Circumcision Charges
Tzafnath Pa’an (in his responsa, 152) distinguishes between 3 obligations in circumcision: “A. That he be circumcised, B. That he be uncircumcised, C. That he not be uncircumcised.”
What is the logic in distinguishing between “he who is mixed” and “he who is not circumcised”? On the surface, the two are completely equivalent.
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I once read this Rogchober (perhaps in Rabbi Zevin's Persons and Methods) and I remember that 'aral' is not 'uncircumcised' but there is a difference between the concepts, and the distinction is a regular 'gross' distinction.
A circumcised man can be circumcised (he was circumcised and his foreskin was extended), and he can be uncircumcised and uncircumcised (he was circumcised without the blood of the covenant). Uncircumcised and circumcised is a regular baby, uncircumcised and uncircumcised is a regular circumcision. It turns out that circumcised is a verb (passive) in the past, and circumcised is an adjective (present), and there is also a difference in gender (circumcision).
That is, one does not need to reach pathological states (someone who was born as a brain in a jar, for example, in which case he is neither circumcised nor uncircumcised) or a spiritual status (circumcised is commanded to be in plus-five status and ‘uncircumcised’ is commanded not to be in minus-five status), which, as far as I remember, is how the Rabbi explained somewhere the difference between not doing and doing.
That's exactly where I directed him. It's in the article on the sixth root.
Hmm. And the book is even on the B'Tselem website in its original form:
https://gabihazut.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Shorashem_1-13-6-2018-%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%94-%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%AA.pdf#page=475
And now I also see in the column:
https://mikyab.net/posts/61609
But I accept what Rabbi Zevin wrote from Rabbi Zevin's writing that when the Rogchober investigates, he always brings explicit issues. And I wouldn't rely on the general formulation of "being mixed" versus "not being circumcised" That is the general distinction between a doer and a non-doer, except that there are two laws here: ‘being mixed type 1′ and ’being mixed type 2’. I tried to read now in the answer there (Hybrobox) but as usual it is impossible to decipher quickly. From above it does seem that for every law it finds distinctions-of-fact on whom it is imposed and when it is imposed and what exactly the law requires to be done.
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