Sermon: Lech l’cha
Written by Rabbi Colin Eimer — 5 November 2020
In the old days, when you joined a synagogue, you filled in a membership form and were asked to sign a covenant. The synagogue, as a charity, could then reclaim a percentage of your subscription as a refund from the Inland Revenue. Today it’s called Gift Aid. But using the word ‘covenant’ made its purpose clear: an agreement between two parties, each enjoying certain benefits, each bound by certain responsibilities. And that’s what we understand by the Hebrew ‘brit,’ made explicit in the opening verses of our Torah reading: “Walk in My ways and be blameless,” says God to Abraham, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous….”(Genesis 17:1-2.) Fidelity to God on our part, continuing divine protection on God’s. Biblically, that brit, that covenant, was renewed in successive generations: with Isaac and Jacob, with the Jewish people as a whole at Mount Sinai and again as they were about to enter the Land of Israel.
In our Torah reading, the covenant is that of circumcision and is linked to fertility. Accepting Sarah’s barrenness as somehow his fault, Abraham circumcises himself and Ishmael. We don’t normally connect circumcision and fertility – but it can be seen in the way the Torah applies the terminology of circumcision to horticulture. Fruit from trees in their first 3 years was not to be eaten. It’s called orlah, literally ‘uncircumcised’ fruit and is therefore prohibited (Leviticus 19:23) “Analagous to pruning fruit trees,” writes Lawrence Hoffman in his study of circumcision, “male circumcision provides a prophylactic against barrenness. Both acts involve cutting away unwanted growth from a stem or trunk in order to ensure fertility.” (“Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism,” University of Chicago Press, 1996. p39)
When the Israelites conquer the land of Canaan and subdue various tribes, they would sometimes circumcise the defeated males to demonstrate their power over them – a sort of “ritualised form of castration” suggests Hoffman (p40)
Over time, that fertility dimension of circumcision became less important and it became increasingly a way of establishing boundaries – between men and women, between Jew and non-Jew. Though, initially, the early Church continued to practice circumcision. Indeed, until comparatively recently, 1st January in the Catholic calendar was marked as Jesus’s circumcision (8 days after December 25th.) Eventually, the Church spiritualised circumcision preaching “circumcise your hearts, not your flesh.” The physical act was no longer necessary, which of course made it very attractive to men.
The ritual of circumcision as we know it developed in the rabbinic period and included, includes, the rather unusual practice of saying a blessing but not doing the act. So the mohel says borei p’ri hagafen but doesn’t drink the wine. A few drops of wine are given to the baby and, at that point, in the traditional ritual, the mohel says b’da’mayich chayee. It’s from the prophet Ezekiel (16:6) “by your blood shall you live.” A bit puzzling. Blood having some sort of power to save?!…. Wine becoming blood?! Surely all that belongs in Communion, in the Church? What’s it doing at a circumcision?
While we might think that blood belongs more in Christianity than in Judaism, blood in connection with life-forces, fertility and salvation is a strong theme in Jewish thinking. Think salting kosher meat to drain the blood: “the life of all flesh is its blood” (Leviticus 17:14). Or the blood of the Paschal Lamb which saved Jewish first-born in the last of the Plagues. Some see the 4 cups of wine at the Seder as a symbolic reworking of that Paschal blood. And we fill a cup of wine for Elijah, the one who will announce the final salvation. Perhaps it’s no coincidence, therefore, that, at a brit milah, the person holding the baby sits on a chair referred to as kissay shel eliyahu, Elijah’s seat. Again that salvific connection.
What has happened to the discussion about circumcision?
In an egalitarian world, the idea of a significant covenant ceremony for boys, but not girls, seems inherently unjust. Nobody suggests circumcision for girls – and en passant, thank goodness, FGM, female genital mutilation, is no longer called ‘female circumcision.’ Some groups have worked out ‘entering the covenant’ rituals and liturgies for girls to parallel brit milah for boys.
Medically opinion continues to be divided about circumcision. Proponents argue that it is beneficial for both men and women; opponents that it is painful and traumatic for the child, involving unnecessary risk. All Reform and Liberal mohelim, at least, are qualified doctors and routinely use local anaesthetics. If complications arise, it is generally because of incompetent mohelim.
But over the past 20 years or so, perhaps the most contentious arguments focus on circumcision as ‘mutilation’; “why inflict such trauma on a newborn?” people ask. There are, of course, many areas where we do things to our children without their consent, which may even cause them pain, but which we believe are beneficial for them. In any case, having seen so many circumcisions, I’m not sure for whom it is more traumatic: the parents or the child? At the majority of those circumcisions, the baby barely makes a sound – and nor does it feel like they’ve gone into deep shock. If it was that traumatic, we would expect to see particular behaviour patterns displayed by all Jewish men, as a group, which could be traced back to the trauma of their circumcision.
Circumcision in our time is often linked to the Shoah – positively or negatively. Some men in my community in Paris, for example, born immediately after the war, told me they hadn’t been circumcised because that was how the Nazis had identified their fathers when they were rounded up. In 1945, 1946, that experience was still too raw for their fathers to want to risk putting their sons in potential danger with that indelible mark. And in the former Soviet Union most Jews weren’t circumcised because, in that regime, you didn’t want to be identified as Jewish.
Others argued the opposite way, of course. Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews and Jewish life. After the Shoah, therefore, any reduction of Jewish life, such as not circumcising your sons, would be to give Hitler a posthumous victory.
The strength of emotion around circumcision is interesting. Even those far removed from Jewish life will insist on a brit milah for their sons: It might be slightly distasteful to them, but “at least he’ll know he’s Jewish!”
Meaning changes over time. There is, for example, a ‘league table’ of Jewish festivals, where they move up and down the table according to their popularity. Shavuot, marking the giving of Torah, used to be high up the table; yet these days I suspect fewer Jews observe Shavuot than Chanukah and Purim, two festivals considered ‘minor’ in terms of halacha. We know that in the 6th century BCE, Pesach had fallen out of practice, and King Josiah had to work hard to reintroduce it into Jewish life.
Meaning changes over time. What meant something to one generation might say very little to subsequent ones. In an age which extols personal choice, invoking ‘tradition’ is not the most-compelling of arguments. Circumcision lost its fertility and horticultural imagery and the blood of circumcision came to signify salvation: “by your blood shall you live.”
Liberal Judaism has been in the news recently for its willingness to marry a mixed-faith couple under a chuppah. Whatever we may think of that decision, they are saying something about Jewish life having to respond to the needs of the time. Of course we do that in our part of the Progressive Jewish world also.
Midrash compares a cedar tree and a flimsy bulrush. Which is better at withstanding storms and changes – the deeply-rooted cedar or the bulrush? And answers its question by saying the bulrush. The deeply-rooted tree risks being uprooted in a storm, the bulrush can blow tis way and that, but remain anchored. Traditional Judaism seems to see itself as that deeply-rooted tree, which is, of course, their choice.
Looking at brit milah leaves us with a broader question: how do we negotiate our path between tradition having a vote but not a veto? “If you marry the Zeitgeist, the prevailing spirit of the time,” as the saying goes, “you soon end up a widow or widower.” Yet it’s precisely in that continuing re-examination of Jewish life, in a sense of taking that risk, on the one hand, of not taking things for granted, on the other, that keeps tradition vibrant and alive for us – long may that continue!
Rabbi Colin Eimer