Note: The Nishma Community extends a well-deserved Mazzal Tov to first time "Zaydie" Doug Aronin!
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Guest Blogger: Douglas Aronin, esq.
"Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has made us holy through His commandments and commanded us to bring him [our son] into the covenant of our father Abraham." This berakha (blessing), recited by the father at every brit milah (ritual circumcision), expresses gratitude for the opportunity to bring a newborn boy into the Jewish people's covenant with God.. By long-standing tradition, those present respond: "Amen. Just as he has entered into the covenant, may he enter into Torah, marriage and good deeds." (translations from the Koren Siddur, edited by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks).
On numerous occasions over the years, I have heard that berakha recited by the newborn baby's father and have joined in the prescribed response. But the brit milah that I attended last week was different. On that morning, the father to whose berakha I listened and responded was my son Noah, and the infant becoming part of the covenantal tradition that began with Abraham was my grandson, who was thereupon named Yaakov Simchah.
There are no words to describe adequately the feeling of watching your grandson entering into the covenant that has bound the Jewish people to God from the time of Abraham and across the generations. Since this is my first grandchild, one part of my feelings -- though by no means the largest part -- was some difficulty in processing the notion that I have reached the grandparenthood stage of my life. A far larger part was pride in my son's apparently seamless adaptation to the responsibilities of fatherhood and my amazement at the realization that the tiny baby boy whom I once held in my arms has grown into a man who can hold his own tiny baby boy in his arms and who has now brought that baby boy into the covenant by fulfilling the mitzvah that God gave to Abraham:
Such shall be the covenant between Me and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant
between Me and you. And throughout the generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days. (Gen. 17:10-12, JPS translation)
Jews who have grown up conscious of our people's history and tradition understand instinctively the centrality of the brit milah, which is why the vast majority of Jews, even those whose overall religious practice is minimal, continue to circumcise their sons. The mitzvah of brit milah is unique in its express association with Abraham, an association reflected in the wording of the father's berakha. It is the indelible sign of God's brit (covenant) with Abraham, which is the foundation on which Judaism rests.
God's promise to Abraham was only the first step on the covenantal journey. Generations later, as they approached Sinai, the Jewish people as a whole entered into a broader covenant, accepting the mission to be a "kingdom of priests and a holy people" (Ex.19:6). It was the covenant of Sinai that bound the Jewish people to keep all the mitzvot of the Torah, which in that context is called the Sefer haBrit (Book of the Covenant), to which the people responded: "All that the Lord has said we will do and hear." (Ex. 24:7). But the covenant at Sinai stands on the foundation that is the covenant of Abraham. Before we could undertake the obligations of a holy people, we first had to affirm our collective identity as part of the eternal family of Abraham. It is not a genetic family, which is why every convert is named the son or daughter of Abraham; it is, rather, a family bound together by the covenant. So fundamental is that familial covenant that we perform the brit milah on the eighth day even if that is a Shabbat or holiday.
As Jews we are obligated to transmit to our children the heritage of Torah that we have received from previous generations. How can we know that we have fulfilled that obligation? Only when we see our children begin the process of transmitting that heritage to their children can we take comfort in our fulfillment of our part in that chain of transmission. Such is the special joy of a grandparent at the celebration of a brit milah.
Throughout our history and until today, there have been other peoples who have also circumcised their sons. As part of the monotheistic heritage which they borrowed from the Jews, Muslims have adopted circumcision as a religious rite, though it is not as fundamental to their heritage as it is to ours. In modern times, especially here in the US, many non-Jews are circumcised for medical reasons, though the medical establishment remains divided on the advisability of doing so. The majority of men born in the US are still routinely circumcised, but the proportion has decreased significantly in recent years, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which once recommended the practice, now maintains a neutral stance towards it.
Still there are those, both here and abroad, who have commenced a crusade to discourage or even prohibit infant circumcision. There are websites that bespeak the obsessive focus of a small collection of anti-circumcision fanatics. An attempt to put an anti-circumcision voter initiative on the ballot in San Fransisco last year was blocked by a court for technical reasons, but its proponents will no doubt be heard from again. In a clip easily found on Youtube, the late Christopher Hitchens, well-known as an anti-religious polemicist, attacked Rabbi Harold Kushner (of When Bad Things Happen to Good People fame) for defending the "disgusting, wicked, unforgivable" practice of circumcision. And only a few weeks ago, a court in Cologne Germany (yes, Germany!) ruled that the religious circumcision of a child too young to consent was illegal because it violated the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity." (In the interests of accuracy, I should note that the Cologne case involved a Muslim rather than a Jew, but from the secular court's perspective, that appears to be a distinction without a difference. For all the adversarial nature of Jewish-Muslim relations today, this is one issue in which we should be on the same side.)
Ours is not the first era in which the commandment of brit milah has come under ideological attack. In ancient times, Greek and Roman pagans opposed circumcision because it conflicted with their belief in the inherent perfection of the human body. Our era's neo-pagans would find it difficult to make that argument with a straight face, so they rely instead on the modern-sounding notion that infant circumcision violates the infant's right to give informed consent. Since it would be difficult to obtain informed consent from even the most precocious newborn, the anti-circumcision fanatics insist that circumcision should not take place until the child reaches adulthood. If the fact that we routinely acknowledge the right of parents to give consent for any other medical procedure -- to say nothing of their undoubted right to control their children's religious upbringing -- gives the anti-circumcision crowd any pause, they do a good job of hiding it.
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To Jews, the purpose of circumcision is to bring the baby boy into the brit (covenant) of Abraham, and thus circumcision is always, first and foremost, a religious act. As a result, the Jewish community has largely stayed out of the ongoing debate in the medical establishment over whether routine infant circumcision is medically appropriate. For us, after all, any medical benefit of circumcision is at most incidental. The problem with this approach is that the enemies of circumcision don't make such fine distinctions. Viewing medical circumcision as an easier target, they may restrain themselves from direct attacks on religious circumcision, but their restraint is only tactical. If they succeed in persuading the medical establishment -- and through them, the general public -- that routine infant circumcision has no medical benefit and may even be harmful, there is every reason to expect that they will seek to prohibit religiously prescribed circumcision as well. Halakhic Jews -- and, indeed, all who value religious freedom -- need to overcome the temptation of complacency.
At the same time, we must not allow necessary vigilance to dampen the spirit of celebration. To non-Jewish Americans, even those of indisputably good will, it may seem odd to have a religious celebration of what they view as a medical procedure. To halakhic Jews, however, the celebratory nature of the occasion is self-evident. Each brit milah is in a sense a renewal of God's covenant with Abraham for before this infant can enjoy, as we express it, a life of "Torah, marriage and good deeds," he must first become part of the family of Abraham. And the extension of that family for yet another generation is indeed a cause for celebration -- not only for proud parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, but for the entire Jewish people.
May Yaakov Simchah enjoy, as we all wished him in response to his father's beracha, a life of Torah, marriage and good deeds. May he, like his Biblical namesake, remain true in his commitment to Torah, whatever struggles life puts in his path. And may he, as his middle name implies, be a source of joy to his entire family and, indeed, to the entire family of Abraham.
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Shalom and Regards,
RRW
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