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Chapter 3. Brit Milah: A study of Change in Custom

In traditional Jewish society two criteria determine the affiliation of males to the congregation of Israel: birth to a Jewish mother, and circumcision, which is a Torah obligation.1 These set permanent and unequivocal bounds to the membership group of the Jewish people. A male who was not born to a Jewish mother may join Jewish society by conversion, during which he undergoes either circumcision or, if already circumcised, the ritual drawing of blood from his penis. Following this he is “like a newborn child,”2 which means literally that he is to be regarded as one who was born a Jew.3 A male who was born to a Jewish mother that was not circumcised, whether because of circumstances beyond control (such as illness, or other conditions that prevented his circumcision) or as a result of deliberate parental choice, is considered Jewish but is precluded from observing a small number of commandments.4 This symbolically places him in a marginal position, a status that, according to talmudic sources, is also the lot of one who was born circumcised (i.e. without a foreskin), in which case the halakhic question is whether he is to be regarded as an arel (uncircumcised), since the foreskin (orlah) was not removed, or as circumcised, since he has no foreskin.5 A similar question addresses the status of one whose brothers died due to circumcision, and whose life would therefore be threatened if he were to undergo such a procedure. Should he be put at risk and circumcised?6 In all these cases, the halakhah finally determined clear norms, so that every male can locate himself within the boundaries of these norms.