Bannning Brit Milah?

Have you heard about Moishe who walked by a store featuring clocks and watches in its window? He needed a repair so he went in and asked the proprietor how much it would cost to fix his watch. “We don’t fix watches here,” the man replied. “I'm a mohel.” “A mohel? Why do you have clocks in your window?” “And what would you put there?”

I remember the brit milah of each of my sons. The first time I was amazed that I burst into tears. The second time I was amazed that despite telling myself that I would not weep this time, I did again. The third time I steeled myself against such unmanly behavior and cried hardest. I’m a wimp, I guess. I was delivering these innocents pain. I’m their father; I should be protecting them from men with sharp knives about to cut them, not delivering them up to them. It was like a sacrifice each time. Yes, I knew it was part of an ancient ritual welcoming the boy into the community, an opportunity for friends and relatives to kvell and to eat and to sing and to dance. But to me it was, well, if I believed in psychology I might be tempted to say that it was a subconscious return to my own eighth day experience.

We read that God told Abraham to circumcise himself and all who were of this party and his son Ishmael and later his son Isaac on his eight day but we’re not told why this should be the everlasting sign of the covenant. Speculation abounds—that by marking the organ of reproduction we are initiating our children into the covenant from the moment of conception, that it was always intended as a health measure, that it was borrowed from other ancient societies, perhaps even from the Egyptians and the Canaanites (who waited until just before puberty to perform the ritual).

The US Constitution prevents government from prohibiting the free exercise of religion (First Amendment). Nevertheless in two California cities, San Francisco this November and Santa Monica next, there will be a referendum decreeing that anyone who circumcises a boy under the age of 18 within city limits faces a $1,000 fine and up to one year in jail. The only exception would be for “compelling and immediate medical need.” To get on the ballot known as the “MGM [Male Genital Mutilation] Bill” 12,000 people signed a petition. Matthew Hess, who founded MGM Bill in 2003 and spearheads its legislative efforts, says he is trying to protect boys from what he considers a barbaric mutilation of their bodies. He became an activist in his mid-20s, he says, when he decided that his own circumcision as an infant resulted in diminished sexual sensitivity as an adult. “Freedom of religion stops at another person’s body,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

Ironically Hess is echoing the great medieval Jewish sage Maimonides who argued in his Guide to the Perplexed that “with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible… The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished.” Thus Jews have more time for study, less interest in lust as compared to uncircumcised Gentiles.

Opposing the ballot initiative is Nathan Diament, director of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs. He argues that “The stakes are very high. Circumcision is a fundamental aspect of Jewish ritual practice and Jewish identity.” In this he is joined by other Jewish groups and Muslim ones as well. The San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, with Abby Porth, the JCRC’s associate director in the lead, organized a wide-ranging coalition of religious, medical, legal and political leaders to oppose the ballot measure. The Council on American-Islamic Relations Bay Area director Zahra Billoo notes that CAIR rarely finds itself on the same political side as groups such as the Orthodox Union. “It’s the assault on religious freedoms that brings the two together,” Billoo said. “The civil rights of Jews and Muslims are being impacted,” she told the JTA.

On the legal front Joel Paul, professor of constitutional law and associate dean of the University of California Hastings School of Law, says the law likely would not survive a court challenge as it entangles the state in religious matters by putting the state in the position of judging whether a certain religious practice is permissible.

It’s very unlikely that the ban against circumcision will become a reality. Neither the votes nor the Constitution will permit it. But in any event, I’ve looked and have found no creditable indication that the proposed ban is anti-Semitic in origin. Nevertheless, passage of such bills, even if based exclusively on humanitarian considerations, would be a devastating blow to the Jewish (and Muslim) communities. My tears at my sons’ brit milahs ended; but ending brit milah would end Judaism as we know it.