As he stated it in his Collected Writing, III, he states it again here: circumcision ritualizes being born-again, rebirth, such that the person born-again on the eighth day is a "new man" and not just an addendum to the physical birth. The new man, the Jew, is a spiritual man, grafted onto the physical root (the old man born physically) as a master planter plants his prized branch on a ******* root knowing that the ******* nature of the hearty root will have no affect on the fruit produced by the prized branch.
In grafting, a prized branch can be grafted onto any root, no matter how profane, and it will have no affect on the production of the fruit. The Gentile man, the physical man, born first, through the original sin, phallic sex, will have no part in the production of the Jewish fruit, come from the branch grafted onto the physical root, on the eighth day. Which is where Rabbi Hirsch, blessed be his name, backs himself into the corner his incomplete Judaism forces him to go.
Even when Rabbi Hirsch feigns ignorance, or blindness, concerning his own statements, he shines a great light, bless his dear heart. Rabbi Hirsch, unlike William Shatner, refused (in his attempt to save modern Judaism from its inherent errors) to boldly go where no Jew has gone before. We, on the other hand, shall go there. Though we shant be accompanied by William Shatner, we will, I am sure, be captained by the concept of Shatnez, which, as will be seen by all, be Rabbi Hirsch's greatest undoing. Shatnez is the key to the tzitzit, its symbolism and meaning, and is thus a foundational key to the entire scripture.
In a statement that seems to be the source for Rabbi Hirsch's quotation from Leviticus 12:3, he says:
Therefore, the physical birth of the child is completed on the seventh day. The eighth day, the octave of birth, as it were, repeats the day of birth, but as a day of higher, spiritual birth for his Jewish mission.
Collected Writings III, p. 111.
Immediately after this statement, Rabbi Hirsch moves into his discussion of the tzitzit:
Of all the Divine commandments which we will attempt to examine in the present study, none has a more obviously symbolic character than does the commandment of tzitsith. The Divine Law itself has set down the meaning and content of this commandment in unambiguous terms. There can be no doubt about the message to be conveyed by the fringes we are to attach to our garments . . ..
Amen. . . And yet there is doubt in the minds of Jews. So lets see where Rabbi Hirsch goes with this:
As has been quoted throughout this thread, Rabbi Hirsch compares the tzitzit to a "sprout" a "blossom" even a branch. And he connects this branch, or blossom, to ritual circumcision by means of the eight strings of this branch, or blossom, or sprout (the tzitzit). So we're not surprised to read, in the
Horeb, p. 535, Rabbi Hirsch saying, in a discussion of brit milah, ritual circumcision, which he just said is rebirth, the day of being born-again, which, amazingly, he points out is not directly a part of the physical body born first from the mother:
The מילה [milah, ritual circumcision] proclaims the full significance of the sealing of the covenant . . . What is it [then] that blossoms forth from the sealing of this holy covenant? That the living God becomes our only God . . ..
Rabbi Hirsch is channeling, unconsciously, great Jewish truths not apparent to his conscious mind. He knows the ritual cutting removes the unworthy branch. He knows that the tzitzit represents the worthy branch that "blossoms" when the ritual circumcision מילה takes place. And he asks the pertinent question: What is it that blossoms forth after the removal of the unworthy branch? His answer is breathtaking in context: That the living God, versus some other God, the invisible God of monotheism . . . get this . . . become our "only God." Subconsciously Rabbi Hirsch, as will be shown more clearly, is channeling the Christian Gospels by implying that when the old branch is removed, brit milah, a new branch will "blossom" (literally the Heb. tzitzit) to replace the old branch.
But just here is where Rabbi Hirsch can no longer boldly go, precisely because it's where no Jew has gone before and not experience a conversion event. Rabbi Hirsch's statement, as can be proven by other statements of the great Rabbi, implies that only at brit milah, does the monotheistic God of Jewish theology, become the Living God, who, and it's hard to believe Rabbi Hirsch says this, now, just here, in the Presence of this theophany, becomes Echad, the God of the Shema, the One and only Living God.
Rabbi Hirsch's inability, like yours too, if you're a Jew, who can't boldly go where no Jew has gone before, to swallow what metzitzah b'peh represents, ritually, symbolically, forces the great Rabbi to eat his words, rather the fruit from the blossom "grafted" (not grown) from the original root of the original body, born the first day, to the mother.
Frightened of where his study is taking him, Rabbi Hirsch slams on the Enterprise's breaks as he tells Scotty to reduce the study from warp speed:
And now, examine these "sprouts" upon your garments. Although God's law bids you knot them, and knot them firmly to your garment, קשר עליון דאורייתא, they are, nevertheless, merely threads of the same kind of material as that from which your garment has been woven. . . The sole purpose of this commandment is to act as ציצת [tzitzit], to develop your human nature to the highest level of perfection.
He's lying to himself, and to his theology, and he knows it, and gives us a Freudian key letting us know he knows it. And we'll see soon enough that he knows it:
It does not seek to accomplish anything else than what is already part of your original vocation as a human being. Its observance does not make you into anything else but a human being, a human being at its best, achieving your highest potential as man.
This statement comes immediately after stating that the purpose of the tzitzit is to develop your human nature to the highest level of perfection. But who would think otherwise? Why the need to make the statement that follows? Why point out that it's observance doesn't make you into anything else but a human being? Why do you think Rabbi Hirsch finds it necessary to clarify something no Jew would think about anyway? I mean what on earth could a human being become, achieve, other than the highest potential of man?
Rabbi Hirsch makes his statement for many reasons. One is the fact that he has stated that circumcision is "rebirth," being "born-again," and that it is something new, not a mere addendum to the physical human being born the first day. He claims circumcision is a "spiritual" rebirth, and not something born out of the physical birth. Well naturally the physical birth is the birth of the natural man, the normal human being. And Rabbi Hirsch is explicit, in his Collected Writings III, and his Chumash, at Leviticus 12:3, that what is born-again on the eighth day is not merely the highest attainment of the natural born man, but something spiritual, a higher octave than the physical.
See why Rabbi Hirsch felt the necessity to clarify himself even though his clarification was a nullification of his own words? He says rebirth on the eighth day is a higher octave of existence than the normal human being born physically, and that the new birth is not a mere addendum to the first, natural, birth. Then he says that the tzitzit, which spouts from the ritual cutting off of the natural branch, that gave birth to the normal human being, doesn't make you anything else but a natural born human being.
Rabbi Hirsch, writing in Christian Germany, realizes he's throwing around the word "rebirth" and "born-again" in a context where it means becoming not just the highest natural born man, but a new man born-again into a wholly new spectrum, octave, that Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:17, claims makes one a "new spiritual species" completely other than the natural born man.
But this, the Rabbi's conscious hollers, is unJewish! You can't graft a spiritual species onto a physical species without breaking the most comprehensive symbol of the entire Torah: shatnez.
Rabbi Hirsch is patently clear that shatnez represents the prohibition against unlawful mixing of species. He claims the mixing of plant, linen, and animal, wool, merely represents the mixing of unlike things which God separated into individual kingdoms and species. Shatnez forbids tampering with God "natural" seemingly "original" order, as it's come down to us.
Timber trees which do not bear fruit may be grafted onto one another, but not to fruit trees, or vice versa.
Horeb, p. 284.
The natural born man, who cannot produce spiritual fruit, cannot be grafted onto the spiritual man, nor can the spiritual man be grafted onto the natural born man. Not by natural law, as exemplified by shatnez. . . Which is where and why Rabbi Hirsch tries desperately to overrule himself by claiming the tzitzit blossoming doesn't represent anything other than your natural vocation, the natural vocation of the natural born man.
But Rabbi Hirsch is barking up the wrong tree when he speaks of the tzitzit as producing the same thing as the branch that must be removed before the tzitzit can be, get this, "grafted," and it is, with a permanent knot, to the old garment representing the cover God gave to the sinful man. The new branch, is grafted onto the old garment, against everything the written Torah is about, the natural God's natural law, as exemplified by the order inherent to the natural world.
The מילה [milah, ritual circumcision] proclaims the full significance of the sealing of the covenant . . . What is it [then] that blossoms [tzitzit] forth from the sealing of this holy covenant? That the living God becomes our only God . . ..
The natural god of monotheism, who modern Judaism makes the creator of the natural world, and whose laws are seemingly beyond repute, natural to the natural mind, becomes, at circumcision, something horrifying, something new, revealed at the sealing of the covenant, the grafting of the tzitzit to blossom in the place of the former flesh, has the result, of making the Living God become our only God, Echad, the Shema. Our only God. Echad. These are the Rabbi's words. More than one God principle becoming unified into one Living God, at the cutting off of the natural man's source, at the blossoming of the new man, the Jew, born unnaturally, from the blood of the natural man---hood, to become a new spiritual species.
Which is where techelet comes in, and where Rabbi Hirsch tunes out, of his own study, for reasons that are so far, patently clear.
John