Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Why Avraham Avinu Waited For Bris Mila

While working through the process of conversion, the budding erstwhile proselyte is expected to do all the mitzvos.  Sort of a dry run, if you will, to really ensure his sincerity.  He also has to learn, of course, both to know what he is getting into (yeah, right...) and so he will actually know what he needs to do as a Jew.  At some point I learned about the mitzvah of t'vilas keilim.  I was all set to fulfill that mitzvah when it dawned on me that I couldn't.  Since the mitvah is to tovel keilim that used to belong to a goy and now belong to a Jew, this mitzvah was just going to have to wait.  (My wife didn't have the mitzvah either since they were my keilim.  We realized later that I had been feeding my family treif m'd'rabanan because of bishul Abba-the-goy; but that's another story.)

Avraham Avinu (and all the avos) fulfilled all of the mitzvos: matzah, korban pesach, shabbos (some interesting details there); and even mitzvos d'rabanan, such as eiruv tavshilin and chanuka licht.  That being the case, the fact that Avraham Avinu waited so long to perform the mitzvah of mila appears to be a glaring omission.  I heard three answers to this question (two new to me) last night; so figured I'd share.

First (and the one I had heard before), is that the mitzvah is "bris mila" (the contract/covenant sealed by circumcision), not simply chopping of some dangling skin.  Avraham Avinu couldn't perform the mitzvah of making a contract with HaShem until HaShem was, so to speak, also ready to pony up His end of the deal.

Still, though, Avraham Avinu could have performed the circumcision, thus doing all he could, and then when his actual geirus was decreed go for hatafas dam (taking a drop of blood) l'sheim mitzvah bris mila.  That is, in fact, how we handle adult male geirus now a days.  It is also how we handle a baby who is born ma'hul (as Moshe Rabeinu was).  Since there is no issur, and there is the concept of "do what you can" (as when Moshe Rabeinu separated the three cities of refuge even though they would not be effective until the conquest of the land).

That brings us to reason #2: There is, in fact, an issur.  It is forbidden to wound a Jew for no reason.  As long as Avraham Avinu was not commanded to perform the mila, it was forbidden.

Still, though, since Avraham Avinu was not (yet) Jewish, maybe that issur didn't apply.  That will bring us to reason #3.  Unfortunately, though, we are out of time/space.  Bli neder, we'll get to it.

In the meantime, however, why don't you ponder the following: Since Avraham Avinu was careful with issurim, how in the world did he learn Torah sh'b'al Peh?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc
Post a Comment
Read more