Q&A: Circumcision Performed by a Female Mohel
Circumcision Performed by a Female Mohel
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I’m a quiet follower and this is my first question 🙂
My partner and I have, thank God, been blessed with a baby boy. After quite a bit of deliberation about whether to be for or against circumcision (and the familiar aspects of that well-known debate, including the medical aspects), we decided that yes, we would do it.
On a personal level, and out of progressive-feminist motivations (as well as opposition to the exclusion of women), I started checking whether it is possible to find a female mohel in Israel who would perform the circumcision. To me, there is also a kind of statement here within the consensus that a mohel is necessarily a man. Still, I wanted to examine the matter from a halakhic perspective as well (assuming that on the practical level there is no difference between one mohel and another, regardless of the sex of the mohel).
On the one hand, we find in the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 264:1, that “all are fit to circumcise, even a slave, a woman, a minor, and an uncircumcised Jew whose brothers died as a result of circumcision; and if there is an adult Jewish male who knows how to circumcise, he takes precedence over all of them. (And there are those who say that a woman should not circumcise (Semak and Hagahot Mordechai), and such is the custom—to prefer a man.)” — and the question arises: does this mean that a male mohel is to be preferred over a female mohel?
On the other hand, while browsing online on the website of a female mohel, who presents herself as certified by the Reform movement (and does not appear in the database of the interministerial committee for the certification and supervision of mohalim), she cites—as an authorizing source—Exodus 4:25–26: “Then Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, touched his legs with it, and said, ‘Indeed, you are a bridegroom of blood to me.’”
I would be glad to hear your opinion on the matter.
Thank you very much,
Dror
Answer
Hello,
First of all, you will not solve the exclusion of women in Jewish law by taking a female mohel. Women are excluded, from the standpoint of Jewish law, in quite a few areas. Did you think of circumcising a daughter who might be born to you as well, so as not to exclude her? The obligation to circumcise the son certainly falls only on the father and not on the mother, and the Talmud learns this from the fact that the woman herself is not obligated in circumcision, so here too I do not see exclusion (unless exemption of girls from circumcision is also, in your view, exclusion).
As for myself, I am entirely in favor of making women as equal as possible to men, but the insistence on participating in rituals seems to me truly marginal and unimportant. What matters is Torah study, teaching Torah, conduct in life, attitude toward women, important roles in the community and at home, making room for them, and so on. The question whether a woman will circumcise, be called up to the Torah, or wear ritual fringes seems to me like fixation on unimportant details. A woman can be equal even if she goes without ritual fringes and does not circumcise, and she can be unequal even if she does those things. Equality is not formal but substantive. This seems especially so to me when these things come from people who are not really careful about the details of Jewish law as such, apart from the egalitarian acts. I of course do not know you, but forgive me, I suspect that someone who is debating whether to circumcise at all belongs to that category. Equality is more important to him than fulfilling the commandments of his Creator. Does your wife make sure to wear ritual fringes every day, like men? Put on tefillin every morning? Pray three times a day? Study Torah as much as she can? Of course, one can also achieve equality by your not doing those things either, and see what I wrote above regarding the relation between the value of equality and commitment to the commandments.
As for Zipporah, sources from the Written Torah by themselves are not significant in Jewish law. You may like that or not, but that is the situation. The Written Torah also says “an eye for an eye,” and we rule that monetary compensation is taken and an eye is not put out. Will you follow the Written Torah there as well? If you do that only where it is convenient and suitable for you, that is not halakhic commitment. True, the Talmud in Avodah Zarah 27 itself brings the proof from Zipporah against the view that a woman is not fit to circumcise, but it rejects that proof in two ways.
As for the matter itself, as you wrote, the medieval authorities disputed it. But it seems to me that the whole dispute is over the question whether a woman is fit to circumcise, while there is no dispute that she is not obligated in the circumcision of the son. Therefore, in any case it is preferable that the father circumcise, because he is obligated in the circumcision of his son, even according to the views that a woman’s circumcision is valid in itself.
So to your question: clearly it is preferable for a man to circumcise, and if a woman circumcised after the fact, the medieval authorities dispute whether the circumcision is valid. I would choose a man.
Discussion on Answer
Hello,
I absolutely did not suspect provocation.
The importance of circumcision is that it is a commandment. Someone who is obligated in the commandments performs circumcision (and I see no room for hesitation about that). Someone who is not obligated, of course, decides for himself according to his own path (from his standpoint this is just a cultural and social decision), and I have nothing to say to him.
When the medieval authorities disagree, if you do not have a position of your own, it is customary to follow the rules of doubt, and one of them is that in a Torah-level doubt one rules stringently—that is, that a man should circumcise.
I wrote my view about the importance of rituals.
I do not see any importance in the identity of the mohel, so long as he is fit to circumcise and does it according to Jewish law. What more is needed here?
As for the distinction you made at the end between woman as object and woman as subject, I do not see why that is relevant to the discussion. Why is the exclusion of women defined by what the woman does and not by what is done to her or in her? Is the fact that she is not obligated in the commandment of circumcision not exclusion? So why is the fact that she is not obligated to circumcise considered exclusion?
Rabbi Michi,
A few questions about your answers (I split them into more than one comment because for some reason the site doesn’t let me write everything in one response):
1. You wrote:
“As for myself, I am entirely in favor of making women as equal as possible to men, but the insistence on participating in rituals seems to me truly marginal and unimportant. What matters is Torah study, teaching Torah, conduct in life, attitude toward women, important roles in the community and at home, making room for them, and so on.”
Is a mohel/female mohel not considered a relatively “important” role?
2. As for rituality, maybe in itself it is less important, but if there is “freedom of action” in the ritual and its details, and this can contribute to advancing equality between women and men in things that are substantive according to your view, why not allow it? It’s like a girl seeing women who have reached senior positions in various fields (law, business, politics, etc.); that will not necessarily encourage her to go into one of those fields specifically, but it will strengthen her awareness of her own abilities and also of the level of her contribution to society (analogous to the substantive equality you mentioned)?
3. Regarding the identity of the mohel, I think the questioner meant that just as there is “freedom” to choose a particular mohel for additional reasons (for example, there were no problematic cases in which a baby was injured, he explains things and reassures the parents because the process can be stressful, etc.), then where there is no relatively clear prohibition, why not expand that freedom of choice so that a woman would be one of the options?
4. Practically speaking, it is impossible to invest energy on all fronts all the time, so I did not understand the argument regarding the definition of the exclusion of women. Even if we agree that exclusion exists both in objective and subjective senses, is it preferable to avoid acting on a certain front (circumcision by a female mohel—the active aspect) just because we are not acting simultaneously on all fronts?
5. A halakhic question regarding the end of your first response. Even though the man is obligated in the circumcision of the son, what is the problem with his choosing a female mohel (not necessarily the mother) as “his agent” (according to the views that a woman’s circumcision is valid in itself)? Is it because the mother is not obligated in the circumcision of the son, and therefore a woman cannot discharge the father’s obligation?
Thank you.
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_Anui
“In psychoanalysis, penis envy refers to a stage in the development of girls, according to Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual model, in which girls experience anxiety when they come to understand that they do not have a penis like boys. Within this theory, penis envy is linked to the Electra complex.”
In order to make women equal to men, either they need to be grown a penis or men’s penises need to be cut off.
And regarding the question,
it should be forbidden for women to circumcise out of concern that, out of envious desire for equality, they will ‘accidentally’ cut off the baby’s penis.
And for that reason, changing diapers and bathing toddlers should also be assigned to the fathers.
1. A mohel is not an important role at all in my eyes. What is important about it? Do mohalim have high social status? Is wearing ritual fringes high social status? And being circumcised?
2. I do not see in this any significant contribution to equality. On the contrary, when people do these things, they lose attention for more consensual proposals.
3. There is enough freedom of choice for everyone. These are silly arguments, pardon me. Are there really not enough mohalim?
4. It is better to invest in the important fronts and not in trifles such as this. Besides, I did not argue that one must invest in all fronts, but rather that a person should examine himself: is Jewish law really important to him and he merely wants equality, or is equality what matters to him and Jewish law is only an instrument for achieving it and for protesting against inequality?
5. There is no fundamental problem except that an agent should belong to the category of the matter, and therefore by logic it seems that someone obligated in the matter is more preferable than someone who is not obligated (even if they are able). Clearly both discharge the obligation, and therefore I wrote “preferable.” And according to the views that a woman cannot circumcise, then of course there is a real problem.
A follow-up question: when the father is absent (because he is unwilling to participate), can the mother, rather than the mohel, recite the blessing “who has commanded us concerning circumcision”?
It seems to me that she certainly can recite the blessing. According to some halakhic decisors she even recites a blessing over positive time-bound commandments (that is Ashkenazi practice), and here it is even better, since the child is obligated in circumcision. Even if she herself is not commanded, she is performing his commandment, and in this way fulfills an obligation. In fact, when a woman circumcises in the absence of a father, she acts as an agent of the religious court, and just as the religious court recites the blessing, she too can recite the blessing.
Thank you, Rabbi, for the quick answer. I should note that the question was not asked provocatively, but out of interest, and also because there are still things I cannot explain to myself, including performing circumcision and its importance—to me in particular and in general (my intuition was that yes, but not while ignoring criticism of the automatic intuition of “of course you do it,” and also certain aspects of the medical procedure itself).
I’d be glad for some clarification regarding the lack of clarity about the level of prohibition, and also regarding the move at the end that “clearly it is preferable for a man to circumcise.” Let me also ask: does the fact that the medieval authorities disagree create a catalyst such that necessarily a man should circumcise? Meaning, is that in order to “avoid” the dispute?
Also, regarding the comparison to substantive aspects, I do not fully understand the Rabbi’s intent, because surely women can also hold an important place in the community and be opinion leaders. A female mohel may indeed be a formal tool, but one that advances substantive equality (let’s think about girls who would be exposed to that female mohel, and that would encourage them to try to take a more active role).
Also, with respect to a male mohel, as a follow-up question: does the identity of the mohel really have no significance? Even if we agree for the sake of argument that all mohalim do exactly the same job, is there no room to choose his identity? (Or in other words—we probably won’t just Google and necessarily choose the first mohel in the results just because that’s what came up.) That is, even when choosing a mohel, it’s not as though we are only looking for someone who knows how to be a mohel.
Regarding the comparison to circumcision of women, I would note that the question I asked is on the active plane—whether a female mohel can perform a circumcision, i.e., whether the act can be performed by her—as opposed to a passive comparison, whether an act can be applied to. In fact, that could lead to the opposite equality question (which goes beyond Jewish law), but that is not the main issue in the present case.
Thanks!