Who would justify his religious identity, however large or small, on the basis of blood? By blood, I dont mean bloodline or heredity or peoplehood. I mean blood: the red substance that flows in our bodies and keeps us alive. Which person would say that it is this very blood that draws him or her to Judaism?
I would hazard a guess: no one.
An even more remote question: Who would say that there is something about blood that is deeply rooted in his psyche, so deeply rooted that it determines his or her Jewish behavior? Again, probably no one.
A variation: Who can imagine a religion based on animal sacrifice? Note: I did not ask, who believes in this, for clearly Orthodox Jews do references to it fill the pages of the traditional siddur. I asked: Who can imagine it? Since, in Judaism, animal sacrifices have not been performed since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem 1,938 years ago, it is very difficult to imagine, even if you want to.
And who wants to? Wouldnt we safely say that the great majority of Jews, who are not Orthodox, could never conceive of blood as in the blood of sacrificed animals exercising control over their Jewish identity?
All this is obvious, no?
Actually, no.
Actually, surprisingly enough, not at all.
Actually, there are two mitzvot, two commandments in the Torah, that are almost universally observed. Theyre not Yom Kippur or tikkun olam or tzedakah. They are Passover and bris.
People who otherwise have no attraction to Jewish ritual do have a Passover seder. It is difficult to find any Jew who does not have a seder of some kind and who does not eat matzah. In Israel, which now has more Jews than any other country, the great majority of Jews, however secular they consider themselves to be, do not eat bread products any time on Passover.
Similarly, it is extremely common to find Jews who do not desire a bris for their male children, again, however unobservant the parents might otherwise be.
The observance of neither of these mitzvot necessitates synagogue affiliation or participation in a religious or secular Jewish organization. There is no Jewish social or religious structure that compels or encourages the observance of Passover and bris. Yet, they are the most observed mitzvot.
And both are based on blood.
In both cases this is true historically and, obviously, in one case, it is true today. Bris is blood. Yes, that red substance does constitute precisely the draw to Judaism for more people than any other Jewish observance alongside Passover, that is.
And what is Passover? It is a story of freedom, of course. But its much more. If it were only a story of freedom, a Jew could just as easily be drawn to a celebration of Martin Luther Kings March on Washington 45 years ago, or of the fall of the Soviet Union some 20 years ago, or of any number of other salient events in history.
Passover is more than a story. It is an event of epic confrontations, of faith, of miracles. And the one miracle that everyone focuses on, above all, is the death of the Egyptian first born. This is preceded by G-ds passing over the Jewish homes.
Whose doorposts are sprinkled with . . . blood.
The blood of the animal sacrifice, the Pascal lamb.
Blood.
Blood in the bris. And blood at the heart of the story of Passover; indeed, reflected in its very name.
Now, on a conscious level, no one is identifying blood as the root of his or her Jewish identity. Yet, there is something deeply rooted, transgenerationally rooted, if you will, about these two mitzvot: bris and Passover. That something includes blood.
It includes more. Of every positive commandment in the Torah of every thou shalt only two, if transgressed, are punished most severely.
Now, it is not PC to speak of punishment in a religious context these days. But in any legal context, its basic. Capital punishment, for example, is hotly debated but nobody is debating whether it is fair in a case of petty theft. The degree of punishment is a vocabulary for measuring the severity (or lack thereof) of an offense. Is he up for two years or is he up for life? This is shorthand for the severity of the offense.
Likewise, in the Jewish legal system, a way to measure how important a given practice is, is the punishment imposed for its violation. The punishment for the violation of Passover or of bris is the so-called karet or cutting off punishment. Its part of the language of the Hebrew Bible. Exactly what it means is subject to a difference of opinion (cut off from eternal life, for example). But whatever it signifies, it is the severest of the Torahs punishments. This conveys the weight of both Passover and bris.
It tells us that there remains something deep and universally present in the Jewish psyche. It tells us that all, or at least almost all, Jews retain a fundamental understanding of the Torah. We may be as alien as snowballs from hell as we are from the vocabulary of punishment, but because we are anything but alienated from Passover and from bris, it is clear that the Torah speaks to us now as it did to our ancient forbears, whose weightiest religious practices are rooted in blood.
More similarities between Passover and bris:
Bris is covenant; the very word means covenant and the bris ceremony signifies the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people and without blood, there is no covenant. Bris is not abstract; its in the flesh.
Passover is the culmination, the fulfillment of the covenant between the parts that G-d made with Abraham (Gen. 15:13-15; read next Shabbos). That covenant, an animal sacrifice, also entailed blood. Bris is the covenant between G-d and the individual Jew; Passover is the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. In both the bris and in Passover, a covenant is cut, and a covenant is a cut, with blood. There is not one without the other.
And, the uncircumcised may not eat of the Pascal lamb (Exod. 12:48).
A chair is reserved for Elijah the Prophet at each bris; and Elijah is the precursor of the Messiah, the culmination of the freedom begun by Passover. Lest this seem abstract, far from blood, keep in mind that Elijah became Elijah in part because he risked his life for circumcision. Elijah is no less than the messenger of the bris (Malachi 3:1).
Just as the chair of Elijahs chair is present at every bris, the cup of Elijah is present at every seder. The wine therein is prescribed as preferably red, to remind us of blood. Elijah, who risked his life for circumcision, will herald Passovers ultimate meaning, the coming of the Messiah: Behold, I send Elijah to you before the coming of the great and awesome day of the L-rd (Malalchi 3:23).
Being cut off, whatever else it means, is being cut off from the covenant between G-d and the Jews. Failure to perform circumcision, or to observe Passover, is to become cut off from that covenant. That, virtually no Jew wants. However otherwise unobservant, Jews today observe bris and Passover, almost universally. Jews have a transgenerational connection to the ancient Torah, to the way it was practiced in antiquity. This is not just a commitment, an abstraction; its an observance, the most visceral of all, rooted in, or reflected in, blood.
I am indebted to a recent article by Emanuel Feldman in Tradition (Summer, 2008) for the idea for this column, and for many of its points and examples.
