Q&A: A Secular Person’s Attitude Toward Jewish Law
A Secular Person’s Attitude Toward Jewish Law
Question
Rabbi, I read and was very impressed by your interesting article about causing a secular Jew to stumble into sin. I have a small question:
If a Jewish person who lives a secular lifestyle performs a circumcision, then there is no value to his fulfillment of the commandment, so his child would be a non-Jew in every respect, and it would turn out that Jews would be cutting off long lineages of Jews that could have come from them, since there is no importance or value to the circumcision of a Jew who does not believe that God was revealed and commanded this at Mount Sinai.
Am I right? I’d be glad for a fuller explanation.
Answer
First, usually the circumcision is performed by the mohel, not by the father. And even according to the opinions that regard the mohel as the father’s agent, the father transfers the act to the mohel to perform it himself (certainly if an agent is an authorized representative and not merely an extended hand).
If the father himself performs the circumcision, it seems to me that the son would have the status of one born already circumcised, who requires a symbolic drawing of covenantal blood. An apostate or heretic is not valid to perform a circumcision.
That is if the father is an atheist or does not believe in the revelation at Mount Sinai. If he is merely lax (= traditional, lite, or secular out of casual laxity) — it seems to me the circumcision is valid.
Discussion on Answer
Of course not. An uncircumcised child is not a non-Jew.
His child would be a non-Jew in every respect?