parsha of the week

Honoring Bris Milah later in life, for Heaven’s sake

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We are a people who are proud to honor the Bris Milah and willingly and unquestioningly circumcise our sons. We do this because of our commitment to our end of the Covenant, and our belief that as long as we do our part, G-d will continue to do His.

Would we be as willing to do this if we had to circumcise at a later age? Would we at the very least reconsider the age at which we do this?

In 2009, an Israel-born woman named Danae Elon produced a movie called “Partly Private” in which she explored the cultural attachment people have to circumcision around the world. She came from an anti-religious home; her father told her that if he could do it over he would not have circumcised his sons. Now that she was pregnant, she wanted to come from a place of knowledge in reaching her decision whether to circumcise.

While her particular story is certainly of interest, what I found especially fascinating was a circumcision party she attended in an Arabic community (I believe it was in Turkey), in which they had boys age 6 to 9 circumcised in a spectacle that was very public. And while all the fathers were saying, “My son will go through with it no matter what, he doesn’t have a choice,” when they turned the camera to some of the boys, they gave a thumbs down and expressed their displeasure in having to undergo this procedure.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who is a shul rabbi, called me with a dilemma. A family came to him for their son’s bar mitzvah. They weren’t particularly observant, and they had a question about his circumcision — had it been done at the right time and was the person who did the circumcision reliable to do it properly?

I don’t remember the particulars, but I do recall that what I felt was the best option was for the child to have hatafat dam — a largely ceremonial procedure in which the tiniest amount of blood is drawn from the circumcision scar to symbolically turn a medical circumcision into a Bris Milah. This procedure is done on circumcised males who convert to Judaism, and on Jews whose circumcisions were done in a manner not following Jewish law.

To make a long story short, when the young man was given this information, he balked and did not go through with the procedure. I think they had enough safek (doubt) to go through with the bar mitzvah without it.

I bring all of this as background for a simple question. Shechem the prince agreed to circumcise himself when the brothers insisted upon it, and underwent the procedure right away. So why do we believe that he deserved his fate, to be killed by Shimon and Levi. Did he not try to do the right thing after having done a very wrong thing with Dinah?

The Midrash Sechel Tov says that what he did was for lust and certainly not for the sake of heaven. If he came home and said, “I think we should all do this!” no one would have listened. But when he came home already circumcised, it was an easier sell.

Malbim and Netziv highlight how when he underwent the surgery, his motivation as described in the Torah is “his desire for the daughter of Yaakov.” It’s no longer his love for the young maiden, but to be connected to Yaakov.

There’s an old saying that “money is the root of all evil.” It seems that Shechem used a desire to be connected to the wealthy Yaakov as the motivating factor behind his circumcision. I’ve heard some people say in jest (though I wonder if they aren’t somewhat serious) that they’d give up an arm or at least a finger to attain a certain financial status and stature. If that’s the case, then what’s the loss of a foreskin? One would typically miss it much less than a limb or even a finger.

And so we need not give credit to Shechem, the opportunist and the rapist, who cared for Dinah only until he had his way with her, and turned to bigger, greener sights when he realized from which family she came.

To answer the opening question, I like to believe that if we had to do this at a later age, we would go for it all the same. I have met many Jews who came from the former Soviet Union, and did not hesitate to circumcise as teenagers and as adults. G-d bless them and their wonderful example of showing what it means to be devoted to G-d, even when the challenge is so difficult. They proved to us that the Jewish people are not deterred by the difficulty they face when the motivation is indeed for the sake of heaven.

Rabbi Avi Billet is a columnist for The Jewish Star.