REASONS FOR CIRCUMCISING WHEN YOUNG

Rambam offers three reasons for why the Torah ordained that berit milah occur when we are young. First, by doing it to the child before he grows up, we avoid the possibility that he would choose not to do it to himself. According to this line of reasoning, some paternalism (pun intended) is incorporated in the Torah's plan for child rearing. The system of Judaism requires that its males be circumcised, both to allow for group identification and to limit or curb our baser instincts, as per last week's shiur. Rambam is pointing out that it is easiest to get this done before the people involved have the will or the thought to resist being so identified.

That point of view also assumes that there are occasions when a particular result is more important than the religious experience of those involved. In some ways, it would certainly be more religiously moving if Jewish males freely and voluntarily underwent circumcisions. By having the parents perform the ritual for their babies, the Torah takes that religious experience away from the large majority of Jews. In Rambam’s view, it was much more important that it get done than that the males have the opportunity for that experience.

Rambam also assumes, I think legitimately, that the factors that might lead an adult person to resist circumcision apply more to the person himself than to the parents. I do not mean the physical pain involved in the procedure (Rambam will mention that in a moment), but I could imagine a rebellious youth deciding he did not want his very body to identify him as Jewish, and therefore deciding not to have it done. Imagine if milah were a procedure performed at the age of 18; it would certainly no longer be public, and the rate at which people would neglect it (as we all do with other mitsvot) would quite probably be quite high. Ordaining that babies be given this circumcision, however, is a more effective way to get it done-- since parents are quite anxious to give their children as perfect a life as possible, even relatively unaffiliated ones tend to bring them in for a circumcision.

SECOND REASON-LESSENING PAIN

Rambam's second reason has to do with the pain involved. Children, he says, are younger and less imaginative than adults, which makes their suffering easier in two ways. First, the membrane around the organ to be circumcised is softer and therefore does not hurt as much. Second, children do not anticipate the future in the way that adults do, so they will not suffer from that aspect of the experience.

I find Rambam’s recognition of the psychological aspects of suffering interesting. He clearly recognizes that being oblivious to the future helps a person suffer less. For us, that suggests a value in developing the ability to sometimes not anticipate future pain. Someone who has to go through painful medical treatments, for example, might do better in being able to focus on the day to day, rather than thinking about the future pain to come. My mother used to joke that women are only ready to have another child when they have managed to forget the pain they went through in giving birth to the previous one.

THIRD REASON—PARENTAL CONNECTION

As a third element in the age God chose for circumcision, Rambam mentions the weakness of the parents' connection to an eight-day old baby, particularly the father's. He calls the part of the human makeup that develops a connection to others the imaginative faculty, which is also how he referred to the ability to anticipate pain. I do not have a good grasp of Rambam's exact meaning by this faculty, but I know that he also thinks of prophecy as extending from this in combination with the intellectual side of a person; it is thus something worth further study at some point. Rambam says that this connection grows as the child gets older, so that the parent's connection to a one-year-old is much different than an eight-day-old. As a result, Rambam says, had the Torah ordained circumcision for a two year old, for example, the father would not have been willing to do it.

WHY NOT BEFORE EIGHT DAYS?

Rambam notes that in the first seven days of a baby’s life, the body is still weak and not ready for circumcision. It is only after seven days, he says, that the body comes fully into contact with the air. I suspect he is referring to babies’ slow opening up from the fetal position after birth. Newborns are still very curled in on themselves, only slowly opening up their bodies (so that a one-week old might seem much longer than at birth, but only because of this process of uncurling, of leaving or reducing the fetal position).

Rambam then draws a parallel between this halakhah and one that says that animals may not be used for sacrifice until they have spent seven days with their mother. From the phrasing of the verse, we might have thought that that was a rule about the maternal connection an animal feels for its offspring, a connection that recedes enough over the course of a week so that it is not cruel to take the young for sacrifice. Rambam’s explanation, however, sees it as a question of the newborn’s viability; only after a week is it viable enough to be considered a full birth. I find Rambam’s explanation particularly surprising, since the halakhah of pidyon haben, that we redeem first-born sons after 30 days, is based on the notion that we are not positive of a baby’s viability until a month after its birth. Claiming that circumcision is delayed to assure viability therefore seems an odd route to take.

On the other hand, noting that ordaining circumcision on the eighth day really involves the baby’s having lived a full week before circumcision can be a useful insight. I believe other commentators (Maharal in particular) focused on a week as a basic unit of time (in Creation), so that circumcision happens after the baby has experienced it. Such ideas are not our concern here, but it is worth seeing that they are buried in Rambam’s fundamental insight.

 

LO PELUG—A RULE THAT NEVER VARIES

Rambam closes that paragraph by saying that this is a rule that never varies, referring to the halakhic concept of lo pelug, that we make rules in a fixed way, even though that necessarily brings about situations where the rule does not apply. Here, that would mean that since the only barrier to circumcision upon birth is medical, a baby who was strong enough could theoretically be circumcised earlier than the eighth day. Halakhah’s invalidating such a circumcision is a legal formalism, not a conceptual aspect of the ceremony. I think the weakness in this view is obvious, in that it reduces a universal and timeless halakhah to a rule adopted for consistency’s sake. Someone who viewed the eighth day more conceptually than Rambam would disagree, and explain reasons that it was inapplicable until then.

OTHER PROHIBITIONS AROUND SEXUAL ISSUES

For the second to last bit of the chapter, Rambam discusses several prohibitions that have to do with sexuality. The prohibition against castrating animals is an expression of the Torah’s interest in moderation, not abstinence. What nature gave us must be used for its purpose (procreation); it simply should not be indulged to excess.

Rambam’s view that the problem in a Jewish man with damaged sexual organs marrying a Jewish woman is that it would lead to a perverted and aimless relationship, and would also lead the woman to temptation (since she would necessarily seek satisfaction elsewhere), raises two issues. First, such a man is allowed to marry a convert or a freed slave, an exception Rambam’s reasoning does not explain (the reasoning in the gemara seems to focus around the male’s not having the full sanctity of other males, since his sexuality is kept away from the main congregation of women and is allowed for secondary elements of the Jewish people). Second, the prohibition does not, to my knowledge, revolve around the man’s ability to bring satisfaction to his wife, or to retain enough of a hold on her (emotionally, physically, and sexually) to prevent her straying. Here, I should mention that Rabad also refers to these prohibitions as worried that the wife will commit adultery, but I still find myself unconvinced (Rabad’s assumption worries me that there is an explicit statement to this effect in the gemara that I either do not know or do not remember).

Rambam assumes that the restrictions on a priest’s marriage (and a Kohen Gadol) are a function of his extra sanctity, although he does not explain the loss of sanctity in being a divorcee, a topic that bothers many in our time.

He notes that the Torah gives the reason for not marrying Gentiles, namely that in intermarrying we will be drawn to their idol-worship. This again is interesting, since it does not distinguish Jews from non-Jews in an essential way, but only in terms of the practical question of their worshipping idols. Although not in halakhic terms, it raises the question of how Rambam would have viewed marriage to Islamic women, who (in his view, I believe) worshipped the same God we do, albeit with mistaken notions on a host of other issues. Did Rambam view such intermarriage more benignly than that with the original idol-worshippers?

CLOSING COMMENTS

Rambam, having finished his presentation of the commandments, notes that there are details of some commandments that he has not explained fully (particularly in the areas of sacrifice and of ritual impurity). He therefore closes this chapter by noting that it is impossible to know some matter as fully when learning about it from books as it would be if one witnessed it. Since, in his view, many if not most commandments were oriented towards uprooting idolatry, his knowledge of idol-worship, even if learned well, will necessarily be less full than if he had actually witnessed it. Nevertheless, he adds, those who are attentive and have followed his reasoning carefully will be able to glean the reason for some of the elements he did not refer to directly.

This last summary again raises several of the issues we have noted during the course of our study. Did Rambam really think that the mitsvot were meant to uproot idolatry? If so, what was their value in his time when, as he says, idolatry had not really existed for hundreds of years? As before, however, it is impossible to give answers to these questions, since Rambam does not address the topic.

In large measure, then, we have finished with Rambam’s presentation of mitsvot. Next week, we will be"H study chapter 50, which deals with some "secret" aspects of the Torah, meaning parts that seem meaningless but that Rambam will find great value in explaining. Following that, we enter into Chapters 51-54, perhaps the most famous chapters of the Guide, since Rambam closes with a discussion of the nature of the worship of God, articulating (or at least hinting at) what it means to truly serve the Creator. See you then.