JCS Director's Dvar Torah

Note: This Drash (D'var Torah, or Torah Portion Discussion) was summarily rejected by the Washington Jewish Week for being too controversial.

This week's Torah portion, Lech Lecha, includes a familiar multi-part plotline.  G-d instructs Abram to set off to an unnamed “Promised land” with his wife, Sarai.  An old man already, Abram heads for Canaan, but a famine forces him to Egypt, where he passes off Sarai as his sister, because he is afraid that her beauty will attract jealousy and thus trouble. Pharaoh, realizing Abram’s deception, exiles Abram and Sarai.  After a tribal war involving Abram’s family and Sarai's gift of Hagar, which leads to Ishmael’s birth, the story repeats G-d's covenant but with a new string attached: male genital circumcision.

Amidst a beautiful story about taking risks, traveling to the unknown, and following our intrinsic moral compass, there suddenly appears this disfiguring obligation. The first person to be bound by this covenant was the newly renamed Abraham, who scarred himself permanently at 100 years of age.  The ritual, similar to the one that Nelson Mandela described in his autobiography, LongWalk to Freedom, likely was intensely painful and beautifully sacred. Abraham voluntarily endured an intimate ordeal to fulfill a personal pledge.  More excruciating than a tattoo, this process bestows tribal markings that humans have sought throughout history. The text describes the fleshly sacrifice as a mere “token.” Yet, the power of Abraham’s action conveys more significance.  

Antwerp, Musée National de l'Age Médiévale, Paris

But, before Abraham brought a knife to his own body, he was told this injury would persist “throughout your generations,” oppressing every boy “that is eight days old.” The splendor found in Abraham’s personal suffering is lost in this indiscriminate extension to innocent newborns.  Autonomous bodily rights are stolen for perpetuity with a threat worse than death: “that soul [of an uncircumcised male] shall be cut off from his people.”

How can we reconcile this story with our Jewish value of compassion for fellow humans, particularly if we acknowledge that the bravery exhibited by Abraham and Sarah is precisely because they paid attention to their intuition, inner voice, and own belief system? Why is there suddenly an unnecessary cutting of a helpless infant, especially of the genitals, in contradiction with Judaism’s commandment to protect children? The bris milah creates an exception unique in both its wounding nature and its subjugation of children younger than bar mitzvah age.

A historical viewpoint conjectures that the new religion, in order to find converts, needed to appease ancient cultures that had adopted male blood-letting rituals. These ceremonies were based on a misbelief that female powers of fertility were related to menstruation. Thus, Sarai is renamed Sarah without the gory condition encumbered upon Abraham. While a possible pagan origin offers the simplest explanation, it does not satisfy a craving for greater spiritual insight. 

Depiction of Circumcision Before Advent of Judaism

Indeed, the lack of discussion is odd in itself.  Where was the opposition by Abraham?  The Torah repeatedly portrays defiance of G-d. Abraham himself engages in a lengthy debate to protect Sodom and Gomorrah, triumphing against the all-powerful ruler.  Even in the subsequent destruction, G-d “remembered” and rewarded Abraham for his rebellion, sparing Abraham’s extended family. Yet, Abraham eschews speaking up for his unborn son Isaac, neither to protect him against the needless sacrifice of his genitals nor the later needless sacrifice of his life. Abraham’s silence is louder, considering his earlier forceful moral voice for strangers. Except Moses’ unexplained refusal to circumcise his son, the Jewish value of challenging unjust authority appears nonexistent.

But, it is not absent. Abraham and Sarah’s remarkable journey challenges us to explore moral choices. Whether we individually choose to heal from or to endure this marking, we’re comfortably embraced by our ancestral people in our personal paths.