Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen Examines Circumcision.

[John D. Brey]

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 appear that Jewish women are the prototype of Jewishness and covenant. Jewish law seems to support this since only Jewish women can produce Jews in the first place: birth; if a Jewish man impregnates a non-Jewish woman, the offspring isn't, technically, legally, Jewish. So Voila. Jewish woman are the prototype of Jewishness (see, The Original Jewish Mother). So what's the purpose of circumcision? Why must Jewish males cut and bleed their man-hood, their maleness, while Jewish women are just fine from the get go? The question is particularly important since Jewish writing tends to imply circumcision is something like the sine qua non of what it is to become Jewish. Voila. Circumcision ritualizes a Jewish male's return to the prototype form by cutting and bleeding his man-hood, his masculinity (see, Gynandros).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

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 appear that Jewish women are the prototype of Jewishness and covenant. Jewish law seems to support this since only Jewish women can produce Jews in the first place: birth; if a Jewish man impregnates a non-Jewish woman, the offspring isn't, technically, legally, Jewish. So Voila. Jewish woman are the prototype of Jewishness (see, The Original Jewish Mother). So what's the purpose of circumcision? Why must Jewish males cut and bleed their man-hood, their maleness, while Jewish women are just fine from the get go? The question is particularly important since Jewish writing tends to imply circumcision is something like the sine qua non of what it is to become Jewish. Voila. Circumcision ritualizes a Jewish male's return to the prototype form by cutting and bleeding his man-hood, his masculinity (see, Gynandros).

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 sexual egalitarianism in the last decades of the twentieth century, traditionalist Jews have become increasingly bothered by the disparity in the ritual treatment of newborn Jewish boys and newborn Jewish girls. These traditionalists advocate not the cessation of circumcision for boys but the creation of a ritual for girls that will somehow correspond to the circumcision of boys. The search for an appropriate ritual continues.​

​

Ibid.​

In an attempt not to be male chauvinistic, the traditional Jewish males show their inborn chauvinism since rather than realizing the obvious, that Jewish women are the prototype Jew (such that Jewish males must perform a ritual to return, at least symbolically, to the norm, the prototype), they scratch their heads trying to think of some way the unfortunate Jewish woman can join the party by cutting and bleeding non-Jewish flesh to become ritually Jewish. The search for an appropriate ritual cutting continues since there's no non-Jewish flesh on the female body to be cut, removed, or bled.



John

​

 

[Treasure Hunter]

It’s the circumcision of the spirit which matters: cutting away the social identities and offering them up in sacrifice in order to establish relationship with the new, individuating self.

Circumcision of the flesh was a distortion of this moral truth being fully realized, a partial truth meant to disrupt the development of the human individual. That’s the pessimistic view. A more charitable view sees flesh circumcision as a ritual meant to aid remembrance of the deeper truth.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Circumcision, or other mutilations of the penis (or vulva) has appeared in other cultures, and was in fact used in the upper classes in places like Egypt before the Jews started doing it. It was known in sub-equatorial Africa, Egypt, and Arabia, though the specific form and extent of circumcision has varied. Ritual male circumcision is known to have been practiced by South Sea Islanders, Aboriginal peoples of Australia, Sumatrans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and Ancient Egyptians.

There is a suggestion in historical texts that the Jews actually adopted it from Egypt. (I have no references, sorry.)

But I have a sneaking suspicion that for the early Jews, trying to establish themselves as "chosen" and somehow special, that this was a subliminal ceding of even the sexual faculty to God.

 

[John D. Brey]

Circumcision, or other mutilations of the penis (or vulva) has appeared in other cultures, and was in fact used in the upper classes in places like Egypt before the Jews started doing it. It was known in sub-equatorial Africa, Egypt, and Arabia, though the specific form and extent of circumcision has varied. Ritual male circumcision is known to have been practiced by South Sea Islanders, Aboriginal peoples of Australia, Sumatrans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and Ancient Egyptians.

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 his Essays, written in 1588, Montaigne discusses the diversity of humanity's habits and the curious fact that distant peoples sometimes have customs that mimic those of Europeans. He observes: "We have newly discovered peoples who, as far as we know, have never heard of us, yet where they believe in circumcision."​

​

Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (p. 6). Kindle Edition.​

There is a suggestion in historical texts that the Jews actually adopted it from Egypt. (I have no references, sorry.) . . . But I have a sneaking suspicion that for the early Jews, trying to establish themselves as "chosen" and somehow special, that this was a subliminal ceding of even the sexual faculty to God.

Moses was raised and highly educated as an Egyptian. So he would've been familiar with the nature and history of circumcision, a history that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, Abraham passed down Jewish circumcision to his offspring. So Jews were circumcising themselves long before they were living among the Egyptians.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

It’s the circumcision of the spirit which matters: cutting away the social identities and offering them up in sacrifice in order to establish relationship with the new, individuating self.

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 commandments and orders from whomever is the boss. But after gaining knowledge (gaining and eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the phallus), the human now wants to authenticate the nature of the one giving the orders. "Who made you boss? And what's the nature of your authority. If you're God, then how can I `know' that other than you saying it? What proves you're God and not just some being far above me, and way beyond the ken of my current understanding and knowledge?"

Circumcision of the flesh was a distortion of this moral truth being fully realized, a partial truth meant to disrupt the development of the human individual. That’s the pessimistic view. A more charitable view sees flesh circumcision as a ritual meant to aid remembrance of the deeper truth.

Circumcision of the flesh, in the most seminal passage, Genesis 17, is said to be a symbol, sign, of circumcision, and not circumcision itself. That being the case, then what is circumcision itself such that cutting that flesh symbolizes it?



John

 

[Treasure Hunter]

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 commandments and orders from whomever is the boss. But after gaining knowledge (gaining and eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the phallus), the human now wants to authenticate the nature of the one giving the orders. "Who made you boss? And what's the nature of your authority. If you're God, then how can I `know' that other than you saying it? What proves you're God and not just some being far above me, and way beyond the ken of my current understanding and knowledge?"



Circumcision of the flesh, in the most seminal passage, Genesis 17, is said to be a symbol, sign, of circumcision, and not circumcision itself. That being the case, then what is circumcision itself such that cutting that flesh symbolizes it?



John

Do you not see how the social body serves as a protective covering? In the same way, the protective flesh of the penis is connected to the flesh of the entire body.

Circumcision of the penis removes the protective covering of the flesh. Circumcision of the spirit removes the protective covering of the social body. In both instances, the male member is stripped away from the protective body. Jesus said we must become male to enter into eternal life. Covering is associated with the feminine; exposing with the masculine.

Body symbolizes protection but also a sort of death trap. Our fleshly body, just like our social body, both protects and eventually destroys us.

 

[John D. Brey]

Do you not see how the social body serves as a protective covering?

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 himself up to infinity, to the possibility of cosmic heroism, to the very service of God. His life thereby acquires ultimate value in place of merely social and cultural, historical value. He links his secret inner self, his authentic talent, his deepest feelings of uniqueness, his inner yearning for absolute significance, to the very ground of creation. Out of the ruins of the broken cultural self there remains the mystery of the private, invisible, inner self which yearned for ultimate significance, for cosmic heroism. This invisible mystery at the heart of every creature now attains cosmic significance by affirming its connection with the invisible mystery at the heart of creation. This is the meaning of faith. At the same time it is the meaning of the merger of psychology and religion in Kierkegaard’s thought. The truly open person, the one who has shed his character armor, the vital lie of his cultural conditioning, is beyond the help of any mere “science,” of any merely social standard of health. He is absolutely alone and trembling on the brink of oblivion----which is at the same time the brink of infinity. To give him the new support that he needs, the “courage to renounce dread without any dread . . . only faith is capable of,” says Kierkegaard. Not that this is an easy out for man, or a cure-all for the human condition----Kierkegaard is never facile. He gives a strikingly beautiful idea:​

​

. . . not that [faith] annihilates dread, but remaining ever young, it is continually developing itself out of the death throes of dread.​

​

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, p. 91.​

In the same way, the protective flesh of the penis is connected to the flesh of the entire body.

I think your concept works within the general understanding of circumcision proffered by the Masoretic Text. But I've gone to some lengths to show that the MT's presentation of circumcision is erroneous such that correcting that error leads to some very different ideas concerning the meaning of the symbolism of circumcision. The standard Jewish idea that the "foreskin" is the bad flesh such that removing a little band of skin around the penis corrects the body is completely absurd. It has no logical meaning. So Judaism turns it into a grotesque tautology: "In other words, circumcision is the covenant, and the covenant is circumcision" (Rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen).

The sages of the Zohar begin to sort out what's going on in the text if it's exegeted more deeply and carefully than in the MT. In careful and serious exegesis, the skin removed from the penis isn't the "foreskin" but merely a symbol of the "foreskin" (Genesis 17:11). In the Hebrew of the Torah, "foreskin" (ערלה) merely means "uncircumcision," thus putting the onus on knowing what "circumcision" is such that "uncircumcision" can be juxtaposed against "circumcision." To claim that removing a small band of flesh from the penis turns a person into a Jew, saves a person, or makes the body perfect, is utterly and undeniably, even scientifically/biologically, ludicrous to the extreme. The Hebrew text is patently clear (Gen. 17:11) that removing a small piece of the most seminal part of the "foreskin" (the band of flesh excised ritually in brit milah), is a tool (so to say) to make it evident when circumcision has actually, rather than ritually, occurred.

Armed with this corrected understanding of the situation, the Zohar points out that the original human stretches flesh over his original, circumspect body, creating the state of "uncircumcision." Uncircumcision is the transformation of the original female body (the default human form both in Genesis chapter 2 and in the biology of the womb) into "uncircumcision"; uncircumcision thus being the existence of so-called masculine-flesh manufactured by stretching female flesh (the labia) over the female genitalia thereby creating the phallus when the labia are sutured shut both in Genesis 2:21 and in the fetal development in the womb (see, The Primordial Phallus, for the science, history, and theology of this transformation). The manufacture of the phallus hides the female genitalia beneath the newfangled male-flesh, the phallus, implying that once the seminal organ of the female body (the circumcised body) is covered up, the entire body is now male (i.e., the uncircumcised body).

It's not a small piece of the phallus that must be removed, but the lie that there's more than one masculine body in the entire human genome. Once it's realized that there's only one male in all of human history, then we females, should we find our groom, can then engage in the salvific Passion through which we're reborn out of the realm of the uncircumcised, and into the glorious kingdom of our husband, lord, and savior.

Circumcision of the penis removes the protective covering of the flesh.

In the context I'm following in this thread, circumcision is a ritual that removes a small piece of the flesh representing the masculine body thereby implying the potential birth of the only true male when a female body (the default human form) performs the act covered up in Genesis 2 and 3: give birth to the first and only actual male by means of a pregnancy that reveals that God has hidden the first born male, the messianic human, in the very DNA of the female so that the first born Jew awaits a birth not contaminating the female, and her son, by means of the faux-male, which is merely the manufacture of faux-male flesh by means of stretching female-flesh to hide the female genitalia (see, Meontology of Masculinity).

Professor Norman O. Brown implied that the etymology of the word "genius" could be conflated with the idea of a male genital in the head rather than between the legs. In Eastern thought, the unenlightened man is ruled by his genital organ and its animal passions, while the enlightened man’s insight arises from the genital serpent, the kundalini, that’s climbed up the ladder of enlightenment until the passions formerly testifying through the phallus transmute into the passionate desires of the enlightened "genius." The genital is now in the head. The phallic-male is no longer. In the primitive or aboriginal understanding of the passage from animal passions to enlightened humanity, the male organ is cut and bled, after which it's placed in a "phallocrypt," signifying precisely what the cutting and bleeding of the male-organ represent, i.e., the willful (and sacerdotal) destruction of the flesh representing toxic-masculinity. The "phallocrypt" is the crypt, or coffin, where toxic-masculinity is laid to rest.​

​

Tefillin, Koteka, Eureka.​

John

 

[Yokefellow]

The Land Allotment described in Ezekiel makes Israel look like a giant flaccid Phallus...

Does Gaza represent the Foreskin that needs to be cut off?

Why that Phallic shape?...

Is it the Seed of Isaac vs. the Seed of Ishmael?

Is it a contest to see who has the bigger... oh never mind.

 

[John D. Brey]

The Land Allotment described in Ezekiel makes Israel look like a giant flaccid Phallus...

View attachment 87215​

Does Gaza represent the Foreskin that needs to be cut off?

Why that Phallic shape?...

View attachment 87216​

Is it the Seed of Isaac vs. the Seed of Ishmael?

Is it a contest to see who has the bigger... oh never mind.

. . . Oddly enough, it appears to be uncircumcised.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

​

Professor Norman O. Brown implied that the etymology of the word "genius" could be conflated with the idea of a male genital in the head rather than between the legs. In Eastern thought, the unenlightened man is ruled by his genital organ and its animal passions, while the enlightened man’s insight arises from the genital serpent, the kundalini, that’s climbed up the ladder of enlightenment until the passions formerly testifying through the phallus transmute into the passionate desires of the enlightened "genius." The genital is now in the head. The phallic-male is no longer. In the primitive or aboriginal understanding of the passage from animal passions to enlightened humanity, the male organ is cut and bled, after which it's placed in a "phallocrypt," signifying precisely what the cutting and bleeding of the male-organ represent, i.e., the willful (and sacerdotal) destruction of the flesh representing toxic-masculinity. The "phallocrypt" is the crypt, or coffin, where toxic-masculinity is laid to rest.​

​

Tefillin, Koteka, Eureka.​

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 this Davidic horn or phallocrypt is mentioned is Luke 1:69 where it's called the "horn of Yeshua." Likewise, in Psalm 132:16 (the preface to the mention of the "horn of David" that follows in verse 17), it's stated that Zion's priests will clothe themselves with this "Yeshua-horn" as an ornament that's clearly akin to the koteka or gourd (shaped like a horn) worn by certain primitive tribes in order to inter or en-crypt (so to say) the scathed organ after it's been ritually cut and bled (see, Tefillin, Koteka, Eureka). Whereas the Wogeo of Papua New Guinea wear the horn right over the scythed flesh, the "horn of David" is a sacerdotal ornament worn betwixt the breast:

Here the circumcised member itself, or at least the circumcised member of Abraham, is understood as the "type," or symbolic model, of Jesus. The circumcision of Abraham prefigures the birth of Jesus, who was conceived without lust and without impurity, that is, without "foreskin."​

​

Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (p. 89). Kindle Edition.​

Both night and day serve Him; death serves Him, and so does life. It is He Who has created the passions in the breast of man so that man control them out of his own free will and employ them for the good in the service of God. Judaism reveals to man the clear, free spirit that dwells within his own heart, and it shows him the One, unique, true God from Whom he has derived that clear, free spirit.​

​

Rabbi Samson Hirsch, Collected Writings III, p. 89.​

John

 

[Yokefellow]

. . . Oddly enough, it appears to be uncircumcised.




John

If that is the case, then the Mount Zion Phallus needs to get circumcised and take some Viagra for strength. Rumor has it that the Womb of Jerusalem will not let the Uncircumcised penetrate her Gates...

Isaiah 52:1
"Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean."

As for you Kings out there that may be reading this, when the LORD whips out his big naked 'Arm'...

Isaiah 52:10
"The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God."

...your mouths will shut after you get a load of his Sprinklings...

Isaiah 52:15
"So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider."

That'l learn ya.

 

[Yokefellow]

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.

I find it interesting that a Horn can sometimes contain Oil that is like a Spirit being poured out...

1 Samuel 16:13
"Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah."

Also, when a Shofar is blown, it is filled with Nitrogenous Breath which is the Word...

When Spirit, Breath and Words are put together, we have the Sword of the LORD...

Judges 7:18
"When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon."

The Sword is like DNA (Soul + Spirit) without a Body...

Thus, the Sword (Spirit and Soul) needs a Koteka Sheath (Body) to be placed into...

​

Daniel 7:15 (Literal Standard Version)
"My spirit has been pierced—I, Daniel—in the midst of the sheath, and the visions of my head trouble me"

The "horn" קרן of David is the Jewish koteka/phallocrypt.

Sometimes the Shofar is placed in a Cover...

The only other place this Davidic horn or phallocrypt is mentioned is Luke 1:69 where it's called the "horn of Yeshua."

Superior Genetics.

Likewise, in Psalm 132:16 (the preface to the mention of the "horn of David" that follows), it's stated that Zion's priests will clothe themselves with this "Yeshua" horn as an ornament that's clearly akin to the koteka or gourd (shaped like a horn) worn by certain primitive tribes in order to inter or en-crypt (so to say) the scathed organ after it's been ritually cut and bled (see, Tefillin, Koteka, Eureka).

They say that New Wine must be put into New Skins.

 

[John D. Brey]

I find it interesting that a Horn can sometimes contain Oil that is like a Spirit being poured out... Also, when a Shofar is blown . . ..

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 Montaigne is the metzitzah, the suctioning of the circumcision wound by the circumciser (5b). The last sentence of the account is "He [the circumciser] meanwhile still has his mouth all bloody." Montaigne was not the first or last Christian to be shocked by this practice.​

​

Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (pp. 5-6). Kindle Edition.​

Rabbi Cohen notes that the mohel (circumciser and suctioner) speaks and prays with the blood still dripping from his lips. Cohen points out that Montaigne (whose description of brit milah is being examined by Cohen) was disturbed but well-aware that this strange act wasn't an act of sloppiness, or ill concern, but that there's an important symbolic reason the mohel doesn't wipe the blood away from the lips that have just been around the ram's pizzle (the shofar) in the guise, or disguise, of the organ of the covenant whose blood is suggestively being related to the fruit of the tree of life, the oil, שמן, blood, soul, spirit, unveiled, when the soul and spirit of God and man are thought to co-mingle in the most famous and important ritual that's ever been or will be.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Rabbi Cohen notes that the mohel (circumciser and suctioner) speaks and prays with the blood still dripping from his lips. Cohen points out that Montaigne (whose description of brit milah is being examined by Cohen) was disturbed but well-aware that this strange act wasn't an act of sloppiness, or ill concern, but that there's an important symbolic reason the mohel doesn't wipe the blood away from the lips that have just been around the ram's pizzle (the shofar) in the guise, or disguise, of the organ of the covenant whose blood is suggestively being related to the fruit of the tree of life, the oil, שמן, blood, soul, spirit, unveiled, when the soul and spirit of God and man are thought to co-mingle in the most famous and important ritual that's ever been or will be.

Suggesting that the blood of circumcision (on the lips of the mohel when he speaks and prays) is like the sound coming out of the shofar lends itself to the new testament concept found in John chapter 6 when Jesus says one must drink his blood to gain everlasting life; also where, later in the same chapter, Jesus equates his words with his blood.

There could hardly be a clearer parallel. And it's made even more explicit when Paul calls those who drink this blood the true circumcision. In Paul's mind, drinking Jesus' blood means ingesting his soul, spirit, the fruit of the tree of life, such that it's both in you, and able to come out of you in the form of the spoken word; a word spoken with Jesus' blood dripping from one's lips and which is able to be ingested and re-spoken again and again by new hearers and speakers creating the possibility of expansive, even explosive, fertility, so long as ingesting this word/blood is paralleled with the sexual reproduction it's fancied to be replacing in a new form of conception and birth called, unremarkably, "new birth" or being "born again."

Therefore, the physical birth of the child is completed on the seventh day. The eighth day [when he's circumcised] . . . repeats the day of birth, but as a day of higher, spiritual birth [new birth] for his Jewish mission.​

​

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, Horeb, p. 111.​

​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

Therefore, the physical birth of the child is completed on the seventh day. The eighth day [when he's circumcised] . . . repeats the day of birth, but as a day of higher, spiritual birth [new birth] for his Jewish mission.​

​

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, Horeb, p. 111.​

Not only does Rabbi Hirsch frequently use language such as quoted above, but the ideas that lie there are firmly ensconced in Jewish lore and ritual:

Several anthropologists have observed that in Islamic society the closest feminine analogue to male circumcision is the ritualized rupturing of the bride's hymen on the wedding night. 39 In many medieval Jewish communities, too, the deflowering of the bride on the wedding night was almost a public affair. The groom would emerge from the bridal chamber carrying the bloodstained sheet, and in front of the assembled crowd would recite a benediction over wine, a benediction over spices, and then a special benediction that in highly poetic and allusive language praises the virginity of the bride and her chastity.​

​

Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (pp. 5-6). Kindle Edition.​

In the quotation above, Cohen zeros in on the parallel between Jewish male-circumcision and the emblem representing the same thing concerning the Jewish female. As noted in numerous threads in these parts, periah (the second stage of brit milah) tears the same membrane that, should no testosterone flood the fetus of the primordial phallus in the womb, becomes the hymen of the one born female. In the womb, the fetus starts out with what science labels a "primordial phallus." This organ is neither a vagina nor a penis but something in a midway stage. If the fetus becomes a female, then the membrane normally torn with the pointed nail in the Jewish mohel's hand becomes the hymen. If the fetus becomes a male, the same membrane becomes the material which connects the prepuce to the penis; the membrane torn in the second phase of a ritual circumcision, periah.

Just as is the case in the ritual circumcison where the blood of the organ of the covenant is toasted with wine (numerous anthropologists have even suggested that at times the blood was placed in the wine), so too, the blood of the Jewish virgin is the target of wine toasts, prayers and benedictions, directed at her virginity such that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on.

The cutting of the flesh of "uncircumcision" ערלה (male flesh) represents the cutting away and elimination of the very flesh that was added in Genesis 2:21 in order to make ha-adam the newfangled gender that covers, veils, distorts, the default human form. Brit milah, i.e., ritual circumcision, represents the elimination of the organ, the fiasco, that caused the original sin in the first place: the creation of faux-male flesh; phallic flesh. Once that flesh is ritually cut away, the tearing of the membrane that formerly connected that flesh with the organ of reproduction symbolizes the opening of the veil in the temple so that what was hidden in Genesis 2:21 can be revealed at the bris:

Some of the Rabbis read circumcision as a necessary preparation for seeing God, the summum bonum of late-antique religious life . . . That is, circumcision here is not the sign of something happening in the spirit of the Jew, but it is the very event itself --- and it is, of course, in his body. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, for the rabbinic formulation, this seeing of God was not understood as the spiritual vision of a platonic eye of the mind, but as the physical seeing of fleshly eyes at a real moment in history.​

​

Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew, p. 126.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

Some of the Rabbis read circumcision as a necessary preparation for seeing God, the summum bonum of late-antique religious life . . . That is, circumcision here is not the sign of something happening in the spirit of the Jew, but it is the very event itself --- and it is, of course, in his body. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, for the rabbinic formulation, this seeing of God was not understood as the spiritual vision of a platonic eye of the mind, but as the physical seeing of fleshly eyes at a real moment in history.​

​

Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew, p. 126.​

Professor Boyarin's statement makes Jesus' flesh God's membrane: the membrane on the temple of God's body that must be torn in a divine brit milah in order to initiate a new kind of reproduction that takes place between the singular Male and the body of humanity that make up His bride. All of this comes together in Hebrews 10:19-20 where Jesus' body is compared to the veil in the temple. The veil in the temple separates profane space from holy space, literally, figuratively speaking, heaven from earth. John 6:53 becomes a universal metzitzah open to all willing to partake of the virgin blood of God.

In the image above (Jacomart's La Triniti), as in Masaccio's famous Trinity painting (with dozens of other medieval paintings of similar concept) Jesus is imagined as God's reproductive-organ such that his tearing on the cross is the tearing open of the membrane of God that protects and hides him from his creation (ala the veil in the temple). After the tearing of God's membrane, his blood is available as the new seminal fluid that causes rebirth therein upstaging the semen come from the profane organ of reproduction, which, in Jewish circumcision, is itself emblematically removed from the scene.

When God's membrane of virginity is torn, the separation between heaven and earth, God and man, distinctions protected and guarded as the summum bonum of the Law throughout the Tanakh, has been ruptured, opening up the space between God and man in a manner that co-mingles the blood of man and God, the latter (the mingled blood) being the blood that flows when the membrane of virginity is torn during virginity, without forfeiting virginity, therein opening up humanity to a new form of conception and birth, i.e., rebirth (being born-again), that doesn't require the flesh formerly required for reproduction, flesh which, in the seminal ritual of the Jewish male, has just been cut, removed, and discarded, prior to the arrival of the blood, through periah, that's worthy of being ingested as a passionate new reproductive erotic.

Having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, a new living way, which he has consecrated for us through the tearing open of the veil that is his flesh.​

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Hebrews 10:19-20.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

When God's membrane of virginity is torn, the separation between heaven and earth, God and man, distinctions protected and guarded as the summum bonum of the Law throughout the Tanakh, has been ruptured, opening up the space between God and man in a manner that co-mingles the blood of man and God, the latter (the mingled blood) being the blood that flows when the membrane of virginity is torn during virginity, without forfeiting virginity, therein opening up humanity to a new form of conception and birth, i.e., rebirth (being born-again), that doesn't require the flesh formerly required for reproduction, flesh which, in the seminal ritual of the Jewish male, has just been cut, removed, and discarded, prior to the arrival of the blood, through periah, that's worthy of being ingested as a passionate new reproductive erotic.

Having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, a new living way, which he has consecrated for us through the tearing open of the veil that is his flesh.​

​

Hebrews 10:19-20.​

Where the Jewish sage's adage, as above, so below, is acknowledged (which is their way to say there's a parallel between human reality and divine reality), the pre-sexual tearing of the membrane of the male (periah), and the female (virgin birth), speaks of a consummation of the marital covenant without phallic-sex taking place, and without the male-organ opening the bridal-chamber of the woman's temple.

If I understand this correctly, propagation through the male necessarily involves original sin, the sin of Adam, and circumcision was instituted to teach the Israelites this important lesson [what Adam adds, Abraham ritually removes]. But propagation through the female does not necessarily involve original sin, since Jesus, the new Adam, was born immaculately [Cain is born after Adam’s addition, Christ after Abraham’s subtraction].​

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Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (pp. 89-90). Kindle Edition (brackets mine).​

If the organ manufactured in Genesis 2:21, which is to say the male-organ made by suturing shut the labia ---therein closing up the primordial phallus in order to create the fleshly sign of faux-masculinity i.e., "uncircumcision"--- if this organ is symbolically removed, milah, to include the tearing of the male's membrane of virginity in a non-sexual manner (periah), and if this symbolism is directly related to the chuppah, the Jewish wedding ceremony (Ibn Ezra points out that Jewish mother's call their sons "bridegroom" חתן at their circumcision), then this ritual un-manning of the Jewish male (i.e., ritual-emasculation) means the circumcision of the Jewish bride necessarily occurs when a son is born from an emasculated bridegroom (a bridegroom חתן unable to open the membrane of virginity the old fashioned way because of his sacerdotal-emasculation). In this unique circumstance, the uniquely conceived son necessarily uses the nails in his hand to tear the membrane of the Jewish woman's virginity (his mother's membrane of virginity) in place of the sexual transgression which typically opens the membrane by means of an intact male-organ, that is, one that hasn't been rendered inoperable through a sacerdotal-emasculation.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

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.

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When correlations like the one above are made, those only vaguely familiar with the rituals and symbols often times roll their eyes and respond with the pixelated version of the rolling of the eyes. And it usually goes off topic too much to respond every time the weekend warriors of the faith protest. Nevertheless, the few and the proud who even understand the somewhat bizarre correlation between metzitzah and blowing the shofar might still find the paralleling of the two absurd if not downright profane.

A circumciser writing in Modena, ca. 1805, says that the circumciser should recite the benedictions after the circumcision "with the blood of the suction (metzitzah) still on his mouth"; such is the custom in Modena, he says, which follows the custom of Saloniki (Salonica). This is the very custom that Montaigne witnessed in Rome two and a quarter centuries earlier. Similarly, R. David ben Samuel Halevi of Poland (1586-1667) reports that Rabbi Feibush of Krakow would not wipe his mouth after performing a circumcision on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish new year, so that he could blow the shofar with a mouth "dirtied by the blood of circumcision." His goal was to mix the fulfillment of the commandment of circumcision with the commandment of shofar.​

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Shaye J. D. Cohen. Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (p. 33). Kindle Edition.​

Que sais-je?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

If the organ manufactured in Genesis 2:21, which is to say the male-organ made by suturing shut the labia ---therein closing up the primordial phallus in order to create the fleshly sign of faux-masculinity i.e., "uncircumcision"--- if this organ is symbolically removed, milah, to include the tearing of the male's membrane of virginity in a non-sexual manner (periah), and if this symbolism is directly related to the chuppah, the Jewish wedding ceremony (Ibn Ezra points out that Jewish mother's call their sons "bridegroom" חתן at their circumcision), then this ritual un-manning of the Jewish male (i.e., ritual-emasculation) means the circumcision of the Jewish bride necessarily occurs when a son is born from an emasculated bridegroom (a bridegroom חתן unable to open the membrane of virginity the old fashioned way because of his sacerdotal-emasculation). In this unique circumstance, the uniquely conceived son necessarily uses the nails in his hand to tear the membrane of the Jewish woman's virginity (his mother's membrane of virginity) in place of the sexual transgression which typically opens the membrane by means of an intact male-organ, that is, one that hasn't been rendered inoperable through a sacerdotal-emasculation.

The circumcision of Abraham prefigures the birth of Jesus, who was conceived without lust and without impurity, that is, without "foreskin." Since both the "type" and the fulfillment are male (Abraham, Jesus), circumcision applies only to males. This spiritual and typological exegesis completely abandons the literal commandment of circumcision.​

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Shaye J. D. Cohen, Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (pp. 89-90). Kindle Edition.​

The statement quoted above covers a lot of ground and opens up important new ground. When Cohen says Jesus is conceived "without lust," he means without sex. When he says, "without impurity," he's saying without Adam's original sin taught to be passed down through the male-organ in copulation. So by stating that Abraham prefigures the birth of Jesus, Cohen is implying that the ritual-cutting of the male-organ (symbolic-emasculation, i.e., ritual-circumcision) "prefigures the birth of Jesus" who's conceived apart from sexual congress and thus without Adam's original sin passed down through the uncircumcised, operative, intact, male organ.

The new ground opened up by Rabbi Cohen is based on his final statement in the quotation: "This spiritual and typological exegesis completely abandons the literal commandment of circumcision." This "literal commandment of circumcision," is the commandment written in the scroll of God such that Rabbi Cohen is pointing out that the Gospel narrative concerning circumcision as a ritual-emasculation affording Jesus the means of fore-going (so to say) Adam's original sin, can only function if, just as occurred with the organ through which Abram birthed his first firstborn (Ishmael), God gets rid of the organ through which he birthed his own firstborn Israel, the lambskin scroll where the commandment of circumcision testifies to the birth of Israel.

For the Gospel understanding of the meaning of circumcision ---i.e., the possibility of the virgin-birth of Jesus as sinless flesh ---- to be authenticated, God must abandon the scroll the Law is found written in (and where circumcision is merely a decree concerning Israel) as though he himself could birth, ala Abram, a new second first born (Jesus and the Church Jesus fathers) with as much or more pedigree than his first first born Israel.

Cohen is speaking of something as confounding as Abram being born-again (see, Exegeting Genesis 17:17) in a manner such that he can conceive Isaac not as the younger brother of Ishmael, but as though Isaac is his second first born. Cohen's final statement implies that for Jesus to be God's second firstborn (ala Abraham's second firstborn Isaac), the lambskin scroll (that birthed Israel even as Abram's uncut scroll birth Ishmael) must be abandoned, just as Abram's original fleshly testimony, and all that came through it, must be abandoned, if Isaac is to be a legitimate second-firstborn with as much or more pedigree than the first firstborn (Ishmael).



John