Milah, as circumcision is called in Hebrew, is a mitzvah that has withstood the test of time. Even Jews with only a tentative connection to Judaism still have their sons circumcised. Perhaps it is because this is a mitzvah that is done joyously (accompanied as it is with a festive meal) as it not only affirms the parents' connection with Judaism, but the child's link as well. According to Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, the joy with which the Jewish people accepted this mitzvah is the reason that it is still observed.

Brit Milah is so important a mitzvah that the Talmud states: "Great is circumcision, for it counterbalances all the [other] laws of the Torah" (Nedarim 32a). In fact, circumcision is so important to the Jewish people that it is one of only two commandments for which the punishment of kareit (being "cut-off") is applied if they are not fulfilled. (The other is the offering of the Paschal lamb in Temple times and when one was not in a category allowing for exemption).

Kareit, often defined as excision, is extremely hard to comprehend. In fact, the sages of the Talmud even debate what this punishment is. Many sages and rabbinic leaders have also noted that kareit may have a different effect on people today than it did in the days of the Holy Temple. It is believed that, in times when our connection to the spiritual realm was more tangible, kareit was actual death. (Not instant death, but rather death at a young age -- under 60 -- accompanied by a lack of further offspring.) But kareit is also understood as a spiritual excommunication, in which one's soul is cut off from God.

Why is circumcision so important to God? The plain fact of the matter is that we do not know. While numerous explanations for the ritual have been suggested by different sages throughout the generations, circumcision is a chok, a law that is performed as God's decree, and according to traditional Judaism, no further explanation is needed.

No arguments can be addressed to those who do not recognize the concept of sanctification or the importance of heritage. Claims that an act of tradition are barbaric need no reply. For those who wonder about the safety of circumcision, however, it must be stated that fulfilling a mitzvah at the risk of someone's life (even one's own) is a severe transgression of Jewish law. There are only three exceptions to this rule: one must give up one's own life rather than take the life of another, commit an act of sexual immorality or worship idols. Although it is commanded that the brit milah be performed on the eighth day, a mohel (one trained to perform brit milah) will not perform the ritual on any child who is not in perfect health.

pre-Yom Kippur Blogburst

-This post was originally published on http://thoughts4mysoul.wordpress.com/

I feel the need to share, and since that seems to me to be the point of blogging, I have come back to this blog to write.
 

We are now in the final 24 hours before Yom Kippur, and I feel…well, I don’t really know. I’m not so good at “feeling.” I like to hide behind intellectualism, rationalization and anxiety. Sounds like a lovely cup of tea, doesn’t it -  but it is the truth.

I had a beautiful Rosh Hashana. We had lots of company, the children let me daven and make it to shofar blowing in the morning (and hear the shofar), and some good friends took me up on my offer to hang at my house with their kids for a bit. Being able to daven was nice, but I must admit that I did have to rush threw Mussaf (the first day 18-month-old Yaakov was busy climbing on the dining room table right in front of me!)

And I actually managed to say shemona asrei a few times this week (even remembering to ad HaMelech HaKadosh)!

But did I improve myself. I don’t feel improved. I yelled at the kids at least once…no at least 4 or 5 times…each day, even though I tried to hold my temper. I goofed off when I should have been working hard (although I did comp the time later in the day).

This afternoon an electrician was working on my house. He was there from 1 o’clock on and was working with the front doors both open because he had his equipment lined up the hall and was working on the porch. This was fine…except that my children come home at 3. They watched him with me for a while and then went to have snacks and we all went about our lives as usual. Yaakov generally has free reign in the house and I forgot the door was open. At around 4 I was finishing a project on my laptop in the dining room. I stood up and walked into the hallway to find Yaakov standing in front of the inside front door (leading to a small hallway and the real front door) staring straight out on a clear run into the very very busy street in front of our house. The electrician had gone to his car (and stopped to shmooze with a potential customer) and had left the doors wide open. My reactions were everywhere, mostly though I was just grateful that nothing had happened. Trust me, Yaakov is the type of kid who will walk out.

Then my anxiety kicked in. The what-if film strip kept running in my head. I shudder inside every time I envision exactly what could have happened. It’s stupid, because it didn’t happen.  Thinking about it later that night I realize that there are so many incidents each day which go just right, where nothing happens, and I lack that emotion, that feeling, of true gratitude to Hashem. I think about it. I say Baruch Hashem and I recognize how lucky I am, but I don’t feel like I connect to the emotion enough.

Emuna and bitachon have always been a struggle for me. I have friends who I feel can so tangibly relate to the Divine in the world (the people who really know how to say tehillim, you know what I mean), and it is those people of whom I am most jealous. I often joke to myself that if I were to go to a great rebbe or a mekubal I would ask for a bracha in emuna.

I have rambled a bit, and I apologize. Tonight starts the final day before Yom Kippur and I am scared. Alas, I wish I could honestly say I stand in awe of the process of judgment around me, but, in truth, I am scared of dealing with 4 small kids on the fast day, of getting everything done tomorrow like I need to…and then, too, I am scared of coming away unchanged.

In a Jewish life that puts so much value on self-improvement, I often want to cry out with tears: “But I don’t know how to change! It is too hard and I don’t even know how to begin!” (I cry it to myself, certainly.) That moment is emotional, however, and once I touch it, something within me jumps back and leaps away from the thought.

This year, Hashem, as the gates of heaven are open to our prayers…please open the floodgate within my heart, for I cannot do it on my own! Let me truly express how thankful I am to all that you have given me and let me feel the safety of your fatherly embrace.

–gmar chatima tova

The Fifth Day of The Ten Days of Teshuva

This Dvar Torah was written as part of a group that says Tehillim/Psalms together during the month of Elul (through Yom Kippur).

I am writing this Dvar Torah for Monday. The normal crazy, hectic, back-on-schedule, what-was-I-working-on Monday, that will be made crazier by the long holiday. But this Monday is also the fifth day of the aseret ymai teshuva. One might say it is the midpoint of these day on which we are meant to be more alert to our spiritiual needs.

In my hectic, get-the-kids-up, carpool, work, medical appointments, carpool entertain-feed-put-them-to-bed weekdays, connecting to the aserest ymai teshuva is incredibly difficult. The question, of course, is what to do with it.

This year’s Tzum Gedaliah fast was a strange one for me. Perhaps because it was really the fourth of Tishrei instead of the third, or perhaps because it was a rainy, gray Sunday (never the best days in our house). I think, however, it had a lot to do with a conversation I had with someone about the very ambiguity of the day. Oddly enough, this person expressed a thought that I too had had about this fast, only said more clearly: "What were the sages thinking? Don’t we have enough fast days that they added this one?" The point was not the fasting, but the lack of any connection as to why we were fasting. Taanis Esther we all understand, it is so obvious from the text itself. Tisha B’Av, Asarah b’ Tevet, Shiva Asar b’Tamuz...these also give us something to connect with...ok, I can reflect on the loss of the Beis Hamikdash. But Tzum Gedaliah doesn’t feel like it has the same weight. Nebach, one Jew murdered another. But its happened at other points in history. We today are highly desensitized to these sort of things. The stroy of Gedaliah has intrigue, political motivations, dire consequences...it sounds like a pulp fiction paperback.

I’m jumping a bit here, but please be patient...

In doing research for writing Jewish Treats (I write the blog Jewishtreats.org), I was intrigued by the story in Talmud Rosh Hashana 25a, in which Rabban Gamaliel orders Rabbi Joshua to appear before him with his staff and his wallet on the day Rabbi Joshua believed was Yom Kippur. Rabban Gamaliel had declared the new month based on two witnesses who may have been wrong, since no moon actually appeared that night. Rabbi Joshua, following Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas, declared the two witnesses false...accept that their testimonies had already been accepted by Rabban Gamaliel. Rabbi Joshua arrived at the Sanhedrin as ordered because

Rabbi Akiva...said to him: I can bring proof [from the scripture] that whatever Rabban Gamaliel has done is valid, because it says, "These are the appointed seasons of the Lord, holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their appointed seasons," [which means to say that] whether they are proclaimed at their proper time or not at their proper time, I have no appointed seasons save these. He [Rabbi Joshua] then went to Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas, who said to him: If we call in question [the fecisions of] the beth din of Rabban Gamaliel, we must call in question the decisions of every beth din which has existed since the days of Moses up to the present time.

It all goes back to Devarim 17:11, "According to the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall declare to you, to the right hand, nor to the left."

We fast on Tzum Gedaliah because God instructed us to follow the sages, even if we aren’t quite certain of their logic. God trusted them to make the right decisions for us.

Two Shabbasim ago we read Parashat Nitzavim, in which there is a verse that I found particularly profound. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:28).We can’t always get an answer to why things we must follow certain laws (chukim) - well any laws really - and we can’t understand why things happen in the world.

And in the end, every question about how to connect to the asert ymai teshuvacomes back to God and trust, to remembering that which we will say on Yom Kippur in Kee Anu Amecha: We are Your handiwork, and You are our Shaper.

Over Rosh Hashana I was lucky enough to be able to daven all of Pekudei D’zimrot, Shacharit and Mussaf (for those who don’t know me, I have four kids 7 and under, none of whom were at shul). As I ended P.D. on the second morning, I "pretended" to be in shul and shouted out HaMelech. Avi, my oldest, thought this was quite strange and asked my husband (who had not yet gone to shul) why I did it. David explained that this was one of the themes of Rosh Hashana.

Thinking back on this incident, however, I realize that this is my key. I’m not a good "davener," I don’t connect when I recite Shemona Esrei. I have yet to feel a link to the Divine when reciting Tehillim. But I can shout out Hamelech with gusto and emotion. That one word says so much. God is the King, and we have to love and fear and be grateful to him at all moments.

So for the remainder of the asert ymai teshuva, I am going to try and call out to the king, even if it is just a short momentary call of Hamelech when I wish to say thank You, or help me, or simply to remind myself, that everything in life, whether it makes sense or not, is sent to me from the King.