Why jewish boys are circumcised

But, whatever the origin and the reasons for the practice, faithful Jews have circumcised their male children as the most distinctive sign of their loyalty to God. Brit Milah. Circumcision, with all its pain, reminds us of our partnership with God and the pain of fixing a broken world. We use cookies to improve your experience on our site and bring you ads that might interest you.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some liberal Jews have voiced discomfort with circumcision and opted not to circumcise their sons. Similarly, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in that a growing number of secular Jewish Israelis have also avoided the ritual.

This article on our partner site Kveller explains the numerous reasons for circumcision. Below are several personal accounts from our partner site Kveller by Jewish parents explaining their decisions to circumcise or not circumcise their sons:. Most often it is held at the family's home but some people prefer it to be done in a synagogue. The ritual is performed by a mohel circumciser , usually an observant Jew, on the eighth day after birth unless there are medical reasons to prevent it happening.

The mohel is required to have studied the religious laws and have the surgical skills essential to the operation. The Bris is an important family celebration for Jewish people. It is required that the father and mohel must be present but it's usual for other family members to participate too. Traditionally, an empty chair is set aside in the room for the prophet Elijah, who oversees the proceedings and ensures the continuation of the ritual.

The child may be brought into the room where the circumcision is to take place by the mother and other female family members. During the circumcision, the child is held on the lap of a person who has been chosen to act as sandek. The grandfather of the child or the family rabbi often takes this role and it is considered an honour to do this.

Blessings are recited and a drop or two of wine is place in the child's mouth. He is given his official Hebrew name. Although circumcision is widespread in the Jewish community, not all Jews accept the cutting or removal of a baby's foreskin as an absolute requirement. Some groups are now questioning the tradition, arguing that it is not essential to be circumcised to be a Jew.

While circumcision may be an outward sign of one's commitment to the Jewish religion and culture, they stress that a child's Jewish identity is inherited through his mother. Critics also point to the Torah's prohibition on marking or altering the human body as another reason why circumcision should be questioned.

Lev: The Torah states: "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account of the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord. They argue that this passage contradicts the requirement for circumcision because it involves the cutting and marking of the genitals. This, they claim, is not consistent with Jewish law and values. Opponents also insist that the Torah does not allow another person to be harmed. This strange and highly ambiguous story — whose feet exactly?

But whatever its original meaning, Zipporah's actions seem to have placated God, and the family continues on its way. The fourth mention of circumcision appears in Exodus 12, in the context of God's instructions about celebrating Passover: Even a "servant that is bought for money" may participate in the Seder ceremony, but only if he is circumcised.

Then, in Leviticus 12, God lists commandments for Moses to pass on to the Israelites as they sojourn in the desert. One order, essentially repeating what he had already told Abraham to do, is to circumcise their sons on their eighth day.

The sixth mention is in the Book of Joshua. After David slays Goliath, he becomes too popular for the liking of King Saul, who devises a plot to eliminate the upstart. He has his henchmen tell David that if he brings foreskins of Philistines, the king will marry his daughter Michal to him. Saul thought it a suicide mission, but David returns with foreskins and goes on to become king. Summing up the history of circumcision in the Bible: Circumcision was commanded by God to Abraham, and was carried out throughout the age of the Patriarchs and the sojourn in Egypt.

For some reason, it was discontinued while the Jews wandered the desert, though God had commanded otherwise. Then upon entering the Promised Land, circumcision was reinstated by Joshua, from which point it has been carried out to this very day. But "source criticism" — the theory that the Bible was not written by Moses but by different people over the ages , then later edited by yet more people — leads to the theory that the circumcision stories were not written in the order in which they appear.

Some "early" stories were evidently rewritten "later", without much regard for historical veracity. The covenant between God and Abraham, the circumcision of Isaac, the rape of Dinah, the Passover exhortation to circumcise servants too and the divine command to conduct circumcision in the desert are believed to have been written during the Babylonian Exile and in the early Second Temple period from about the 6th century BCE to the 4th century BCE.

And the oldest tale is the circumcision conducted by Zipporah, which was written in the middle of the First Temple period. So, the biblical narrative as we know it, was apparently formed by stitching together these various sources and stories during the early Second Temple period.

What are the implications of this theory for the origins of circumcision? None, note you, indicate that the ceremony was performed on infants. But if circumcision had been a central tenet of the pre-exilic Israelite religion, surely mention would have appeared more often? The answer to this curious lack of interest in circumcision on the part of First Temple-era scribes is probably that circumcision was not unique to the Judeans at that period. Conclusion: In First Temple times, circumcision was not perceived as a unique marker of Judean identity.

There was no reason for it to be featured with any prominence.