Festive Milestone or Barbaric Abuse? - A Gray-Area Guide to the Circumcision Debate
July, 2011, Rabbi Shira Shazeer
Page 12
Page 12
So, back to the San Francisco ballot initiative, and the parallel bills all over the country. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m hoping it doesn’t pass. (I’ll leave it to the experts on constitutional law to debate its implications for freedom of religion, and the likelihood of it standing up in court even if it does pass.) I don’t want to see laws banning circumcision, not because I think circumcision is the best choice for all baby boys, not because I expect all Jews to practice brit milah given the legal choice, but because I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this question, and questions without easy answers are powerful catalysts of thoughtful individual decision-making and meaningful action.
It is easy to make the choice to circumcise in a traditionally observant Jewish community. There is an expectation to do it, and no real motivators to challenge the norm. It was easy to choose to circumcise in the eighties when it was at the peak of popularity in secular American society. Everyone was doing it, and it was Jewish tradition! No need to think about whether to circumcise then. For many people, it would also be easy to make a decision if it was illegal. For many American Jews who aren’t strictly observant, secular law would make it a simple choice. (For others the choice would be much harder.)
But easy choices aren’t necessarily meaningful choices. They often don’t involve a lot of thought about why we’re making that choice, what our other options are, or what values our choice projects. So I’m hoping attempts to ban circumcision fail, but I’m not sorry they’re making the news. I hope it spurs traditionally observant Jewish families to think about why Jews do brit milah, what makes it important enough to do even when secular society isn’t on the band-wagon, and what it means to each of us. I hope Jewish families who choose their traditions a la carte find more meaning and stronger sense of identity in choosing brit milah in a culture where it makes them more distinctive. And I hope those who choose not to circumcise will be inspired to find creative ways to express their identity and commitment to Jewish life.
As the issue continues to get more press coverage, as I’m sure it will, we will certainly see the organized Jewish community responding to the human rights claims in the public sphere. (See the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council’s press release.) Individuals within the Jewish community have already begun addressing the issue. The blog posts range from personal, respectful and nuanced (see Galeet Breen on TCJewFolk), to positive, proud, and focused on the Jewish values behind brit milah (see Rabbi Judah Dardik on jewishvaluesonline), to analytical, innovative, and ambivalent (see Jay Michaelson on the Forward), to irreverently dismissive and embarrassingly insulting (see Jason Diamond on Jewcy).
Let’s hope that on the whole, as a Jewish community, we can respond in a respectful and reasonable way to the real concerns many people have about circumcision, while upholding it as a parent’s choice, like so many other difficult and potentially life-altering choices we make, that comes with the awesome responsibility of having children.
It is easy to make the choice to circumcise in a traditionally observant Jewish community. There is an expectation to do it, and no real motivators to challenge the norm. It was easy to choose to circumcise in the eighties when it was at the peak of popularity in secular American society. Everyone was doing it, and it was Jewish tradition! No need to think about whether to circumcise then. For many people, it would also be easy to make a decision if it was illegal. For many American Jews who aren’t strictly observant, secular law would make it a simple choice. (For others the choice would be much harder.)
But easy choices aren’t necessarily meaningful choices. They often don’t involve a lot of thought about why we’re making that choice, what our other options are, or what values our choice projects. So I’m hoping attempts to ban circumcision fail, but I’m not sorry they’re making the news. I hope it spurs traditionally observant Jewish families to think about why Jews do brit milah, what makes it important enough to do even when secular society isn’t on the band-wagon, and what it means to each of us. I hope Jewish families who choose their traditions a la carte find more meaning and stronger sense of identity in choosing brit milah in a culture where it makes them more distinctive. And I hope those who choose not to circumcise will be inspired to find creative ways to express their identity and commitment to Jewish life.
As the issue continues to get more press coverage, as I’m sure it will, we will certainly see the organized Jewish community responding to the human rights claims in the public sphere. (See the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council’s press release.) Individuals within the Jewish community have already begun addressing the issue. The blog posts range from personal, respectful and nuanced (see Galeet Breen on TCJewFolk), to positive, proud, and focused on the Jewish values behind brit milah (see Rabbi Judah Dardik on jewishvaluesonline), to analytical, innovative, and ambivalent (see Jay Michaelson on the Forward), to irreverently dismissive and embarrassingly insulting (see Jason Diamond on Jewcy).
Let’s hope that on the whole, as a Jewish community, we can respond in a respectful and reasonable way to the real concerns many people have about circumcision, while upholding it as a parent’s choice, like so many other difficult and potentially life-altering choices we make, that comes with the awesome responsibility of having children.