The husband is obligated to bring himself to the wife. Please. I'm being very careful with my wording. The woman has NO obligation to the man. He brings himself to her. Literally, using biblical lingo, he comes to her. The conception is divine providence. Conception does not have anything to do with the status of the marriage. Tamar, I think, would be a good example of this. She was a wife and a widow multiple times without bearing children.
You say conception doesn't have anything to do with the status of the marriage. But then I would ask if conception has anything to do with the status of sex? Is the point of sex to be fruitful and multiply, or is it to have an orgasm, and if conception occurs then that's even better? Is there such a thing as sex in the Bible that's neither a sin, nor an intention to be fruitful and multiply? Is sex an activity in itself outside of adultery, fornication, prostitution, and getting pregnant? Is there a biblical purpose for marital sex outside of being fruitful and multiplying?
I'm not insinuating that the Bible is opposed to sexual pleasure between husband and wife, or sex to strengthen the bond, etc. I'm doubting that God instituted sex for any of those ancillary purposes (even if He's not opposed to them). Are there any verses in the Tanakh that can prove me wrong? Verses that command sex for any reason other than being fruitful and multiplying?
What's interesting about this is: at first you critisise watering it down, but then, the "marriage" is being watered down by considering it symbolic. Please see my next comments for an example of what I mean.
For me, watering it down means adding things to it that aren't biblical. Saying it's symbolic doesn't water it down so much as it neuters or spays it.
Well, that's really more of a comment on Boyarin and Handelman and others, not on "Jews". As I've noticed recently, and spoken of recently, people say things about Jews all the time, but when it's examined, they're not being accurate at all. What they're commenting on is: "this is important to me." But the "this" may or may not be actually what Jews do or don't do. It's just a thing that the person likes or doesn't like. And if you agree with them, then you're commenting on your values, your affinities and your aversions. It actually has nothing to do with Jews.
I can only speak for myself in saying that having wrestled with the nature of Jewish identity for a long time I've found elements of that identity that are utterly unique so far as anything I've encountered in any other ethnicity, or religious identity. In my personal encounter with my Jewish interlocutors these unique traits come up almost every time implying to me that they're not arbitrary or mere cultural phenomenon but are indeed ingrained traits which I find fascinating.
For the circumcision, it's an obligation on the parents or on the convert. The spiritual content is directed to the them.
Voila.
Here's one of those strange and unique Jewish beliefs. I.e., that cutting flesh off an eight day old child is really about the parents and not the person who will probably receive the largest scar he will ever have on his body (or at least that's the case with many males, yours truly include) from his father (
mohel or doctor) so that the father can receive some spiritual benefit at the cost of flesh and blood of his newborn son.
Don't think I'm being critical of
brit milah. I'm not. I'm not even being critical of the idea that the spiritual content is for the parents and not the one whose flesh is in the cross-hairs of the blood-letting. I'm not being critical of anything. I'm pointing out that in my opinion many Jewish beliefs and practices transcend logic making it not just difficult for a Jew to argue or justify them to a non-Jew, but making it impossible.
Once it's accepted that there's a chasm between a Jew and a non-Jew that's likely impossible to breach, we enter into some really deep and problematic religious issues about a Jew's relationship to non-Jews.
So, if you or Boyarin or anyone are looking at the circumcised penis and expecting to... ahem.... size up whether there is something spiritual happening to it, the penis, you're looking in the wrong place. And this mistake, naturally, will lead to the miscomprehension about what the spiritual content is, and the mistake of thinking the physical deed isn't needed. Guess what? No way. There is no way to replicate what happens when a parent physically fulfills this commandment. Nothing. No mental or emotional meditation accomplishes the same thing. There is only 1 way to do it. And that goes double-triple for the convert.
This statement seems to speak of a unification of the mind and the body (or flesh and spirit) in a way that rejects the binary difference between mind and body.
Whereas Jesus claims it's enough just to lust after a woman (even if you don't do the deed), and Paul insinuates that faith transcends bodily works in a manner that makes the latter inconsequential so far as spiritual reality is concerned (Paul seems to exaggerate the mind body duality rather than unify the binary polarity), Jewish thought like your statement above seems to ignore the binary nature of body and mind, or fleshly vs. spiritual, so that you can't be spiritual if you're a sinner in the flesh (ala Paul's claim you can ---Romans chapter 7) and so you can't be a Jew and a Christian at the same time: the latter being a person who is a sinner and righteous at the same time since the righteousness isn't mixed or tainted with, by, the sinful flesh.
Unfortunately there's the Pauline paradox that if you can be a sinner in the flesh, and yet still be spiritual (in the spirit) since flesh and spirit are mutally exclusive, then in his own way he seems to be unifying the flesh and the spirit in the paradoxical sense that by being mutually exclusive, they can coexist perfectly somewhat parallel to the Jewish idea that collapses flesh and spirit, mental intention vs. actual action.
Untangling the difference between Paul's paradoxical unification through exclusivity, versus the Jewish idea of unification through rejection of "sin" as something that disqualifies unity between the flesh and the spirit would seemingly be profitable. Jesus and Paul's concept of "sin" (and thus Christianity's concept of "sin") is fundamentally different than the Jewish concept of sin.
What I'm saying is, the spiritual content is there in these actions, often automatically. But I don't think you know where to look nor would you recognize it because you're looking for something else. And when you claim it's missing, what you're actually saying is, "this spiritual aspect is important to me." And, you're probably right that these spiritual aspects ARE important. You're just looking for them in the wrong place.
Interesting. As a Christian, with a Christian concept of sin, I'm looking beyond the body contaminated with sin (the Christian belief) rather than looking, as a Jew might, through the body, in concert with the body, since the body is not bad, or contaminated, etc.. . . This idea of the body, world, god of this world, as bad, seems like the primary departure between Christian thought and Jewish thought. The Christian is in the body, and world, and under the authority of the god of the world, but is not of the world, of the body, or of the god of this world. That's a pretty giant chasm ----seemingly impossible to bridge ----between Christian thought and Jewish thought.
My belief is that it can be bridged without throwing either under the bus. I believe in one sense it's impossible, but in another sense that all things are possible with God. I don't think tearing the curtain of impossibility between Christianity and Judaism is like asking God to make a rock so big he can't lift it. I think the former is a heavy stone no doubt, but one that can be lifted.
John