David Karpel, an Orthodox Chassidic Jew, on what circumcision means in his religion and family.
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About 4,000 years ago, 99-year-old Abraham circumcised himself. Being different was his thing, opening his tent to feed strangers and travelers of all sorts, and teaching them about G-d. When asked to cut he complied without question. The sages ask, if Abraham had been taught the whole Torah already, why did he wait until being commanded to circumcise himself? Knowing Torah, Abraham knew that a mitzvah done without being commanded is commendable, but a mitzvah done because it is commanded is held to a higher esteem, as it brings one closer to G-d.
Have I lost you yet? Stay with me.
The weight of the handle of the scalpel-like blade, the mila knife, fit in my hand like a good pen. Our boy, our eight-day-old peanut of a child, lay upon a white silky pillow held on his Zayde’s lap. Rabbi Andron, the mohel, had already spoken to my wife and I about the rituals, traditions and procedures. Prayers had been said, tears of concern, of love, of transcendent connection, filled my eyes and spilled down my wife’s cheeks.
The room was full of family and friends squeezing together to pray together, to catch a glimpse of every moment. Sunlight gleamed sublime through painted glass. The mohel guided the blade I held and sliced away our son’s foreskin. This was done to me, to my father and my wife’s father, to my brother, to my Zayde and his, and to every male member of our families going back generations upon generations. Not that we knew then how deeply and forthrightly Noah – now his name was declared – would be the next generation to promulgate the faith and practice forward.
In 1999, my wife and I were not at all religiously observant Jews. We’d met nine years earlier in a Linguistics class at Florida International University. She had big, rockin’ platinum hair and was flipping through some metal magazine like Rip or Circus or maybe it was Metal Edge? I watched as she scanned pages. She stopped at Guns and Roses, which gave me hope. She turned to a story about Def Leppard. If she stopped that would have been the end of it before it began, the deal breaker before words were spoken. She continued. Stopped at Faith No More. I wrote her a note. She replied. I haven’t stopped thanking G-d since. True story.
♦◊♦
We were married four years later right down the hall from where we were celebrating our son’s bris milah in 1999.
Circles. Everything circles. Like some arguments.
We were non-religious, ultra-secular Jews living in a one-bedroom apartment with walls of every room painted a different color – canary yellow kitchen, azure living room, winter green bedroom – on the 10th floor of a building on West Avenue in South Beach. Why would we choose to follow some ancient rite written about in a Torah we never read?
I take full responsibility. It’s my fault. Up to a point. As Camus says, “After a certain age, every man is responsible for his own face.”
Even though I was thrown out of practically every class while going to an after-school Hebrew School program at a Conservative synagogue in Miami Beach, one thing stuck with me very clearly, whether it was taught or just an understanding I came to on my own: No matter where we stand when it comes to level of belief or amount of observance, all Jews are the people of the Torah. So when my wife, whose extent of Judaism in her life before me was limited to the knowledge that she was Jewish, asked me in the days before the bris to remind her why we’re doing this to our son, my answer was simple. We’re Jews. This is what Jews do. All the men in her family, all the men in my family, all the Jewish men we’ve ever known or heard of – all circumcised. And for one reason: this is what Jews do since Abraham’s ultimate act of faith sealed the covenant with G-d in his flesh.
Years later, my wife and I brought observant Orthodox Chassidic Judaism into our home. Our son is now in yeshiva, our daughter in middle school. We hope and pray we are giving them a life and education that will lead to them continuing to carry this faith into the next generations. Since joining a community of Orthodox Chassidic Jews, we’ve been to many joyous bris milah ceremonies, oftentimes on multiple occasions for the same families. We’ve learned the deeper significance of the halacha, the law, and the rituals. When one takes place — every few months or so — the whole community celebrates and eats together.
And it all started 4,000 years ago when 99-year-old Abraham listened to G-d and circumcised himself and every male in his household on that same day. He was told then, too, that from that point on his progeny was to be circumcised on the 8th day of their lives so they too may be connected to G-d as Jews must.
This is Torah law. It is not something any Orthodox Jew or I would advocate for everyone, especially the way it’s done in hospitals, which is a very different procedure.
While doctors might use Gomco or Plastibel clamps that lead to more discomfort and often cause the baby to suffer 8-10 minutes of distress, the mohel’s traditional tools and procedures are much less stressful, according to research that measures changes in heart rate and other factors. The baby’s distress during a bris milah typically lasts 10-12 seconds. Noah stopped crying as soon as Rabbi Andron completed the procedure and picked him up off the pillow.
This is our human right, our moral obligation. Essentially, according to G-d Himself in the Torah, this is the first connection between a Jew and G-d, bringing the spiritual into the physical, which happens to be at the very root of the behavior Judaism teaches.
Bris milah, then, is the highest form of moral behavior that sets the tone for a Jewish life thereafter. For us, this is not a debate; it is life.
I have much more to say on the topic, but may this add to the conversation.
–Photo: garageolimpo/Flickr
What a disgusting thing to do to a child. How utterly abhorrent. Your son deserved to be protected from such a barbaric mutilation.
Dear Jewish baby boy, I write you this letter because I value you as a human being. And it is simply for that reason alone that you have great value and great worth more than all the gold and silver and diamonds in all the world. All the Nobel Prize winners in your heritage cannot increase your value. You are valuable simply for the fact that you are a human being just like me. You are not above me, nor below me, but you are equal to me, and I call you my brother. Many giants are gathered around you.… Read more »
The Jews didn’t circumcise anyone for 40 years while they wandered in the desert. If one has to be circumcised to be Jew, then what were these Jews? Greeks?
David, I’m curious how you reconcile the difference between the Brit Periah performed today, which removes a significantly more amount of the penile skin, as instituted by Maimonedes way after the Abrahamic covenant, versus the much less invasive or function-ablating Brit Milah that G-d demanded of Abraham. Does one have more merit than the other? If so, why? And if it’s the less-invasive procedure, why continue to practice the more-invasive procedure?
How you presume to tell Jews about what G-d wants when what you tell them is diametrically opposed to what is written in Torah is beyond me. No, G-d did not make a mistake. Not in how he created us, and not in how he commanded us, Jews, to alter our male children at 8 days. According to G-d, this keeps us in His covenant. So an uncircumcised Jew is still Jewish, but not a complete Jew according to Torah. You many not be anti-Semitic. But, historically, banning bris milah has been primarily anti-Semitic. And although you may not think… Read more »
I just want to say that I’ve read stories from Jews who were not circumcised at birth and their response is actually quite different. Bear in mind that they have first-hand experience of the foreskin, which you don’t (as you were cut as a baby). Knowing what we know now about the foreskin’s multiple erogenous and protective functions, and its gliding abilities, these Jews actually feel extremely lucky they weren’t circumcised. You can’t possibly KNOW you’d be upset that you hadn’t been circumcised because you have never experienced a foreskin, which supposedly feels really good – and as a Jew… Read more »
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/the-jewish-thinker/.premium-1.560244
If you were not circumcised as a child, you would be free to choose circumcision as an adult. Free choice would make it more meaningful. But most likely, you would not want to part with your foreskin, it is too valuable. And that would not make you any less of a Jew. My husband is from the former Soviet Union, many have given up their foreskins and regretted it. Being anti-circumcision is not anti-Semitic when people are against all circumcisions, male and female of all cultures and religions. Jews must question their religion, especially where there are conflicts. Isn’t the… Read more »
If I had been circumcised, I would feel robbed of a personal body part, of sexual tissue. It would be a loss I would notice everyday. I would be upset with my parents and religion for allowing this to continue happening.
It isn’t that hard to imagine.
I know who is lacking empathy here, and it isn’t me.
I respond for the sake of other readers who might happen to read your comment because I’ve no illusions about convincing you one way or another to respect Jews who live according to Torah. You have your cause. If I had not been circumcised, I would probably feel robbed of a covenant with G-d, of physical holiness. It would be a loss I would notice everyday. I would be upset with whatever responsible parties prevented my parents from continuing the Jewish covenant with G-d through me. It isn’t that hard to imagine. You empathize with your own feelings, nothing more,… Read more »
Hi David One more question. I know nothing about your religion, i have only read what Christians call The Old Testament. But read this from ✺Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord, “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”✺ And I wonder . What about this new covenant ? This is a new one after G-d’s covenant with Abraham. The covenant written in our hearts.… Read more »
Still waiting. Waiting every day. Waiting and trying to make it happen with mitzvahs all day, every day.
Thank you David 🙂
Thank you David I will read up on this and try to understand. Covenants is what make the Bible interesting . ✺” Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you… Read more »
Hi David
You write that you circumcise baby boys to give then identity.
But why not say it is an covenant ?
Any Christian that know their Bible know what a covenant is. The story that runs trough the old and New Testament , the Christian Bible is stories of covenant between God and people.
And you write :
✺” It is important to know what we’re up against. This issue will
not stay in Europe.”✺
All you are ” up against” is that the boy wait until he is older, and decides himself and not a little baby.
Because this covenant is an integral part of our identity. That’s why I use the terms almost interchangeably.
Your last statement I’ve addressed elsewhere. If you read the Bible like you say you do, go to the source (Genesis, Chapter 17, and elsewhere, including Leviticus) and you’ll see why we do not wait. There are other sources as well, but that’s where the commandment is given.
David, I have a copy of “The Book of J” sitting on my desk. It is purported to be the original history of the Jewish people. In it, there is no Abraham circumcision story. In it, the “Rape of Dinah” story has no massacre. In it, the Zipporah story is similar to the Torah’s but what is not common knowledge is that Zip was the daughter of a pagan Midianite priest and thought her god, Horas, was going to kill her husband due to his negligence in circumcising his sons. Midianites were big on circumcision. Moses sent Zip back home… Read more »
The Book of J is not the Torah. I can not respond to the rest of what you wrote without taking into consideration what was done to you, something anathema to the Jewish way of thinking. It is not the same kind of procedure, the reason behind it is not the same reason, and the results are very different. I’m sorry for your situation, but I have no reason to forgive myself for circumcising my son. We do not do it out of bad feelings for our own circumcisions, G-d forbid. And I’m pretty sure I don’t need to be… Read more »
As someone who came to observant Judiaism as well, I can appreciate much of what you say here. I felt great joy and pride when i brought my children to circumcision. They became part of the immense chain reaching back to Abraham.
Baruch Hashem! Thank you, Larry, for sharing this and for the kind words of support. Feel free to share this article with friends and community members. Be sure to tell them to pay attention to these comments. It is important to know what we’re up against. This issue will not stay in Europe.
Spread the nightmare, bro… spread the nightmare. American doctors have betrayed generations of moms & dads, and kept them in the dark about the cruelty of Genital Surgery on baby boys. Circumcision is a social disease that infects the human conscience, destroying our ability to recognize our own malice and cruelty. It is not a poetic metaphor to describe the surgery in America as the Circumcision Experiment. In the broad scope of human history, no other people have practiced genital disfigurement in secret, upon an infant in the cradle, and then gone on with life as though nothing had been… Read more »
I ask the author, if your circumcision was botched would you still be justifying it? Are you promoting this practice among Jews because you are personally fine with it? If you had a botched circumcision, would you say your parents did the right thing for you and it confirmed your identity as Jewish and you would still be fine with it? I am a Jew and find no justification for continuing circumcision. It is exactly what it is, barbaric torture. Attempting to justify this is beyond logic and common sense. Forcing it on 8 day old babies out of religious… Read more »
This is well said. Thank you.
Karen, Your understanding of Judaism is not consistent with Judaism. “If you don’t feel a need to justify what you forced on your son, there should be no need to write about it.” That’s ridiculous. So I should just shut up and not bother conversing about my beliefs? No one tortured my son or me or my father or my grandfather and so on. Torture has long lasting psychological effects. There’s no evidence that this is true for Jewish men. The bris mila procedure as I described takes seconds and the baby stops crying within seconds of that. The discomfort… Read more »
@ David
“Perhaps it is this — and I’m not alone in thinking this way — that has kept us so strong.”
Then how have your women survived? Are they weak because they didn’t go through something similar?
Just the opposite. They are born with a strength and spiritual connection that deems bris milah unnecessary. See an earlier comment where I link to an article on the topic.
@ David
I think her question was.
“I ask the author, if your circumcision was botched would you still be justifying it? ”
Of course my question was
“Just want to clarify so you’re saying you would stone a disobedient child or force your daughter to marry her rapist if it fell within those other circumstances.”
I suspect this pro-circ thing has more to do with having been circed than with religion.
Hi Karen
Well said 🙂
@ Karen
“I ask the author, if your circumcision was botched would you still be justifying it?”
That’s precisely why I believe he’s being insincere about his concern for individuals with botched circumcisions. How does a parent make that up to a child? What should society do to a parent or organization that does this to a child? You won’t even hear pro-circ people say that parents should face consequences if their child is permanently injured. The risk is borne by the child alone.
@karen I ask the author if he got in a car accident would he stop driving? If he slipped walking into his place of worship would he stop going? If he surfed and a surfer got a shark bite would he stop surfing? If his child fell of the swings would he no longer go to the play ground? If his barber cut his ear, would he no longer get a haircut?
Just answer the question I asked. It has nothing to do with your questions.
And it is rediculous to say that all males need circumcision where all females do not. That is a rediculous blanket statement. We know better than to make assumptions like that. Would I be a better Jew in your eyes if I had been circumcised?
Your first and third questions are impossible to answer and you know it. If you don’t and you think it’s possible to answer those questions that start with “how would you feel if”, then you lack a level of mature understanding of the concept of empathy. It can only go so far. Your second question is easier to answer: Yes, I am more than just fine with traditional bris milah for Jews; I celebrate it. I do not promote or advocate, as I’ve said over and over, circumcision for the general public. As for your question regarding female circumcision, I… Read more »
Looking at different reasons for circumcision provided by the Jewish philosopher Philo (see link below), you will note common pattern of superstition that linger on to present day: http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Circumcision.html 1) To prevent disease and unsightly smegma 2) To be “clean” because God does not like smegma 3) To allow for the free flow of semen 4) To excise unnecessary pleasure 5) To better know oneself These are the roots of the belief, so let’s address them: 1) Soap and water 2) Best you concentrate on more important matters God 3) I’ve never seen a penis get jammed up and I’ve… Read more »
Circumcision in the Jewish tradition is both a cultural and religious practice. It may or may not have medical benefits ,although most Doctor’s agree there are benefits(american academy of pediatrics recommends it) and it is not harmful to the child. Those that are not part of the culture now want to impose their will on a religious minority because of their perceptions that are not scientifically based and emotionally charged. Just as the non believers in global warming want to impose their beliefs on the general consensus of the scientific community. Further in the past I lived in a community… Read more »
“About 4,000 years ago, 99-year-old Abraham circumcised himself.”
You can not possibly expect any half way sane person to take anything that comes after this seriously.
I’m glad you had the circumcision performed by a mohel. With some exceptions, mohels are usually the best at performing circumcisions. As a medical student, I have seen hundreds of circumcisions performed, and usually mohels are able to do a faster and less painful circumcision compared to the average medical practitioner. Some mohels are able to remove the foreskin in only 30 seconds compared to the much longer hospital procedure favored in some places. This is probably why non-Jews also have their boys circumcised by mohels, be it The Queen of England, or Hollywood stars like Sandra Bullock.
You expect us to respect this choice to hurt a baby because it is part of your religion right?
What about other religions and hurtful practices? Should we give those a pass?
Hi David. I’d like to respectfully point out a flaw in the way you are framing this issue. You seem to be claiming that as a result of the fact that the Torah commands you to circumcise your son on the 8th day, that it is therefore moral. Surely whether or not a practice is moral has nothing to do with where it comes from. That’s not really how ethics work. There are many instances of commandments that clearly require unethical behavior. For example, there are at least half a dozen of the 613 commandments that you referenced that require… Read more »
Eli, You make salient points. I visited your blog and have a better idea of where you’re coming from. I respect your position, but I obviously disagree. It is true that much of Jewish law has been subject to a somewhat legislative process in attempts to protect Jewish practice (building fences around Torah) or to better understand the origins of halacha or to better comply with the Torah laws where they come up against the laws of a host nation. Interestingly though, it is my understanding that the greatest Jewish legal minds, the sages of generations upon generations, have left… Read more »
It’s true that Bris Milah has gone unchallenged internally for most of Jewish history.Part of that has to do with the fact that anti-circumcision rhetoric was a central element in Christian theological attacks against Jews. But there are also voices within the tradition that did not see Bris as the most important mitzvah(The Rambam), or even were lenient on intact Jews who did not want to get circumcised (Rabbenu Tam). And none of these sages had access to the concepts or language of human rights. These only emerged after WWII. But this is the ethical language of our times. And… Read more »
The Jews didn’t circumcise anyone for 40 years while they wandered in the desert. If one has to be circumcised to be Jew, then what were these Jews? Greeks?
Any idea when the Jews started again? The answer has obvious significance.
That depends. Do you mean the questionable origin and chronology sold in the Book of Genesis? Or the origin and chronology suggested by archaeological and historical evidence?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t440bxhn1qA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDs8HgOZ4o
Were they Jews or not?
ZZZZZZZ..zzzzz…zzz
People confuse the hell out of me. They really do. How do you say, “Hey look over here! Look at my tradition! I cut off a part of my son’s penis!” and then expect to not get flamed by intelligent people?
Believe me, anonymous LA, I expected to get flamed, and viciously so. Just don’t insult me by insinuating my intelligence is any less than your own.
And, yes, I wrote about this tradition, this rite, this ceremony, this adherence to G-d because to me, to my family, to my community, this is real, it is pure, it is love, and it is beautiful.
Feel free to suck on that lemon for a while.
Perhaps that is some advice that certain mohels should heed.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-dies-herpes-virus-ritual-circumcision-nyc-orthodox/story?id=15888618
It did not turn out so “pure” and “beautiful” for some particular infants.
Megalodon, Thank you for enlightening readers that tragedies happen that no words can explain or excuse or justify. They happen before birth, at birth, in hospitals, in cars on the way home from the hospital, and throughout life. They also happen at a bris milah, at a bar or bas mitzvah, at weddings. They happen in churches and synagogues and bars and bus stations. By pointing out this specific tragedy, though, you’re implying that Jews as a whole should stop adhering to what we believe is an essential commandment from G-d that every generation of Jews since Abraham adhered to… Read more »
No.
The circumcision can still be accomplished without this practice of the mohel sucking on the child’s bleeding genitals with his mouth. I pointed out those “specific” tragedies to demonstrate that certain traditional practitioners choose to engage in practices which further escalate and worsen the harm and risk of circumcision. But concerns about infant genital infections will not stand in the way of any part of “beautiful” tradition.
And since you are exhorting people to “suck” on things, it seemed an apt subject to mention.
I’m being as respectful as I can be, Megalodon, but I told the dude (one guy, not people) to suck on a lemon in response to an insult to my intelligence. But I understand: you have a point to make. My article is about circumcision. What you are talking about is a ritual performed in a growing minority of traditional circumcisions. Feel free to protest that tradition all you care to spend your time doing so. I have a problem with it myself, especially since there are accepted alternative methods (like a pipette). You ignore my sincere expressions of regret… Read more »
What you are talking about is a ritual performed in a growing minority of traditional circumcisions. Not an insignificant minority, and it appears to be the preferred practice within New York Hasidic communities: About two-thirds of all infant boys born in New York City’s Hasidic communities, who are ultra-Orthodox, are circumcised in the oral suction manner, according to Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-dies-herpes-virus-ritual-circumcision-nyc-orthodox/story?id=15888618&singlePage=true I have a problem with it myself, especially since there are accepted alternative methods (like a pipette). But of course, adherents to that practice can just carp “This is our… Read more »
My agenda was merely to share my personal experience with bris mila and the Orthodox Jewish perspective in order to get this perspective into the conversation. Of course I knew that most of the responses would be vehemently opposed, but I felt that this side of the circumcision debate was not being presented in GMP and some of the editors agreed — not necessarily with my position, but with the idea that this is a viewpoint shared by a significant population. Comparing the statistics of gun related tragedies to those of bris mila is disingenuous. I do not dismiss either,… Read more »
@ David
“You ignore my sincere expressions of regret for those tragedies because you clearly have agenda.”
I don’t believe it’s sincere. I personally believe you don’t view it as a tragedy so much as an acceptable loss.
Believe what you want. You don’t know me, so perhaps you’re projecting your own beliefs about people like me. No matter how I respond to you now, this choice of yours to disparage my sincerity will be in the way.
I would rather someone suck on my child’s genitals than cut part of them off.
Editors,
How does this comment add to the conversation?
Circumcision has done me no favors! I have had bleeding abrasions from intercourse that a foreskin would have prevented. These abrasions have made me leery of having sex with my wife. Without the mechanical lubrication provided by a foreskin, I have to use artificial lubricant or sex would be painful for my wife and I. My parent’s chose this painful and unsatisfactory sex life for me and my wife and I simply cannot fathom why. I would never have chosen to have my foreskin removed. Only 1/16,667 intact males will have a problem with their foreskin, 99% of which can… Read more »
I’m sorry for your suffering.
Over 4000 years, millions upon millions upon millions of Jews have had bris mila. There are an unfortunate extreme minority in those numbers that have complications, and even a smaller number whose complications last into adulthood.
Then you have millions upon millions who were cut without a choice.
When they make that choice for themselves I can respect it.
An act of obedience INFLICTED UPON a defenseless person has no moral relevance to that person.
Let THE FATHER shed some blood in his newborn son’s stead. Then the son can freely choose how much of his genitals to keep at a rational age; bar mitzvah or later.
THOU SHALL NOT STEAL the son’s opportunity to commit this act of obedience of his own free will.
Hello David, Thank you for your article. I was neonatally circumcised in a U.S. hospital as routine by the doctor who delivered me in 1974. It completely injured me. I am Catholic and the Catholic church teaches that we must respect bodily integrity, but alas the Catholic hospital where I was born was and is controlled by medical doctors and is a for-profit business. Needless to say, my parents were misled. Circumcision was never discussed in my family, which is not healthy. I am a circumcised father of an intact son. The modern medical circumcision was introduced in the 19th… Read more »
Hi Craig
You have some very interesting point here.
I hope somebody answers your question.