This needs support to avoid looking like simply an insult to those with a different point of view.
When we study the great Jewish sages as often as we should we start to notice that when the sages finds ironies or paradoxes in the text that they know hide a great secret their language changes a bit, and they sometime soliloquize trying to solve the problem for themselves while discussing the larger narrative for their audience. Case in point, on the point in our crosshairs, is Nachmanides' exegesis concerning the nature of the "foreskin." He notes that the text doesn't say to cut your ערלה "
orlah," in which case you wouldn't know where to direct the knife since the scripture equates the "
orlah" ערלה with the heart, the ears, and even the lips.
. . . nor does it say, "the foreskin of your flesh," just as it says the foreskin of your heart, and the foreskin of your lips.
Nachmanides.
With the statement above Nachmanides not only shows that he knows something of the problem with the literal Hebrew text, but he unwittingly backs himself, and his Jewish tradition, into a corner.
But instead it says, And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin . . . The word "flesh" in the expression, uncircumcised in flesh, is a euphemism for the genital organ, just as in the verses great of flesh, and an issue of his flesh.
Ibid.
Nachmanides implies that if the Hebrew text said to "circumcise the foreskin ערלה of your flesh" you wouldn't know where to direct the knife since part of your "flesh" is your ears, heart, and lips, all of which are said to be circumcised in one place or another. How will you know what the "flesh" noted in Genesis chapter 17 is if it doesn't clarify but merely leave's "flesh" undefined?
In the quotation above, trying to answer the question about which "flesh" is being implied in Genesis 17, Nachmanides makes a serious gaff by trying to solve a serious exegetical question/problem: he notes that the text says
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, implying that the word "flesh" in the statement means "genital organ" when the question is how we know "flesh" means "genital organ"? He implies that since in Genesis 17, it doesn't say the "foreskin of your flesh" but rather "the flesh of your foreskin" (it's reversed from when speaking of other foreskins) it's telling us it's speaking of the genital organ. But why would "flesh of the foreskin" tell us something different than "foreskin of the flesh"?
His solution for the reversed word order only works if the word “flesh” refers to the genital-organ since otherwise we still don’t know what particular “flesh” is being referenced by the word “
orlah”? According to him that's how we're made aware of what
orlah ערלה is being associated with in the statement. But if the word "flesh" בשר refers to the genital-organ (as it must), then the passage reads, "
circumcise the genital organ of your orlah ערלה." And this is particularly so since the words for “flesh” and “
orlah” are in a construct relationship meaning the “flesh”
of the “
orlah.”
Foreskin: A Forgery for the Ages.
Nachmanides messes up the Hebrew text even worse though in the process he lets us know what the text is actually saying since "flesh" and "orlah" are in a construct relationship in the Hebrew: the text has to read "circumcise the flesh of your foreskin" rather than the "foreskin of your flesh." If the text said to "circumcise the foreskin of your flesh" ---and "flesh" means "genital organ," then everything is hunky-dory. But it doesn't say that. It reverses the order of when it says "circumcise your lips, or heart." It says "circumcise the genital organ of your foreskin" letting us know that the traditional interpretation of "ערלה" (translated "foreskin") is literally wrong.
But if "foreskin" isn't "foreskin" (if ערלה isn't "foreskin") then what the heck is it?
In the Talmud, as in most other Jewish scripture we're told that the "flesh" that reveals gender is the male genital organ (not the female genital organ). In a sense, the female genital organ is the natural, default flesh of mankind. It's the existence of the "male flesh" (not just the genital organ of the male flesh) that signifies that "male flesh" is the true problem come from the fall of mankind that begins in Genesis 2:21. Genesis 2:21 is where we get the secondary creation of the first male flesh from the default female flesh of ha-adam (ha-adam being the first transgendered human being: the default female form being transformed, the lips
sutured shut סגר, to form the first bastardized flesh).
By saying to "circumcise the genital organ of the ערלה" the text is saying to remove a piece, or symbolically the entirety, of the the very flesh that never should have existed, male flesh. "Orlah" ערלה means "male flesh." It's the male flesh, all of it, that's a great lie, since the phallus is not original or genuine but merely a trans-gendering of the vulva and vagina (the phallus is a trans-gendered vagina and not an original thought from God). All flesh remains in the domain of God's original creation so long as testosterone doesn't flood the default flesh to create the toxic-deformity/masculinity begun in Genesis 2:21.
The acceptance of the Phallus is immoral. It has always been thought of as hateful; it has been the image of Satan, and Dante made it the central pillar of hell.
Otto Weininger, Sex and Character.
In light of the true exegesis of Genesis chapter 17, it's not the phallus that's immoral, but the flesh it merely signifies and represents ---male flesh. Genesis 17 says to circumcise, cut, bleed, scar, reject, with extreme prejudice, the existence of not a particular organ but rather what that organ represents, and posits into God's original creation, carnal, fleshly, masculinity. By implying that by removing a sliver of the male genital organ all is right as rain Jewish tradition buries the true significance of their most seminal ritual as though having a sliver of flesh covering one's male genital organ is somehow the cause of all the ills in the world, and worse, that once that tiny piece of flesh is removed, the Jew is now all the better for it. Jewish tradition removes the implicit eschatological logic of the ritual (the conception and birth of God's firstborn apart from the tragedy and toxicity of male flesh) and practices it as though the ritual is the reality: if you don't have a foreskin covering your male genital organ you've been saved, redeemed, and readied for your Jewish mission.
מילה [milah] does not generally mean: to cut, to circumcise; only in connection with ברית מילה [brit milah] does it occur in this sense. מול [mul] means "opposite," as in . . . (Bemidbar 22:5) . . . (Tehillim 118:10): "In God's Name, I will oppose them." As a verb, then מול [mul] means: to oppose, to the limit. To be sure, מול [mul] in connection with ערלה [orlah] means "to cut off.". . . The cutting, however, is merely a means, whereas the end and intention is to oppose, to the limit, the ערלה [orlah], or more precisely: to oppose the הערלה בשר, . ..
Rabbi Samson Hirsch.
Proof of how deep the rabbit hole of Jewish tradition has dug itself can be seen by the last Hebrew phase in Rabbi Hirsch's statement ---הערלה בשר [
the orlah of the flesh]. The great Jewish exegete Rabbi Hirsch reverses "the flesh of the orlah" הבשר ערלה (found in the biblical Hebrew of the text), making the literal text's "flesh of the orlah" read "the orlah of the flesh" as Jewish tradition needs the sacred text to read if removing that flesh is the soul or seminal meaning of the covenant. Since in kabbalistic tradition (which Rabbi Hirsch acknowledges) the sacred text of the Torah is God's very Name, misrepresenting the literal Hebrew text of God's Name, changing it around, reversing it, is, and comes under the admonition not to, take the Name of the Lord in vain. Unwittingly, the great Rabbi Hirsch takes the Name of God in vain to protect Jewish tradition from any name, even God's, that has an axe to grind with some of the more questionable and unfounded foundations of Jewish tradition.
John
