The Circumcision of Desire

Rabbi Sacks recently wrote a piece centering on circumcision that I think also has value for the discussion of domestic violence and the power and control issues that are at the heart of it. Check it out here.

. . . Brit milah helps transform the male from Baal to Ish, from dominant partner to loving husband, just as God tells Hosea that this is what He seeks in His relationship with the people of the covenant. Circumcision turns biology into spirituality. The instinctive male urge to reproduce becomes instead a covenantal act of partnership and mutual affirmation. It was thus as decisive a turn in human civilisation as Abrahamic monotheism itself. Both are about abandoning power as the basis of relationship . . .