The War Against Brit Milah

The new Azure is out, with plenty of excellent articles to choose from. In this post, however, I would like to adress a very serious matter brought up in the correspondence section. There, no less than three letters to the editor responding to Dr. Ido Hevroni's article on circumcision as rebellion in the context of Roman domination. These letters, which include a "Rabbi" who endorses "alternative" britot milah that do not involve surgery, are all united in their utter disgust and repulsion at brit milah, describing it in the grossest and bluntest terms. Obviuosly, all are "enlightened" Jews, the type which have tried to "redefine" Judaism to make it indistinguishable from Western fads ever since the coming of modernity. A recent post by Gabriel Schoenfeld on the subject generated no less than 45 responses, much larger than any other post on the Commentary blog by an order of magnitude. There, too, the comments are filled with a disgusting venom.

My main concern here is not the existence of such opinions but their apparent legitimacy within the Jewish world - not just the fringes. I consider it nothing short of horrifying that the editors of Azure saw fit to publish only the anti-Brit Milah letters and not one in support. I can not stress the ramifications of this campaign enough. Brit Milah is not some transitory miderabanan that can be "intellectualized" out of existence, it is one of the core identifying marks - yes, marks - of Jews since the beginning. It is an issur karet, one which the Jews often risked their lives to perform.

The past couple of decades has seen quite a wave of Jewish religious thinkers "intellectualizing" various mitzvot and obligations out of existence for the sake of pleasing individualistic whims and secular humanist Western dogma. I live in dread of the day that the move to abolish this last red line becomes a real intellectual movement, backed up by distorting "Jewish Sources" of course (no doubt with a helthy dose of how kevod ha'adam supersedes every issur in Judaism).

I really don't know how to react to this ?%$@ anymore. When I see and hear of stuff like this, all I want to do is break down and cry. I feel so helpless.