During each of my wife's pregnancies, I wasn't terrified by the normal fare of concerns that plague most expectant parents. I did, however, suffer from one fear that was painfully acute and unique in my community: I was afraid the child would be a boy.
See, my wife and I are culturally-connected, community-oriented, non-religious traditional Jews. (I prefer trans-denominational as a catch-all descriptor, but I digress.) And as such, we feared the prospects of circumcision with genuine terror. For we both knew, having been to many a bris – all of which have been nauseating, cringe-inducing experiences – that we would simultaneously succumb to the traditional pressure to perform one and hide in a corner as it was performed.
Today, with the proposed ban on circumcision on the ballot in San Fransisco and Russell Crowe riffing on the evils of circumcision via Twitter, this ritual snip is in the public consciousness more than, perhaps, it ever has been in America, at least in recent memory.
Most people are asking: Is circumcision an unnecessary surgery that is cruel and dangerous? Is it an expression of religious devotion protected by the First Amendment?
While these questions are important, neither of them were forefront in our minds. Rather, the question for us was this: how will be bear the experience?
The cultural expectation that Jews perform a ritual circumcision cannot be overstated – across denominations, and even among the most secular of Jews, it is easily the most widely practiced religious rite performed in America. (And while this diary is focusing on my experience, it needs to be noted here, at the outset, that circumcision is just as sacred to Muslims as well.)
And there's traditional, cultural reasons for this that go back thousands of years: circumcision is one of the first positive commandment (mitzvah) in the Hebrew Bible that Jews, today, follow. In Genesis, chapter 17, this is the way in which it is articulated when enjoined upon Abraham:
10. This is My covenant, which you shall observe between Me and between you and between your seed after you, that every male among you be circumcised.
11. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be as the sign of a covenant between Me and between you.
12. And at the age of eight days, every male shall be circumcised to you throughout your generations, one that is born in the house, or one that is purchased with money, from any foreigner, who is not of your seed.
13. Those born in the house and those purchased for money shall be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant.
14. And an uncircumcised male, who will not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin-that soul will be cut off from its people; he has broken My covenant."
The cultural pressure to, essentially, make a Jewish boy a part of the Jewish people through circumcision is intense. And while the following opinion is merely a subjective one based upon my own experiences and my own lens, circumcisions are also intensely difficult to witness.
There is nothing I have experienced in America – that is normative and legal, I might add – that rivals the tribalism of a circumcision, as the community gathers, chanting Hebrew prayers, expectant, waiting, everyone there to witness the cutting of a male infant's genital skin, women holding their stomachs, faces turning pale.
There is reason that some are so opposed to the practice that they would try to ban it, as is happening in San Fransisco. To the uninitiated – hell, even to the initiated – a ritualized, genital cutting can seem, well, like something to ban.
But it is also true that the procedure, while technically an "unnecessary surgery," is also, according to most medical experts, harmless, and some even consider circumcision to be a beneficial procedure. This, however, is not the argument that is most interesting and complex in favor of the procedure, for questions abound as to whether such a physical, surgical act is protected by the First Amendment.
Many in conservative Christian (and obviously Jewish & Muslim) religious communities in America have erupted in protest, arguing that a ban on circumcision is an "assault on religious freedom." Here's Charles C. Haynes in The Washington Post:
The anti-circumcision referendum is both wrong and dangerous because it subjects religious freedom to a popular vote. As Justice Robert Jackson wrote in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943):
“One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
Absent compelling medical evidence that the circumcision ritual causes serious harm (and no such evidence exists), a law banning the procedure would be an unconstitutional infringement on the free-exercise rights of Jews and Muslims.
The opening clauses of the First Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof – establish the protections upon which the freedom to practice religion in America is founded. The question is whether or not such practices as circumcision can and should be protected by "free exercise." Can physical, painful practices be protected, even when culturally and socially normalized?
It's a difficult question to answer, for while I would not (despite my queasiness) support in any way the banning of circumcision in America, I know this stems principally from my spiritual and cultural connection to the practice.
Were someone to come to me today and ask, "Troubadour, do you think we should ban the ritualized cutting off of the tip of an infant's earlobe in the Uklohos tradition?" – my response would likely be, "Sounds reasonable."
But with circumcision? I couldn't.
My wife and I never had to actually had to make the decision, as we've been blessed with girls. But we've had friends, committed Jews, who have agonized with the decision, one of whom chronicled it recently in powerful terms.
If you have a perspective on this, from any angle, please continue this conversation in the comments. For as this religious rite becomes, more and more, a legal and constitutional question, positions on circumcision may end up having larger reverberations in terms of what practices are, and are not, protected in America.