Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Unraveling Religion Judaic Edition. My name is Rabbi Jessica Minnon. Please call me Jess. I'm so happy to be hosting my first episode as our 2025 host with my friend, in some ways my mentor, someone with whom I go way back. It's a pleasure to welcome Rabbi Eli Hooka Virtz to the program. We're going to be talking today about the idea of sacred insignia about circum.
Before we get into that, I want to welcome you, Elihu, and give you a chance to introduce yourself.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Jess. It's so good to be with you again and to talk and connect. It's really, really good. Really, really good.
Just a little about me. Yeah. I am a rabbi and I did write this book and my professional career has been as an ecologist. I work with rare plants and animals and I do habitat restoration and a bunch of conservation work. And I've done most of that in Southern California for my career. And I'm now based in Portland, Oregon. Yeah. Happy to have produced this book, which was a seven year project and went over and over and over and over again, wrote and rewrote and rewrote and said it to people and they said, why don't you add this and why don't you add that or why don't you look into this? And so it got, it got bigger and bigger. But yeah, finally published and I'm happy to share it and thank you for, for the invitation.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Oh, so exciting. Listen, we put our hearts and souls into this work. More is more. I want to start with the big why in two ways. One is personally for you, the big why of why, of all the things that you could choose to write about, of all the topics, of all the mitzvot, of all the minutia of halach, why Britmila, why circumcision? And then we'll kind of transition. I'd like to talk a little bit about the big why, as you presented in the first couple chapters of the book. Why circumcision for Claudius or El for the Jewish people? Why this particular insignia of self? But let's start with that personal question. Why? Why circumcision, Elihu? Of all the things.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: All things.
Well, Jessica, there's really, there's two or maybe three answers. The, the, the first one is that my daughter, when I start, was about to start this project. My daughter was about to get married and I thought, well, you know, she could get pregnant, she could have a boy. And she's a smart, intellectual, rebellious, independent Woman, I like it. Yeah, yeah, she's a great one. She's.
She's great. And, and so, you know, I had a good bet that she would quite, she would want to know why.
And I didn't know. I couldn't I. For imagining that conversation to occur sometime in the future at that time. I couldn't really answer that question other than to say God said to do it. God commanded us to do it and it's a mitzvah. And that's an absolutely good answer. Like, I'm not knocking it, but for, I think for my daughter perhaps and for lots of people, like, it's not enough.
And especially because there's, there's the anti circumcision campaign, you know, we'll talk about it later. But people are concerned, you know, about, they're concerned about pain, they're concerned about trauma, etc. Etc. So I wanted to be able to explain it and I didn't know and so I wanted to dive in for that reason. That's one thing. The other one was that I went to. There was a, an organized workshop, like an all day workshop where I was living at the time. Many, many educated people, many rabbis in the room. Most of them knew way more than I did, like a million trillion times more about many, many different things. Very educated people, very good, good and wise smart people.
And, and there was, there were presenters, there was a mole and there was a medical doctor and there was a third person. I don't remember who that, what that person's profession was. And the conversation that was presented and the questions that were asked were really like, they were kind of like technical things.
But nobody was really talking about the big why.
And I had read one little teaching from Rabbi Nachman from Liquite Mohran where he had referred to it in reference to. He was talking about the fruit trees. And there's a similar, there's a word called orlan about uncircumcised. And so he. Like I had had that in my head and I mentioned it and people looked at me like what do you like?
So I thought, you know what? Like maybe the world needs this, needs me to write this book. So I just, I just like started down this path of, of discovery and you know, just like working with, starting just from within my own library and pulling, you know, pulling books off the shelf and, and, and reading and trying to sort it out and, and then there are some other issues like in terms of like the big asking me personally about why. Like I also have a section that's kind of focused on, on women and girls and different questions, like one of them as well, you know, that, well, what about women? What's their covenant? What's their breed?
Like? We don't, we don't, we don't circumcise women, God forbid. You know, there are cultures in, in Africa that do that, but we don't do that.
So what about what is, what is our, you know, so I wanted to answer that. And then there were other questions that we can get into another time that I felt like, needed to be, needed to be addressed and answered. So I was hoping that this, my hope was that this book will be of service to people who want to. Yeah. Understand more fully these, these questions.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. I, Congratulations on your daughter's wedding, which at this point was seven years ago, eight years ago, something like that.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: But I, I, it really resonates with me. I, I felt the looming question not only as a rabbi working with young couples and young families, but also in my own life when I got married, and I felt it as my brother got married and we, and these questions started to come up in a more sort of relevant way, a more visceral way for our family.
And I also want to put in the bike rack for later a point you made about the language around circumcision, specifically the word itself in English and the way it's applied or perhaps misapplied to circumcision of males and circumcision of females. I want to come back to that later. And we will, when we talk about the sort of practical ramifications of circumcision and movements against circumcision in, in 2025. But I really, I really feel seen in terms of your big why for why to do this work.
Excellent teacher of halacha of mine, Rabbi Svi Wolf at Pardes, when we started learning halacha and we weren't even remotely touching the halacha of circumcision, but bechla like learning halacha in general. And he said, like, you can ask any question, but not the question why. And the reason he said that is not because he doesn't want to entertain the notion of why, but from a, from a practical perspective, the answer is always going to be the same when it comes to halacha. The answer is going to be because God said so. Now, that can mean different things for different people depending on your relationship to halachah or perhaps envisioning your relationship to halachah in a post halachic landscape where you don't see these things as legally binding in any way. But I really appreciated that. I really appreciated the forthright nature of the answer. Because God said so. And when I was talking to my brother about circumcision and he didn't end up having a son, I said, you know, you're not gonna. The first thing I'm gonna say is, is the answer for me, that comes from the gut. And my gut answer is because that's what Jews do, right? Which is a version of because God said so.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: But it's different, though.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's different, right? It's different, but it's a version of that, which is like, essentially I'm not.
It's, in some ways it's a beautiful answer in its own way, and in some ways it's a massive cop out. So let's actually start with this question. And you. I love your first questions. The first chapter of your book is called First Questions. And the first question is, why do we circumcise our sons? So if someone says to you, why do we do this? And you don't want to say because God said so or because that's what Jews do, how do you, how do you start to answer that question?
[00:09:52] Speaker B: I think that one way to do it is, is to look at the poetry of it, look at the metaphor of it, that the foreskin that a boy is born with most boys covers up the crown. And in order to be in relationship with God, and I'll say more about that in a minute, but in order to be in relationship with God, like, you've got to peel that away so that you can be open, so that you can be vulnerable, so that you can, you can, you can take some risk on an emotional level so that you can receive.
Which is interesting because it kind of like turns the metaphor on its head a little bit, but that you can also. And then switching the metaphor over again, you can also, like, be a giver and be a channel.
And the, the, the, the mystics, the kabbalists use that imagery over and over again with regard to Mila. But the basic idea of, of it is, is that in order to be in a, in a relationship with God, you have to be, you have to expose yourself. I don't mean in an obnoxious, inappropriate way, but I mean, but I mean, like, if we're going to have a relationship with the divine, we need to open ourselves up. And, and in large part, that relationship with God often does. It can happen in relationship with our lovers, with our husbands and Wives and, and then that, like that relationship then become. Then becomes the container within which we can have this God experience.
So that's one of the answers. That's one of the answers. Or maybe it's two, because it's both God and it's talking about God. And it's also like there's also a relationship piece there. Rabbeinu Bachia, who's a rabbi who lives some 700 years ago, he says that.
That the foreskin is. Is representative of materiality, like being. Being attached to the material world. And that when we raise our children that we want them, of course they need to have a relationship with the material world. They need to be able to earn a living and have a house and have food and have relationships and have all those things. Of course, we're physical, material beings. And like, we want our children to have a spiritual relationship with. With God and connected. Connected to. Connected to God, connected to other people. So it's kind of like Rabino Baki says, it's kind of like when Moshe Rabbeinu, when Moses is shepherding through the. Through the desert before he gets his assignment.
And, and. And Moses, he notices the. The. The bush is on fire and it's not being consumed. And God. All of a sudden there's God's voice. And God says, take off your shoes. The place you're standing on is holy ground.
And Rabbino Bakia says, like, it is analogous to that. It's like God is saying, take off. Take off your foreskin.
Sounds funny to say that, but take off your foreskin so that you can be like the place that you're standing on is holy ground.
And another, another answer that comes from Rambam, that's Maimonides and other others, is. Is. It's about perfect. Perfecting a man's sexual drives.
And, and he's using that word perfect because that comes. It comes in the, in the commandment from God. It says there's a. There's two or three paragraphs and it says and be perfect. Or it could be translated as be and be whole.
It's in the context of the, of the commandment of the Brit Mila and of. Of that is, of circumcision and of. And. And God's God says to Avram, abraham, I'm going to make you the father of. Of nations and kings and so on, and be perfect or be. Be whole. And so Rambam is picking up on that word and saying, what does he. What does God mean by that? And so one, One answer that Rambam is giving is. Is like b is to. Is to perfect your.
Your sexual drive. And so what he, what he means by that is it might be in your biology that you want to go and have sex with just about everybody of. I mean, if you're a heterosexual man of every woman that you see, you.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Know, it's just a natural. It's just a natural way of being in the world. And I think of that sexuality as healthy and God given, and then we then discern whether or not to act on it.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yes, right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yeah, I do too. I do too. Exactly. Thank you. And. Yeah, and. And so what. What the Brit Mila does is by the removal of the foreskin, it's saying, like, you don't always get your first impulse. Like, exactly what you said. Like, there's a discernment process. There's a. To discern what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. And so the, the teaching is, is that there. There are limits and there's boundaries. And, you know, there's. There's.
Sexuality is. Is holy and sacred, and part of that sacredness is having some limits and boundaries. Right. That's. That's. That's part of the deal.
And there's another part too, of the sexuality piece related to Brit Mila, which is. Is that. Which comes right from the Torah, which is that the.
The woman's pleasure comes first, that the man is obligated to make sure that the woman is pleased first before he is. So again, there's. There's a connection.
So it's. It. There's a. There's a connection to the. This is part of the why of the mitzvah of Britmila.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: What do you make of the. I think it speaks beautifully to the sacred nature of the commandment of the mitzvah. What do you make of the. Because this is what Jews do. There's a. I'm curious how.
How this symbol of our relationship to Hashem, of our relationship to God, evolved over time to be a symbolic marker of peoplehood.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. It's a. It's the. It's a. It's the mark of the tribe.
It's the mark of the tribe.
And there's many stories through our thousands, thousands of years of history, of. Of a people, of where it's used against us, where it's used to identify us, where there's pressure not to do it so that we assimilate and become like the surrounding culture. Yeah, I mean, we're. I think we're. We're intended To. We have a special role in the. The world. And, you know, we were. Were intended to. To bring God's light out into the world and to. And to shine it and to make God's presence felt. And that happens in, you know, very, very real ways with the kindnesses that we do for other people. You know, when we bring somebody a pot of soup when they're sick, or we.
We make sure that we accompany someone to the grave and we go to the chupa for a wedding and. And so on and so forth. There's many, many, many different ways of that we do that.
And. And this is. This is a. This is a part of it. And so. So, yeah, so it's a tribal. It's a tribal marker and it's. It's a really important one. And you know, so much so that.
That the. To that God says in the Torah, like, if that you're not.
That someone who's a man who's not circumcised, then is not permitted to do certain things, it doesn't make him not a Jew.
He's still a Jew, but he's not permitted to do certain things.
Certain things. Like, like there's a. There's a redemption kind of quality and, and there's a relationship to the land quality that somebody who's not circumcised then is not. And so like, and it's connected to like right now we're. We're about to chant from the Torah tomorrow on Shabbat from Parap. And it's the, it's the Exodus from the final couple plagues and the. And the. And the exodus of leaving from Egypt. And one of the, One of the explanations of how. Of why we were able to leave was because of Brit Mila.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: How. So is that a. Is that a Midrash?
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it appears in Midrash and in Zohar and some other places. Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Is that connected to the. The cryptic text of. Of Mos Moshe, Moses circums being circumcised of heart. And also there's this interlude with him and Sappora, his wife, en route to returning to advocate for the. For the Jewish people. Is that connected in a way?
[00:20:48] Speaker B: It's a really enigmatic passage.
And yeah, that they're. You're right, they're on their way back. They're heading back to Egypt. They have. Tzipporah gives birth to a. To a boy. And the, The. The. The verse is interesting. It. It's like. It. It says that God in like, intends to kill him, if I remember correctly.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: And it's not clear who the hymn is. Like, is the hymn the baby who's not circumcised, or is the hymn Moshe?
Because Moshe wasn't going to do it. Like, it's in Hebrew, right? It's just like, it's just a hymn, but it doesn't say who the hymn is. And there's different, there's. There's different opinions.
If I remember correctly. I have it in the book, but. But I'm not looking at it right now. But if I remember correctly, Robin Gamliel says that. That it. It was gonna be. That it actually was the baby. And the way that I understand that is that it wasn't. It's not about punishment the way I underst. It's not about God punishing the baby. God forbid. The baby didn't do anything wrong. And the mits. The mitzvah is, is a. Is upon the. The father and some would say the mother as well, and certainly the community as a whole to circumcise the son. So certainly the baby didn't do anything wrong. And I don't think that, that God is saying that he's going to punish the baby, God forbid. Like, that's not what saying. I think that what, what I think what the teaching is is that if you don't do this as a Jewish family, like for your son, then it's like you're cutting yourself off from a relationship with God.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: How would you.
I. I have so many. I mean, this is very exciting. It's. It's very provocative. And I'm curious how you would start even begin to have this conversation about being cut off from Hashem, being cut off from your spiritual essence and source. I think, for.
I think you and I are somewhat like minded about the absolute essentialness of, of having that connection. But for many people, for many Jews.
So what. I don't believe in God. So like, I don't have a connection to God. I don't have a connection to God anyway. How do you even start to, to. To approach that?
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Judaism is a very embodied religion, right? Like it's. We have lots of ideas about God and we have lots of texts and libraries upon libraries, upon libraries. And you know, it's a very embodied culture religion. So this is an embodiment of this closeness with God. Right? So you become as my teacher, run by Steve Robbins, as he says, and others say in other ways when you physically enact a mitzvah, like you become the essence of that mitzvah on Friday, just before, just before dark when you light Shabbos candles, you, you become the, the ambassador of God who's bringing God's light into the world, right?
You know, when you, when you teach, when you're walking with your daughter down the street and you, you give a dollar to somebody who needs some help, you're helping that person, but you're also teaching your daughter, like you're embodying and you're teaching your daughter that you're an extension of God. You're, you're doing God's work in the, in the world, right? And you're. That, that dollar might not change that person's life, but it might in a, in a way, like, in a way that it says like, you, you see that person and you're giving him that gift of like, hey, I see you, I see you.
So, you know, so, so, yeah, so we become what the mitzvah is. And so in this case with Brit Me La, I think we become, we become open. It's like, it's very analogous to opening our hearts, right? Because there's, and there's also a mitzvah about circumcising your heart. And there is just, just like the penis, there is a layer around the heart. It's called the pericardium. And of course, we don't literally circumcise that, but in a, in a poetry, if you look at it as poetry, like, we, we embody that openness, that willingness to be, to be open and to have a real conversation, to have a real, a real opening where we let the sacred in and, and we let it out. Right?
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: So why do you think, or, you know, why do you think? And why do our sages teach the eighth day? I, I guess one of my questions is, okay, so I'm on board with, with all of these beautiful ideas. Why not allow a, an adult. The, why not say, like this becomes a rite of passage that you do as an adult when you can make that decision for yourself as opposed to saying, this is some, this is the decision that we make on your behalf when you're, when you're an eight day old baby. And I will say that the second question of the first questions that are the first chapter of your book is why on the eighth day, common refrains that I hear is great. Your, your God says to do this, your religion says to do this. This is a part of your sacred practice. This is about peoplehood. Give the boy the choice, give the man the choice. So why they stay why. Why aren't we giving these children a choice?
[00:26:38] Speaker B: It's an interesting question. In. In that question, we assume that the boy has no. Has no agency, is right. Right. That's the.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: We assume that the boy is just. I mean, to look at it from a. From an extreme perspective, like, is a victim of this culture that he's coming into, which is not how I see it, but that's how. That's how some people say there's. There's evidence that suggests that. That the boy actually. That the soul of this boy has chosen to come into this family, has chosen to be a Jew, has chosen to come into this family because he has Jewish parents, Jewish mother, Jewish grandparents, and he wants to have this Jewish relationship with God and with other people. And. And he's making this choice. Like, he's. Like he's arranged this. He's arranged this. Like he's not just being played, so to speak. Like. And so I'll tell you a couple quick stories. So on one of them, I was asked to officiate a breed Me lie. Said, sure, absolutely. Happy to do it. And they said, okay, well, it's. It's a month or two away until. Until my wife gives birth. I said, okay, no problem. Just call me. You know, it gets close when the baby's born, so I get a call around the due date from the dad, and the dad says, baby's not coming. We're gonna give it a, you know, a couple weeks, and if we. If we need to induce or if we need to have a C section, you know, we'll. We'll do that. We'll let you know. I just wanted to let you know, like. But, you know, as far as we know, the baby's healthy, everything's good. So I said, okay, fine, great. So I hung on the phone, hung up the phone, and then I called a friend of mine who's Has a very intentional conscious prayer practice, and she's also a psychic. And I said, would you pray for this little baby boy? That's. That's. That's coming. He's gonna. He's due about now. And just. And just pray for him, just that. That his passage into the world goes well. She says, absolutely. Sure. So she does that. And then a day or two later, she calls me back and she says, I want you to know that I checked in with the boy again. She's. She's psychic. I don't. I don't. I'm not psychic, but she is. And she said she checked in with the Boy, she says the baby's doing great. He just wants to make sure that his grandfather, who happened to be a rabbi, is in the room so that he'll be. He'll be the sandok.
He wants to make sure that the bris is going to be kosher and that the. Like his grandfather will be. Will be there and when. That's all.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Can you explain that term of the. The role of the sandhak?
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. The sandhya is traditionally the sandh is the man, often one of the grandfathers, but doesn't have to be. It can be somebody else. And the. The baby is put on the lap of the sandh and the circumcision, the mila happens while the baby is on the lap of the sandh and the sandhya. And, and it's taught that the. You pick someone who has qualities that are really admirable and that the baby will. Will take on the. The holy qualities of this. Of this person. Anyway, the. The boy. The boy was born healthfully, thank God, and eight days later, and we did the bris, and the grandfather was there and baby's good and. And now he's a healthy, beautiful little boy. Another story by Rabbi David Zeller, and he published it in Tikkun maybe 30 years ago or something like that. And when. When he and his wife had their son, it was their first. Their first baby, and they didn't want to cause the baby pain or trauma, and so they didn't circumcise him. Six or seven or eight years went by and they decided. They realized at that point that he. He really. He. He began to understand the spirituality of Abrist. And so he made arrangements to. So the. The boy was circumcised at that age. And it's much more.
It's more complicated to do it at that age or even older as an adult.
And the recovery is longer and it's more painful.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: So anyway, he's. He's. He's lying on the floor with his kid and, and, and the boys in pain, recovering, and, and he says, I'm so. I'm. I'm so sorry that you're. You're in this pain now. And the boy turns to and says, papa, it's okay. It's fine. I, you know, I understand, you know, why we're doing it, but why didn't you do it when I was 8 days old?
So you. And there's. I have other stories too. But. But my, My point is, is that the baby. The baby wants it, the baby chooses it. The baby Wants to be in the relationship with God. The baby wants to be a Jew and to look like a Jew and to look like his father.
So there's those things. And then like, so why on the eighth day?
Few different reasons.
One of them is that the baby, like when the baby is inside the mother's womb, it's like they're, it's like they're sharing their, the same blood, right? And then when the baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut, then there's a transition and all of a sudden you have this independent being.
So it's taught that it takes, it takes seven days for the baby to just have truly like his, his own blood. It's not, it's not his mother's, it's just his.
So that's one thing. And I, if I recall correctly, that's Ian Ezra who says that.
And then on another, another teaching is that we all have a soul, right? And it takes, it takes seven days for the soul to fully arrive into the boy's body.
Like it's still like if you've held a newborn or you gave birth to your daughter, right? Like you can, as you're holding a newborn, you can see it's like they're.
Yes, they're here physically and they're right, they're still in the heavenly realm, right? Like it's a transition. It takes a while. And so it's what it's taught that it's seven. It takes seven full days for the, for the soul to fully come into the body.
And then, so then on the eighth day we do the bris, the Yiddish. That's Yiddish way of saying.
So then the soul and the body are then fully connected. So on the eighth day the soul and the body are connected and we need to, we need to function with soul and body connected, right? And if it's, if it's just done in the hospital in the first day or two, you haven't allowed time for that to, to happen.
One, One other thing fascinating to note is that on the eighth day of a child's life is the day on which there's the highest amount of vitamin K in the body. Vitamin K is a blood clotting device, so to speak. So for boys and girls. But if they live to 120, the day that we have the most blood clotting, natural blood clotting ability is on the eighth day.
Pretty cool.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: That is very cool.
I will say, and I feel like I can say this to you, my friend, and you'll hear me in the right way.
I. There is a strain within me that is deeply spiritual and there is a strain within me that absolutely shuts down when you say something like the baby wants a bris or my friend, the psychic wanted the sandhock to be so and so. So I want to say that out loud because I know that both of these strains will be alive and well in many of our listeners. And I want to be sure that everyone hears us acknowledge that.
And I think, I think you know this because I've heard you speak to this, that these more, these deeper, more spiritually aligned connections are a muscle that we have to build within ourselves and nurture within ourselves in the same way that we should be working out, although we're not at the moment. Speaking for myself. Right.
How do you. How do you navigate those strains? Or just speaking. Let's just speak plainly about like the cynic within me.
My baby doesn't want to bris my baby. That's me projecting onto my baby. Like, how do, how do we have these conversations in really powerful and meaningful ways with people in whom that cynical or that cynical or sort of less spiritually inclined voice is quite loud in their life or in the back of their head? Do you have a sort of approach or a methodology that allows you to.
For multiple things to be true?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: A really beautiful question.
I just want to acknowledge what you're saying and your response.
And I, I get it. And it's, it's.
It's. One of my own, I don't know, faults or one of my character flaws is that I kind of live in this world of ideas and connection, but. And then not connection. And, and so one of my challenges is putting these thoughts down in some way that that makes sense. I don't really know how to talk about something spiritual without talking about the spiritual. I don't know how to do that. Maybe there's a way, but I'm like, what I'm. I mean, I'm trying to. I don't know, I'm not sure how to have. How to talk about a God experience without talking like that. I mean, maybe I can get some coaching from you about how to do that.
I think I'll just tell you, like, I've been davening for years.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Davening? Praying.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Praying, yeah, you know, going to shul on Shabbat and on the holidays and mostly davining at home in the morning and I don't know how many years I've been doing it. And then one year, one day I'm davining the the amida, the standing prayer, it's the main prayer that we do.
And at the end, after. During the weekday, we ask for a bunch of things, and at the end, we. We basically say thank you. We bow and we say thank you.
And I felt it. I was like, whoa. I just felt that.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Like, I felt it in my heart.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Oh. Like it wasn't an idea. I spent so much time in my head, maybe because it's a defense mechanism, frankly, you know, like that. Because it's, It's. It's. It's. For me anyway.
Like, it's vulnerable to live in the world of feelings. It's vulnerable. It's really vulnerable. It's vulnerable to live in the world of spirit. And so I, I, more often than not, I'm in the world of ideas in my head, and. And I was like, wow, I actually felt that that was a feeling.
So, yeah, so I'm trying to, I guess, communicate and. And hope that maybe something could actually be felt. And maybe some people who are listening to this podcast will. Some people might think it's. It's really weird and. But I'm hoping that maybe it just opens up the ability to have an experience, you know, of the sacred. I mean, that's really. That's really what I want. And.
And it. For it not just to be an idea, but for, like, here it is, Jess. Like, what I really want out of this book, if anybody reads it, is I want people to have an. I have this idea for themselves and for their sons and their sons who are yet to be born. I'm. I'm doing this. I'm giving you a.
So that you can live a life of the sacred. And part of that is to have a sacred sexual life. And there's a whole bot. Corpus of Jewish law and. And other things about what that means, and we can talk about that another time. But to have a sacred site. Like, who, who could. Like, who could argue with that, right? Like, who wouldn't want. Like, if you're bringing a little boy or a little girl into the world, like, of course it's not something, you know, that they're going to experience when they're little, you know, God willing. I mean, it happens. It's when it. When it should happen, and then they're adults, but that they. They should have, you know, this sacred experience.
So that's part of it. And also, you know, sacred. The sacredness of bringing children into the world and the sacredness of just being in the world and relating to other people. And I I think it's, it's about the, it's about, yeah, living, living a sacred, you know, holy life, like it says in Parashat Kadoshim, like, right pretty smack in the middle of the Torah, you know, you're, you shall be holy because I'm, I'm. I your God. I'm holy.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: I didn't, I don't. I didn't go into the rabbinate because I know what works. I went into the rabbinate largely because through my own lived experience of discovering Judaism as a young adult in my mid to late 20s, it made my life suck less. I, I won't go so far as to say that it made my life better because, like, who really knows? But it made my life suck less. And that felt very compelling to me at the time and quite frankly, it still does.
But I will say that what you just said, deeply, it strikes a chord. It strikes a chord. And that chord is, well, let's say there's three notes in a chord. So I get to say three things. To continue the metaphor. One, I feel in many ways that talking about God and spirituality has been co opted by other faith traditions and that Jews, by and large, the Jews who I work with, Jews who, who did not grow up with deeply, deeply meaningful or observant Jewish lives, are uncomfortable talking about God and talking about the spiritual and talking about the idea of the sacred. So much so that it feels countercultural to who we are as Western American, in our case, American Jews.
The second piece is that because of that discomfort, we don't want to feel it. We in general, human beings, seek comfort, not discomfort.
I personally do not like being uncomfortable. I don't think anyone does. And part of the rabbinate, or part of the work of the Rabbinate, is to put oneself and seek to put others in this place of what we often call productive discomfort. Discomfort for a purpose. That's the discomfort of not knowing. When you step into a Jewish space for the first time and you're like, why are these people standing up and sitting down? Why are they not talking? Why are they talking? What are they saying?
That discomfort, that feeling of not knowing, of being, of not feeling smart, right? And being stewards as rabbis or being stewards of that space of that productive discomfort. And the third chord it struck with me is the idea that it just takes so much time and practice to have the moment that you were talking about when you were davening the Amida.
And Rabbi Elliot Dorf always taught that, you know, it's like baseball, as most things in life Are like baseball in some way or another, that a spiritual life is like, if you're batting a.300, that's exceptional, that's otherworldly. And just so you know what that means, if that means that one out of every three times, about a third of the time you step up to the plate, so to speak, to have a spiritual experience, right. You make contact with the ball, it doesn't mean that you hit a home run. It means that you make any contact with the ball only about a third of the time. Which means most of the time that you pray or that you go to some holiday celebration or you're in Jewish community, you do not make contact with the ball. I just want to be really real here, folks. Ellie, who is making the face of like wide eyed agreement. Because we all know as practitioners of these things that like, most of the time, two thirds of the time we don't make contact with the ball. One third of the time, maybe we make contact with the ball and we foul out or, you know, it's a line drive and we're out at first. Right?
[00:45:28] Speaker B: And maybe once in a lifetime we. Right.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Once in a lifetime. Once. I think I can count on two finger. It's happened to me twice where I have had that literal. Oh my God.
And, and that realist being realistic about it, I think. Right, yeah. And then having the courage, as you do to steward people through, knowing that there will be strikeouts and there will be, you know, you'll get hit with the ball like you won't. And, and there's pain and there's. There's emptiness where like, I cannot believe. I cannot believe there is Moose off right now. How is it possible that we need to do Moose? I feel that I. I have grown to love Mousoff, but it's a, you know, like, why are we saying this again? Why are we doing. Why is this so long? Like.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: And I think, you know, one of the things that I tend to come to with circumstances, I ended up having a girl and we made choices around, you know, a welcoming, welcoming her into the covenant in different ways.
But I think one of the things I come to with circumcision is that in the same way that people would argue how can you possibly make this decision for a baby? I would argue, how could I possibly not?
How could I possibly not do everything within my power to set you up for success as a Jewish man in the world, as a part of his people, as a part of this covenant, if you choose not to be a part of, of this that's your choice. I'll love you. But how could I possibly not set you up for success?
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: I want to sort of honor our initial commitment to speak to some of the common tropes that people encounter from the, I don't know what the official name for this movement is. I've heard things like a movement against any kind of permanent body modification or simply alternative circumcision movement. I appreciate that you said that circumcision or not, a Jewish boy is Jewish, although there may be different aspects of the covenantal experience of prayer or celebration or halacha, that Jewish law that he would not be able to participate in. I'm curious what your experience is both personally. You mentioned you had this conversation with your daughter and in the community around common arguments against. And then the way that you sort of, I don't know if argue is the right way, but the way that you represent a sort of pro circumcision stance in the world.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: I listen carefully and I, you know, I, sometimes people won't say it, so I have to articulate it for them and say, well, I imagine that your concerns are mostly around pain and trauma. And then a third argument that I've heard is that it decreases, it lessens the sexual pleasure that he'll have later in life. So I, I address each one.
So with regard to pain, yep, there's some pain.
The, it's, it's.
The tradition teaches that like the, the pain is most present for like three days afterward and then, and then it subsides. And to address the pain, I mean, there's, I mean, there's a few things. One, one is that, you know, we give a little, a little drop of some wine or grape juice and the sugar, the sugar actually triggers the production of some endorphins that lessens pain. That's one thing. And that's part of the tradition ceremony. Second is it's very common for, in most Brit Mila, most Bris. For the, the Moyle, the one who does the actual cutting to, to prescribe a little salve so the baby doesn't feel it right. You know, at, at the time of the, of the, this very minor little surgery.
So, so, you know, you lessen it in that way. And, and the third thing I'll say is that I, I, I once interviewed a pediatrician and he had done a bunch of, and I don't recall whether he was Jewish or not, but he had just done the standard medical circumcisions and he said, and he had done hundreds of them. And he said, you know, in his experience, like, the babies are kind of like they're still kind of coming into their body. So, you know, is there pain? Yes, there's some. Like, there's no, there's no point in denying it. And to say, like, the baby gets over it in a matter of like, four days, five days, something like that, you know, sometime after three days and then, and then by a week to 10 days, like, it's totally healed and it's, and it's completely normal and, you know, there's. There's no more pain. So, So I think, you know, it's just. I think it's important to just acknowledge it and not to run away or deny it. Like, yeah, it, it exists. I, I think that, you know, because it, like, it heals quick, quickly, like in the big context of life, it's, it's a minor thing in, in the big, in the big scheme of a, Of a full life of 75, 80 or 120 years.
And there's many worse things that we can do to cause, cause a boy or young man to be in pain that's much more lasting, like making him feel small or making him feel stupid or, or, or ostracism that occurs, you know, between children, those things are far more painful than this physical pain is. So that's my, like, response to the pain.
And, you know, and, and I've been to a number of bris and what I've, what, what I've just seen, this is just from my observations, is that it looks to me like the baby is like, cries usually from, like, being exposed to the cold and being open and not being held. Like, I've been, I've been at a, at a bris, several brisses in the hospital or a clinic, and the baby is sitting there, you know, safe. I mean, of course they, they protect the baby, but he's like, just sitting there naked, cold. Like he's been in the world for just. This is his eighth day. And like, and, and, and, and I think it's, it's. The crying is more about like, not being held and being cold than it is about the cut. I think I. Like, the most recent bris that I went to was. It was actually this, this past y pour. It was actually on Shabbat at Chabad, the local Chabad Davinat sometimes. And, and you know, there were the introductory remarks. The baby was completely covered in a blanket. He was being held by the Sandok. It wasn't until, like, all the preparations were made while the baby is held in a blanket, totally warm, secure. And then, and then he gets, you know, he's, then he's on the lap, the blanket is unfolded. Boom. And in less than a minute it's done. And there was no crying. Like you would think the baby was sleeping. Maybe the baby was sleeping. And I've seen that more than once. So I, So yeah, I can hear you saying, yeah, you're acknowledging. So I really think that it's. If we, if we would go back to, we would take it out of the hospitals, out of the clinics and bring it, bring. Have the ceremony at home or, or in a, or in shul, a synagogue, in a, In a small, intimate setting, I think it would really help and it would reduce it. And then if you have it in a setting where he can be on his Sandok's lap and some, some mohalim will say, no, you have to be in the cradle. Okay. But the, the minimum amount of tone time that his skin is exposed and I think would really help. So that's, that's one thing.
Then the trauma piece, I've, I've read pieces written by some men who either they said they were traumatized or as babies or that they. Yeah. So all I can do is acknowledge it. Acknowledge. Like, if that's somebody's experience, like, who am I going to say? No, that didn't happen. As far as trauma for the baby, I just, I just don't see it. I have, I have my own son. I have my own experience.
I, I've. I know lots of Jewish men. Like, I don't. There's other reasons for trauma. I can tell you about my drama. Like, ah, but I don't think that my breast was one of them.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: Right. The trauma of the Jewish male will, will be another episode, my friend.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: Right, right, right.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: That'll be, that'll be next year.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: Right. It'll be podcast one through 26. Exactly.
But, you know, and I, and I, I consulted many, many books. One of them was written by a doctor who had worked in the US Navy for, for he had been in the medical field for close to 50 years.
He had, he wrote an, he was a medical doctor and he spoke on this, on this question about trauma, and he said it really, trauma is, it's a consequence not only of the, of, of an event that happens. Like, I mean, he's not talking about circumcision, he's just like in general trauma, like trauma happens when something big happens, but it's not just that something big happens. It's what's the response of other people? Like one's parents, one siblings, one community?
So, like, our. In other words, like, a big part of a response is. Is like, were you. Like, after it happened, were you acknowledged? Were you held? Were you. Were you. Was it like, were you. Were you helped to. To, like, have it incorporated into your life?
And if. If we can do that for our children and for each other, then, you know, there'll probably be a lot less trauma in the world. Bad things happen, unfortunately, but they do.
But what we can do is we can. We can acknowledge each other's experiences and say, yeah, you experienced a real thing. Whatever that bad thing was, it's real. And I'm just going to hold you and say, yeah, it happened.
And. And in the case. In the case of Brit Mila, case of Abris, I think the. The baby is eight days old. The baby is still, you know, partly in the spirit world. As long as the baby is held and, you know, and. And loved and nurtured and cared for, I just. I don't see the evidence that there's a. That it's a traumatic effect. I really. I really don't. And I have. I. But. But anticipating or knowing that those concerns are out there, I created a whole a chapter. It's a very brief chapter. It's really like a. A bulleted list of things that you can do as a parent to set it up so that it feels holy, it feels sacred, it feels peaceful and beautiful. And what I'm getting at behind that is to try to reduce this fear of trauma and the fear of the pain. I'm trying to address it in ways of creating, like, one of the things I say is create, make it a beautiful setting. Like, there's, like, there's a Moroccan tradition of. Of putting flower, sprinkling flower petals, like rose petals or something on the floor of the shul or the home, where it's going to be. And there's another Sephardi tradition from. I don't remember from where, of lighting Syrian, I think of putting candles in the room. You know, like you would like, if you wanted to create a sacred space to have a sacred conversation or you wanted to, you know, make love with your husband or, you know, or. Or have a meditation, right? So, like. So the candles, the rose petals, speaking in a really conscious way, having someone. It could be the rabbi, it could be the moal, it could be mom or dad or an uncle, aunt. Anybody could do it. But say. But to acknowledge what this really is and say, this is like we all have a soul and this baby has a soul. And we are at the first step of acknowledging that soul of this little, beautiful little boy. And we're bringing him into the world and, and we're, we're welcoming him in and, and we're welcome not only into the world, but into this Jewish family, this nuclear family and this community and the whole Jewish tribe that's all over the world. And so, and then we're welcoming him and we're ushering him into a world of relationship with the divine right. So like, just like you know, it's a mitzvah to, to go, to accompany the bride to the chuppah and to, to, to accompany the, the person who's died, the met, to the, to the grave in the same way, like it's a mitzvah, it's a, it's a holy act to usher this boy in. And so if you speak these words and then you sing a nigun and, and one other thing that I got from Rabbi Schlemo Karlbach, he says, I've been to so many bris in America and it's below. It doesn't give the, doesn't give the baby dignity. Like people are so like caught up in the fear and they're like, ah, he's gonna get caught on his penis. Like, like they're, like they're holding, they're holding so much fear.
So he says like, you know, to say this, you say the Shema and close your eyes and know and sing a nigun. You know, get yourself into that spiritual space. Like it's not just, you're not just showing up for a baseball game where you're going to watch nine innings and root for your team. This is like you are being an aide, you're being a witness. Like you're accompanying this boy on his soul journey. And, and, and if we, if we really take on the sacredness of the moment, I think it'll help reduce the fear, our own fears, our own I ideas about trauma of this, of this event and realize like, oh, this is like this is a beautiful peaceful thing and, and, and then we won't have, we won't have the trauma and the pain is short lived and we'll have this beautiful healthy boy.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: Man.
Rabbi Elihu K. Is the author of Sacred Insignia. Elihu, where can people buy your book?
[01:01:33] Speaker B: It's available from Katav, who's the publisher, KTAV kab.com It's available from Urim.
Katab is in America. Urim would be good for people who are in Israel and it's also available on Amazon like just about everything else. Right. And I've got a website called rabbielehue.com and it's a little bit about the book and there's different endorsements from a number of different rabbis and some non rabbis including, including one from this man that I spent some time talking with and he, he, he was in Los Angeles and his, they were expecting this boy and I, I sent him the manuscript because it wasn't printed yet and we, and we had a long talk about it. Anyway, the baby was born and, and then so I wrote him, I said new, how did it go? He said let's talk. So we talked he said, he said it went really beautifully, really peacefully. He incorporated my suggestions of the, you know, making a spiritual like what I just talked about. And then a number, a number of of his relatives came up to him afterwards and said it was the most beautiful, peaceful, sacred me live they'd ever been to. So, you know, that's what I so anyway, that one's in there and also on the website is I include the table of contents so you can see the what, what's in there.
And your, your listeners, Jess, are are free to get a hold of me. I can provide consultations on this and they can reach me through the website or it's Rabbi Elihumail.com and happy to, happy to talk about it.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: Thank you. I do encourage folks to reach out. Thoughts, questions? Rabbi Tirza Firestone, who's the rabbi emerita of Congregation Neve Kodesh, just a stone's throw from me in Boulder, Colorado, said that your book is full. I'm quoting her. Your book is full of light and wisdom. It is truly the opus of, of a lifetime. Adme live until 120 and have a great deal of many years left to write another opus. But I will say that in terms of the thoroughness and depth and breadth of this work, it truly is quite astounding. So congratulations. Thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom and I hope people can hear your warmth and just genuine goodness.
I'm so lucky to call you a friend and blessed to call you a colleague. Next time on Unraveling Religion Judaic Edition, we will be meeting with Rebbetsyn Gila Ross and hearing more about her truly transformative work and thoughts on Pirke Avot. Until then, wishing everyone health and wellness Bisora Tovot from Israel. Thank you again, Rabbi Elihu Gewirtz.
