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  1. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    Your statement segues into the topic at hand when it's realized that metzitzah specifically and purposefully makes the spiritual mind see a direct parallel between blowing the shofar and the last of the three rituals in brit milah. The only aspect of the ritual that appears to bother...
  2. John D. Brey

    "Days of Fertility."

    The grammatical construction in Genesis 17:12 ---- בן–שמנת ימים----- speaks of a person who is "of eight days" (meaning eight days old), or of a person who is "of fertile days" (meaning they've reached fertility). The only other place the phrase ---- בן–שמנת ימים---- is used in Genesis, is...
  3. John D. Brey

    "Days of Fertility."

    Faithfully exegeted in this new light, the text implies that the epoch when the new revelation will have arrived is called the "Days of Fertility" בן–שמנת ימים; which is significant since the new covenant affected in Genesis chapter 17 (which the sages note appears to be separate from the...
  4. John D. Brey

    "Days of Fertility."

    As pointed out by Jewish Professors like Gershom Scholem, and Moshe Idel, the nature of the Hebrew text of the Torah lends itself to multiple readings. The traditional Jewish reading is one viable reading. But it's not the only viable reading such that the exegesis found in the essay, Exegeting...
  5. John D. Brey

    "Days of Fertility."

    A famous Talmudic scholar reading an essay composed from a thread that took place here seven years ago, Exegeting Circumcision, could read no further when he came to the exegesis of Genesis 17:12 that interprets the Hebrew word semonat שמנת as the construct form of "fertility" rather than the...
  6. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    A correct exegesis of the "horn of David" (found in Psalms 132:17) lends itself to the fore-going so long as Jewish circumcision is informed by a universal anthropology concerning the general meaning of the ritual. The "horn" קרן of David is the Jewish koteka/phallocrypt. The only other place...
  7. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    . . . Oddly enough, it appears to be uncircumcised. :cool: John
  8. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    If we put this whole progression in terms of our discussion of the possibilities of heroism, it goes like this: Man breaks through the bounds of merely cultural heroism; he destroys the character lie that had him perform as a hero in the everyday social scheme of things; and by doing so he opens...
  9. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    This is a theme I wanted to address in this thread. Only I see it the opposite of how you do. I see "masculinity" associated with subjective individuality that must be sacrificed for the social body. Prior to eating of the Tree of Knowledge, humanity is a social beast easily swayed by...
  10. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    In the sixteenth century explorers and missionaries brought back to Europe the amazing news that many of the native peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Polynesia, peoples who knew nothing whatever about God, about the Bible, or about the Jews, also circumcised their sons. In some of...
  11. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    The theme of this book has been the challenge to the circumcision of Jewish men posed by the non-circumcision of Jewish women. If circumcision is an important, even essential, marker of Jewishness, why do Jewish women not possess this mark or any functional equivalent? . . . With the rise of...
  12. John D. Brey

    Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

    The non-circumcision of girls shows that the circumcision of boys cannot be essential to their Jewishness. Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (p. 220). Kindle Edition. Without reading a whole lot into Rabbi Cohen's statement, it could...
  13. John D. Brey

    Virginity: The Pregnant Metaphor.

    Stretching the foreskin is a metaphor for the creation of the phallus as described in Genesis 2:21. And the creation of the phallus is the first instance of fleshly-masculinity. It's this fleshly-masculinity that's the ban of human civilization. Removing the so-called "foreskin," i.e., brit...
  14. John D. Brey

    Question for Christians and those Who Believe in a Personal God

    The atheist Bertrand Russell was infected with the same need for absolute certainty. Reflecting on his eighteenth birthday (in Portrait from Memory), Russell states: "I wanted certainty in the kind of way people want religious faith," and in, My Philosophical Development, Russell says: "When I...
  15. John D. Brey

    Virginity: The Pregnant Metaphor.

    Rabbi Yehudah asked Rabbi Shim’on, “We have learned: ‘Adam stretched his foreskin.’ 938 What does this mean?” He replied, “That he separated the holy covenant from its site. 939 He certainly stretched the foreskin, for he abandoned the holy covenant, cleaved to the foreskin, was seduced by the...
  16. John D. Brey

    Question for Christians and those Who Believe in a Personal God

    That's a good point. It's like the idea of a million monkeys typing randomly on keyboards for infinity producing a Shakespearean sonnet somewhere in all that random garble. The real key is deciphering Shakespeare from random and meaningless type. I would say it's the ability to see the...
  17. John D. Brey

    Question for Christians and those Who Believe in a Personal God

    People who haven't read a lot of Einstein think when he said that imagination is more important than knowledge he was just trying to make a silly meme to go on a poster. But in fact he supports that supposition in a thoughtful way. John
  18. John D. Brey

    Question for Christians and those Who Believe in a Personal God

    One good trait of a thinker or scientist is to try not to jump to conclusions. We should be careful in how we interpret data. For instance, you seem to immediately assume the sparse data I presented implied I'm critical of Dawkins, or that I'm going to criticize his accomplishments. Adding...
  19. John D. Brey

    Virginity: The Pregnant Metaphor.

    It says a lot that you were even able to wade through it. And I get the gist of your comment. The case I'm making is different from the more obvious point you make. I doubt anyone will appreciate the puzzle I've solved (or am solving) for a long long time. There's so much crammed into all these...
  20. John D. Brey

    Virginity: The Pregnant Metaphor.

    The fore-going (so to say) returns everything to this statement from the Zohar: Rabbi Yehudah asked Rabbi Shim’on, “We have learned: ‘Adam stretched his foreskin.’ 938 What does this mean?” He replied, “That he separated the holy covenant from its site. 939 He certainly stretched the foreskin...
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