Thursday, March 27, 2014
Parshas Thazria: Why do we do Circumcision on the eighth day?
10:29 PM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
"On the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised" (Leviticus 12:3),.
The Torah tells us that there is an obligation to circumcise a child eight days after he is born. If all goes well and the child is healthy then the circumcision is on the eighth day. It is interesting that every number of years there is always a discussion whether circumcision is a good thing or not against cancer. Some doctors are for it, some against it but here we see that the obligation to circumcise a child is because G-d told us to do it!
Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l in Derash Moshe asks why a child is obligated to go through circumcision on the eighth day. He answers from the Midrash (Vaykra Rabba 27:10) that a child cannot be circumcised unless a shabbos has passed. This is so a person would not make the mistake and think that if someone denied G-d's existence or thought that G-d created the world but there were other worlds before that or that G-d does not have a connection to mankind...that their saying G-d's name with a blessing does it really account for something?
The purpose of keeping Torah and mitzvos is to draw ourselves closer to G-d. Shabbos is a symbol that G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. We refrain from "work" on Shabbos and sanctify in the way that G-d wants us to. Someone who denies this basically denies one of the matin tenets of Judaism. Such a person denies G-d and His Torah!
What does this have to do with circumcision on the eighth day? The Torah tells us that the child has to pass through a shabbos so that the child will be imbued with the idea that G-d created the world from nothing and envelop that idea throughout their lives.
This will help intensify their belief that everything comes from G-d and we are obligated to serve Him to the best of our ability. Even if we don't fully understand His ways or how He does things, nonetheless we have to understand that G-d is the creator of life and keeps the world going on a daily basis. If not, the world would return to the original chaos of Genesis.
This is also what circumcision represents. It is a sign that differentiates the Jewish people from everyone else and keeps us separate from the nations. At the same time, we keep it and pass it down to the future generations because G-d told us to do so.
This too is a tremendous sign of the Jewish people as well as shabbos and that is the reason that a child has to pass through shabbos before the circumcision can be done.
Shabbat Shalom
The Torah tells us that there is an obligation to circumcise a child eight days after he is born. If all goes well and the child is healthy then the circumcision is on the eighth day. It is interesting that every number of years there is always a discussion whether circumcision is a good thing or not against cancer. Some doctors are for it, some against it but here we see that the obligation to circumcise a child is because G-d told us to do it!
Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l in Derash Moshe asks why a child is obligated to go through circumcision on the eighth day. He answers from the Midrash (Vaykra Rabba 27:10) that a child cannot be circumcised unless a shabbos has passed. This is so a person would not make the mistake and think that if someone denied G-d's existence or thought that G-d created the world but there were other worlds before that or that G-d does not have a connection to mankind...that their saying G-d's name with a blessing does it really account for something?
The purpose of keeping Torah and mitzvos is to draw ourselves closer to G-d. Shabbos is a symbol that G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. We refrain from "work" on Shabbos and sanctify in the way that G-d wants us to. Someone who denies this basically denies one of the matin tenets of Judaism. Such a person denies G-d and His Torah!
What does this have to do with circumcision on the eighth day? The Torah tells us that the child has to pass through a shabbos so that the child will be imbued with the idea that G-d created the world from nothing and envelop that idea throughout their lives.
This will help intensify their belief that everything comes from G-d and we are obligated to serve Him to the best of our ability. Even if we don't fully understand His ways or how He does things, nonetheless we have to understand that G-d is the creator of life and keeps the world going on a daily basis. If not, the world would return to the original chaos of Genesis.
This is also what circumcision represents. It is a sign that differentiates the Jewish people from everyone else and keeps us separate from the nations. At the same time, we keep it and pass it down to the future generations because G-d told us to do so.
This too is a tremendous sign of the Jewish people as well as shabbos and that is the reason that a child has to pass through shabbos before the circumcision can be done.
Shabbat Shalom
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