On June 26, 2012, the Cologne, Germany regional court ruled that circumcising young boys is a criminal offense because it constitutes “illegal bodily harm.” The court held that a child’s right to physical integrity outweighs parental rights and religious freedom. This ruling sparked outrage in the Jewish world. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a survivor of the Holocaust, sarcastically noted that “it is an amazing thing to see German speakers discover they are sensitive to a baby’s cry…I did not experience this in my childhood.”
This ruling was later overturned; but it is not at all an outlier. Circumcision, or Brit Milah, has always attracted controversy. The Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes outlawed circumcision and executed Jewish women who circumcised their sons. The Roman Emperor Hadrian banned it as well.
The Hellenistic world considered circumcision disfiguring. This attitude influenced many Jewish men as well; to advance socially, they would undergo an epispasm, a painful procedure to restore their foreskins. Epispasm was so common that the Talmud (Yevamot 72a) debates whether one requires a second circumcision after an epispasm; it adds that during the Bar Kokhba rebellion, many who had had epispasms undertook second circumcisions as a sign of Jewish pride.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, circumcision was once again a matter of debate. Here too, the zeitgeist was influential. No less an authority than Immanuel Kant was quoted as saying, “As long as the Jews…will be circumcised, they will never become more useful than harmful in civil society.” Some Jews wanted to follow course. In 1843, the Society of the Friends of Reform in Frankfurt declared that “they do not consider circumcision binding either as a religious act or a symbol.” While a handful of radical reformers supported them, this view was widely opposed, even in Reform circles. Circumcision proved to be too compelling, and even those generally opposed to ritual couldn’t let go of circumcision. Spinoza, otherwise a harsh critic of Judaism, could not fail to notice that “The sign of circumcision is, as I think, so important, that I could persuade myself that it alone would preserve the nation forever.”
Both assimilation and persecution have done little to shake the Jewish commitment to circumcision. There is something extraordinary about this commandment.
The Torah mentions circumcision in five different sections; surprisingly, four of the five focus on women. When circumcision is first commanded to Abraham (Genesis 17), it is accompanied by a name change both for Abraham and Sarah, and the promise that Abraham and Sarah will have a child.
After Dinah is raped, (Genesis 34) Shechem asks Jacob’s family to marry her; her brothers respond by asking for the entire city of Shechem to circumcise.
When Moses returns to Egypt (Exodus 4), an angel encounters him and tries to kill him; his wife Zipporah ends the crisis by circumcising their son.
In Parshat Tazria, when enumerating the sacrifices a new mother brings after childbirth, it adds that if she gives birth to a baby boy, “On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” (Leviticus 12)
It seems as though the Torah is anticipating the following question: How is it that a commandment of such significance inherently excludes women?
Like most other commandments, the Torah does not explicitly state the purpose of circumcision; however, a reading of the sections related to circumcision offers some hints. Philo connects circumcision with fertility; that is very much the theme of Genesis 17. However, it is not Abraham’s fertility that is in question; he already has a child from Hagar. Circumcision symbolizes fertility within marriage, and is a symbol of the bond between Sarah and Abraham.
This comes into clearer focus when looking at Genesis 34. Maimonides sees circumcision as fostering sexual self-restraint, which is the underlying theme of that narrative. Shechem’s sexual violence is responded to with a “solution” of circumcision. It is the text’s way of underlining that the purpose of circumcision is to keep Jews far away from the “disgraceful” crime Shechem committed.
Taken together, these two texts depict an ideal of male behavior. Building families may be intuitive for women; but it is less so for men. The future of every society requires a cadre of men who are dignified and respectful to women, while at the same time aspiring to marriage and children. Circumcision conveys this message to young men from the very beginning of their lives.
But that is only the first step. Rabbeinu Bachya sees circumcision as being similar to a sacrifice, and writes: “Circumcision is like a sacrifice, and just as the blood of a sacrifice atones on the altar, so too does the blood of circumcision atone. Therefore, its commandment is on the eighth day, because a sacrifice is not valid until the animal is eight days old.”
This lesson of sacrifice builds on the prior lesson of family. In Judaism, parenting is not just about providing a nurturing home of love and warmth. It is about dedicating one’s children to the future of the Jewish people.
Leviticus 12 and Exodus 4 focus on this idea. The newborn mother, who has given so much of herself to create this new child, is still not done. She must include God in her good tidings, and offer sacrifices. And the greatest sacrifice she will make is to bring her son into the covenant, to offer him to serve God. Zipporah understands this as well. She recognizes that Moses’ mission requires that they dedicate their child to God.
The Maharal offers an idea that complements the concept of sacrifice. He writes that circumcision takes place on the eighth day, because it symbolizes going beyond the natural; seven represents nature, which was created on the seven days of the week. So too the circumcision itself; it seeks to go beyond man’s natural state to create something more refined. In other words, circumcision demands that Jews go beyond the ordinary, and to sacrifice to do so.
Jews have never chosen to take the easy road; we have chosen to defy the rules of nature and history, and made many sacrifices to do so. And that has defined Jewish parenting.
Every parent wants their children to be happy. But if that’s all Jewish fathers and mothers ever wanted, the Jewish people would have disappeared years ago. For 2,000 years of exile, it would have been a lot easier to give up; it would have been a lot happier for children not to be burdened by their Jewish identity.
We are here today because Jewish fathers and mothers wanted more than happiness from their children.
And that is extraordinary.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.
