Lifecycles

The Perspective of Tradition

In Genesis 17, God commands Abraham to circumcise himself as a sign of the covenant. Further, he tells Abraham that all of his male offspring are to be circumcised on the eighth day of their lives throughout the generations. Thus begins the tradition of brit milah, the covenant of circumcision, or bris in common parlance.

Circumcision has been regarded as an essential mitzvah throughout Jewish history. It has been a distinguishing mark of the Jewish male. At various times throughout history, oppressive rulers have sought to outlaw circumcision. Jews themselves, seeking to assimilate, have at various times also sought to surgically restore their foreskins. Yet many believe that this distinguishing mark has maintained Jewish identity. It has been said that “as the Jews have kept the commandment of circumcision, circumcision has kept the Jews.”

Circumcision is the most tangible symbol of the Jewish covenant with God. Although circumcision originated in God’s covenant with Abraham, God also forms subsequent covenants with Isaac, with Jacob, and ultimately, at Sinai, with the whole Jewish people.  God promises to be our God and we promise to be God’s people. Together we commit to keeping faith in one another and working in tandem to repair our broken world. Although the covenant with Abraham is more specific—the land of Israel and infinite descendants—the substance of all the covenants tends to be elided in Jewish tradition. Other signs of the covenant at Sinai include Shabbat and tefillin.

The Bible usually does not give reasons for its commandments, and circumcision is no exception. Nevertheless, Jews have long speculated about the meaning of this particularly strange custom. It is certainly not accidental that it is performed on the penis, the organ of generativity, and that it has everything to do with both Abraham’s fruitfulness, or his lack thereof, and the ongoing generativity of the Jewish people. Some commentators have suggested that circumcision serves to limit what is perceived to be the boundless male sex drive. Others have viewed it as a kind of substitute sacrifice: although the father desires children, their birth also threatens his mortality, insofar as they will succeed him. Confronted with this knowledge, the argument goes, the father would like to murder his son; circumcision is a way of deflecting this murderous drive.

Whatever the reason for the commandment, circumcision remains one of the most widely observed mitzvot among Jews of all denominations. Even today, when many liberal Jews have worried about the purported psychological harm of circumcision to the infant, the vast majority of Jews who retain even a nominal connection to their faith have continued to circumcise their sons.

Changing Traditions

Feminists, too, have raised objections to brit milah. For some, the ritual enacts the baby’s removal from the world of the mother – a world awash in blood, milk, and fluids, a preverbal earth world – to the father’s world of language, law, and culture. According to some feminists (Miriam Pollack, “Circumcision: A Jewish Feminist Perspective”) this “violent disruption of the maternal-infant bond” signals to women their ultimate inability to protect their sons later in life, especially from the male world of warfare. Feminists have also been concerned with the simple lack of parity – there is no equivalent ritual for a girl. What this has meant practically is that boy babies are celebrated and entered into the covenant of Israel, while traditionally, a girl’s birth has often gone virtually unnoticed Jewishly. And there are those who are simply troubled by the suffering infant who has not voluntarily submitted to this pain.

In the face of these significant objections, circumcision continues to have remarkable staying power among most Jews. However, parents have sought ways to modify the ceremony and in so doing transform its meaning. Some parents, pained by the idea that others will rejoice while their baby suffers, have separated the circumcision itself from the ceremony of welcoming and naming the baby. They hold the circumcision on the eighth day among a small gathering of family and friends. A more public ceremony for naming and greeting the child is celebrated several weeks later. Others have kept the ceremony and circumcision together but enhanced the ceremony through the addition of readings, personal prayers, songs, and personal words. Having witnessed the welcoming of daughters with such ceremonies, they have sought to make their son’s welcoming similarly personal, creative, and spontaneous. Finally, many mohelim (ritual circumcisers) apply a topical anesthetic to the baby’s penis, swaddle the baby in warm wraps, and give the baby sugar to suck on during the operation. All of these measures alleviate and perhaps even eradicate the baby’s pain.

In this section of the site you will find several examples of creative brit milah ceremonies with readings, songs, etc. These ceremonies can be performed with or without circumcision. You will also find passionate statements by mothers and fathers who have circumcised their sons and who are uncomfortable with the commandment but not ready or willing to defy tradition. Finally, parents seeking to create a meaningful ceremony for their sons should peruse the rich content found in the babynaming section of this site. While some of it applies only to girl babies, most of the readings, poetry, and songs are about the universal experience of parenting and the joy of having children.

by Rabbi Rona Shapiro, founding editor, ritualwell.org