Circumcision?

Vastavus said:

...Alright, the question is, why does God care so much about people's penis's? If he created them the way that they are, why is circumcision such a big deal? This seems like an EXTREMELY irrelavent thing for the creator of the universe to be worrying about so much, so why does he?

Click to expand...

39. 'The letter kills,' says Scripture, 'but the Spirit gives life' (2 Cor. 3:6). Consequently, the letter whose nature it is to kill must be killed by the life-giving Spirit. For what is material in' the Law and what is divine - namely, the letter and the Spirit - cannot coexist, nor can what destroys life be reconciled with that which by nature bestows life.

44. The Spirit bestows life, the letter destroys it. Thus the letter cannot function at the same time as the Spirit, just as what gives life cannot coexist with what destroys life.

41. Circumcision, in its mystical sense, is the complete cutting away of the intellect's impassioned attachment to all that comes into being in a contingent manner. Viewing things on the natural level, we recognize that the removal of an attribute naturally bestowed by God does not produce perfection. For nature does not bring about perfection when it is mutilated by human ingenuity, or when through over-subtlety men deprive it of something conferred on it by God at creation. Otherwise we would be attributing to human ingenuity more power to establish a perfect order of things than to God, and to an ingenious mutilation of nature the ability to make good shortcomings in God's creation. But if we understand circumcision figuratively, we learn that we are spiritually to circumcise the impassioned disposition of our soul. In this way our will, having freed the intellect from its impassioned subjection to the law that rules the birth of contingent things, is brought into harmony with nature.

42. Uncircumcision is natural. Everything that is natural is the work of divine creation and is excellent: 'And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good' (Gen. 1:31). But the Law, by demanding on the grounds of uncleanness that the foreskin should be cut away by circumcision (cf. Gen. 17:10-14), presents God as amending His own work through human skill. This is a most blasphemous way of looking at things. He, then, who interprets the symbols whereby the Law is expressed in the light of knowledge attained through natural contemplation, knows that God does not set nature aright by means of human skill, but bids us circumcise the passible aspect of the soul so as to make it obedient to the intelligence. This is indicated figuratively in terms of the body, and means that we are to excise the flaws from our will by means of spiritual knowledge acquired through the courageous practice of the virtues. The circumcising priest signifies spiritual knowledge, and the knife he uses is the courageous practice of the virtues, which cuts away the passions. When the Spirit triumphs over the letter, the tradition of the Law is abolished.
(St. Maximus)

Click to expand...

ptgd1st said:

My answer is a question. Who are we to question the intentions of God?

Click to expand...

We're here to question the validity of anything claiming to be the intentions of God.

Which is what any reasonalbe person should do...

Click to expand...

Ben Borg Again said:

I wonder why God decided to borrow an Egyptian custom? Is it just coinicidence? Heres an egyptian quote that predates Moses by 1000 years

Click to expand...

S Walch said:

You think circumscision can only happen when a child is young?

A grown man can make a concious choice as to whether he is circumcised or not, depending whether he has been circumcised or not when he was a child obviously.

Click to expand...

HazyRigby said:

I'm sure that if we removed infant girls' breast tissue, we could prevent a lot of breast cancer.

I'm sure that if we circumcised our girls, they would be less likely to get an STD.

Is this a valid reason to cut off parts of our children's bodies?

Click to expand...

Brit Milah: Circumcision

Of all of the commandments in Judaism, the brit milah (literally, Covenant of Circumcision) is probably the one most universally observed. It is commonly referred to as a bris (covenant, using the Ashkenazic pronunciation). Even the most secular of Jews, who observe no other part of Judaism, almost always observe these laws. Of course, until quite recently, the majority of males in the United States were routinely circumcised, so this doesn't seem very surprising. But keep in mind that there is more to the ritual of the brit milah than merely the process of physically removing the foreskin, and many otherwise non-observant Jews observe the entire ritual.

The commandment to circumcise is given at Gen. 17:10-14 and Lev. 12:3. The covenant was originally made with Abraham. It is the first commandment specific to the Jews. Circumcision is performed only on males. Although some cultures have a practice of removing all or part of the woman's [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], often erroneously referred to as "female circumcision," that ritual has never been a part of Judaism. Like so many Jewish commandments, the brit milah is commonly perceived to be a hygienic measure; however the biblical text states the reason for this commandment quite clearly: circumcision is an outward physical sign of the eternal covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. It is also a sign that the Jewish people will be perpetuated through the circumcised man. The health benefits of this practice are merely incidental. It is worth noting, however, that circumcised males have a lower risk of certain cancers, and the sexual partners of circumcised males also have a lower risk of certain cancers.

The commandment is binding upon both the father of the child and the child himself. If a father does not have his son circumcised, the son is obligated to have himself circumcised as soon as he becomes an adult. A person who is uncircumcised suffers the penalty of kareit, spiritual excision; in other words, regardless of how good a Jew he is in all other ways, a man has no place in the World to Come if he is uncircumcised.

Circumcision is performed on the eighth day of the child's life, during the day. The day the child is born counts as the first day, thus if the child is born on a Wednesday, he is circumcised on the following Wednesday. Keep in mind that Jewish days begin at sunset, so if the child is born on a Wednesday evening, he is circumcised the following Thursday. Circumcisions are performed on Shabbat, even though they involve the drawing of blood which is ordinarily forbidden on shabbat. The Bible does not specify a reason for the choice of the eighth day; however modern medicine has revealed that an infant's blood clotting mechanism stabilizes on the eighth day after birth. As with almost any commandment, circumcision can be postponed for health reasons. Jewish law provides that where the child's health is at issue, circumcision must wait until seven days after a doctor declares the child healthy enough to undergo the procedure.

Circumcision involves surgically removing the foreskin of the penis. The circumcision is performed by a mohel (lit. circumciser; rhymes with oil), a pious, observant Jew educated in the relevant Jewish law and in surgical techniques. Circumcision performed by a regular physician does not qualify as a valid brit milah, regardless of whether a rabbi says a blessing over it, because the removal of the foreskin is itself a religious ritual that must be performed by someone religiously qualified. If the child is born without a foreskin (it happens occasionally), or if the child was previously circumcised without the appropriate religious intent or in a manner that rendered the circumcision religiously invalid, a symbolic circumcision may be performed by taking a pinprick of blood from the tip of the penis. This is referred to as hatafat dam brit.

While the circumcision is performed, the child is held by a person called a sandek. In English, this is often referred to as a godfather. It is an honor to be a sandek for a bris. The sandek is usually a grandparent or the family rabbi. Traditionally, a chair (often an ornate one) is set aside for Elijah, who is said to preside over all circumcisions. Various blessings are recited, including one over wine, and a drop of wine is placed in the child's mouth. The child is then given a formal Hebrew name. It is not necessary to have a minyan for a bris, but it is desirable if feasible. As with most Jewish life events, the ritual is followed by refreshments or a festive meal.

The Circumcision Controversy

In recent times, circumcision has become controversial. Some have hypothesized that infant circumcision has harmful psychological effects and may cause sexual dysfunction. Many websites have sprung up promoting this point of view, and even in Israel there are those who want to outlaw circumcision as child abuse. To the best of my knowledge, there is no concrete, scientific evidence that circumcision has any harmful effect. The rate of complications from circumcision is one of the lowest of all surgical procedures, and the most common complication is simply excessive bleeding. At most, the latest scientific evidence indicates that the health benefits of circumcision are not as great as previously assumed, thus there is no reason to perform routine circumcisions for the purposes of hygiene. However, as stated above, Jewish circumcision is not performed for the purpose of hygeine. From the traditional Jewish point of view, there is no controversy. The ritual of circumcision was commanded by our Creator, and He certainly knows what is and is not good for us. The G-d who commanded us not to harm ourselves certainly would not command us to do something harmful to ourselves, and even if He did, the observant Jew would nonetheless heed His wishes.

Click to expand...

Bris Milah Beautiful or Barbaric?
by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

Is circumcision a barbaric ritual that harms a child physically? Or is it a deep meaningful act that has both spiritual and medical benefits?

These days, the internet is filled with bulletin board discussions entitled "To circumcise or not?" Many will voice the opinion that circumcision (Bris Milah) is a cruel, barbaric procedure that can traumatize the baby. Some go so far as to claim that a Bris decreases future tolerance to pain, increases the risk of infection, has long term psychological affects, decreases sexual arousal, etc.

In Europe today, "human rights" groups have mounted a grass roots campaign opposing circumcision, comparing it to the brutal mutilation of African women. The Netherlands Institute of Human Rights wants to outlaw Bris Milah. And an article published in the prestigious British Medical Journal (April 2000), written by obstetricians, gynecologists, and midwives from hospitals in France, claimed:

"The [African] women we interviewed considered their daughters' mutilation and their sons' circumcision to be similar. Male circumcision is also a form of genital mutilation since it involves removing a healthy part of an organ. How can we convince mothers that they should not mutilate their daughters while they could continue to have their sons circumcised?"

Shockingly, this campaign even has adherents in Israel. In February 1998, a group of Israelis petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to outlaw circumcision on the grounds that it is criminal assault. A joke? No. Case number 5780/98 is a real case, and the court has already held hearings.

Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, Executive Director of the Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation in Tel Aviv, says that a campaign is urgently needed to end Bris Milah. "Why are they discriminating against me as victim of Jewish male genital mutilation?" he decries. "Are my human rights, bodily integrity and suffering less important than those of African girls?"

[size=+1]JEWISH REASONS

[/size]The truth is, there is no "logical" argument for cutting a piece of flesh off a helpless baby.

Yet circumcision has been practiced on Jewish males for close to 4,000 years, ever since Abraham was so commanded by God. Why does the foreskin need to be removed?

In Kabbalistic terms, the foreskin symbolizes a barrier which prevents growth. For example, when the Torah speaks about getting close to God, it calls upon us to "remove the Orlah, the foreskin of your heart" (Deut. 10:16).

When Abraham circumcised himself at age 99, God added the letter "heh" to his name. "Heh" is part of God's own name, signifying that through Bris Milah, the human being adds a dimension of spirituality to the physical body.

It is a foundation of Judaism that we are to control our animal desires and direct them into spiritual pursuits. Nowhere does a person have more potential for expressing "barbaric" behavior than in the sex drive. That's why the Bris is done on this specific organ. If we bring holiness into our life there, then all other areas will follow.

[size=+1]IDENTIFYING THE JEW

[/size]Another aspect of circumcision is that it is integral to Jewish identity. This point was made quite powerfully by a movie called "Europa Europa," It is the true story about a young Jewish boy trying to escape detection by the Nazis. The boy resembles an Aryan and speaks German fluently, so he poses as a non-Jew and is eventually recruited into an elite training program for the next generation of SS officers.

This boy was on his way to a fully non-Jewish life, except for one thing: His circumcision. He couldn't hide it. And that is what kept him Jewish throughout the entire ordeal.

Bris is the sign of the covenant. So a boy who is not circumcised has basically lost his spiritual attachment to the Jewish people.

The man survived the war, and made a new life for himself in Israel. Instead, he may have ended up becoming a Nazi officer. It all depended on the Bris.

[size=+1]MEDICAL DATA

[/size]It is a principle of Jewish life that our decision to perform mitzvot is not based on the "practical benefit." At the same time, the mitzvot frequently have positive observable effects in our everyday life.

Regarding the medical issues, Rabbi Yonason Binyomin Goldberger writes in "Sanctity and Science":

As an operation, circumcision has an extremely small complication rate. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (1990) reported a complication rate of 0.19 percent when circumcision is performed by a physician. When performed by a trained mohel, the rate falls to 0.13 percent or about 1 in 1000. When a complication occurs, it is usually excessive bleeding, which is easily correctable. No other surgical procedure can boast such figures for complication-free operations.

One reason why there are so few complications involving bleeding may be that the major clotting agents, prothrombin and vitamin K, do not reach peak levels in the blood until the eighth day of life. Prothrombin levels are normal at birth, drop to very low levels in the next few days, and return to normal at the end of the first week. One study showed that by the eighth day, prothrombin levels reach 110 percent of normal. In the words of Dr. Armand J. Quick, author of several works on the control of bleeding, "It hardly seems accidental that the rite of circumcision was postponed until the eighth day by the Mosaic law."

Furthermore, circumcision has been known to offer virtually complete protection from penile cancer. According to a recent review article in the New England Journal of Medicine, none of the over 1,600 persons studied with this cancer had been circumcised in infancy. In the words of researchers Cochen and McCurdy, the incidence of penile cancer in the U.S. is "essentially zero" among circumcised men.

Also, research at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore have shown that circumcised men are six to eight times less likely to become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Researchers believe that protection is due to the removal of the foreskin, which contains cells that have HIV receptors which scientists suspect are the primary entry point for the HIV virus. (Reuters, March 25, 2004) Several studies reported that circumcised boys were between 10-to-39 times less likely to develop urinary tract infections during infancy than uncircumcised boys. In addition, circumcision protects against bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections and a variety of other conditions related to hygiene. The extremely low rate of cervical cancer in Jewish women (nine-to-22 times less than among non-Jewish women) is thought to be related to the practice of circumcision.

As a result of studies like these, a number of prestigious medical organizations have recognized the benefits of circumcision, and the California Medical Association has endorsed circumcision as an "effective public health measure."

[size=+1]BRIS IN THE HOLOCAUST

[/size]Bris has been the hallmark of Jewish identification for millennia. The following powerful story appears in "Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust" by Yaffa Eliach:

One of the forced laborers in the camps relates that one day he heard frightening cries of anguish the likes of which he had never heard before. Later he learned that on that very day a selection had been made -- of infants to be sent to the ovens. We continued working, tears rolling down our faces, and suddenly I hear the voice of a Jewish woman: "Give me a knife."

I thought she wanted to take her own life. I said to her, "Why are you hurrying so quickly to the world of truth..." All of a sudden the German soldier called out, "Dog, what did you say to the woman?"

"She requested a pocketknife and I explained to her that it was prohibited to commit suicide."

The woman looked at the German with inflamed eyes, and stared spellbound at his coat pocket where she saw the shape of his pocketknife. "Give it to me," she requested. She bent down and picked up a package of old rags. Hidden among them, on a pillow as white as snow, lay a tender infant. The woman took the pocketknife, pronounced the blessing -- and circumcised the child. "Master of the Universe," she cried, "You gave me a healthy child, I return him to You a worthy Jew."

Click to expand...