CIRCUMCISION FOR CHILDREN OF MIXED MARRIAGES

QUESTION:

If the parents in a mixed marriage request a regular Brit Milah service for their child, should the rabbi consent to participate? and what rules should govern his participation? (From Mordecai I. Soloff, Los Angeles.)

ANSWER:

IN GENERAL this question was dealt with in Recent Reform Responsa, p. 100 ff., but since this question as presented involves more specific and important details, it requires a more complete answer than the one given there.

The questions are these: a) if the mother is Jewish; b) if the mother is Gentile; c) should the brit be counted as conversion; d) shall the child be named? a. If the mother is Jewish. If the mother is Jewish, the child is Jewish and is to be circumcised under the mitzvah of circumcision incumbent upon all Jews. This, therefore, is not the circumcision of conversion but the circumcision of the Jewish commandment, (i.e., renewing the covenant of Abraham). However, the problem is raised here as to how this child shall be named. In this case it becomes a problem because Jewish law cancels the paternity of the Gentile. In b. Yevamot 98a the rule is simply stated that there is no paternity to an Egyptian, which means in general, to a Gentile. Thus, for example, if there were twin sons of a Gentile father (and therefore there can be no question that the two sons are brothers), and if one brother converts to Judaism and dies childless, his widow does not need to obtain chalitzah from her husband’s brother, because the paternity of the two men is declared canceled by the rabbis. “Scripture cancels his seed” (afkerei rachmana lezarei). So, also, while Rabbinic law considers a convert to be a newborn child and, there-fore, no longer related to his Gentile relatives, and that he could legally marry any of them, nevertheless the rabbis forbid him to marry the kin of his mother but do not forbid him to marry the kin of his father.

Since, then, the paternity is declared null, the problem must arise in Orthodox law as to how to name the child. You cannot name him after his father because the paternity is technically canceled, nor, as has been suggested, can you name him the son of Abraham because that would imply that the child is a convert, which it is not; it is a Jewish child because of its maternity. I believe that in our Reform practice we should ignore the technical Rabbinic cancellation of paternity and should name the child after the father, preferably translating the father’s name into Hebrew form since the child is being named in Hebrew. If the father’s name is James, we give its Hebrew form as Jacob. If the father’s name is John, we give the Hebrew form of Jochanan. Of course, if the father’s name is a Biblical name there is no problem. Therefore our practice should be clear. The child is Jewish and is being circumcized not as a convert, but as a Jew, and named for his father, Hebraizing the father’s name.

b. If the mother is Gentile. If the mother is Gentile, the child is Gentile. May the Jewish authorities give him Jewish (i.e., religious) circumcision? This question has come up frequently in the last century. A Jewish doctor, for example, married to a Gentile woman asks that the child be circumcized by the town mohel. These circumstances arose so often that a whole book is written on the subject (Uchetorah Yeaseh, by David Sered). The fullest discussion of it is in the responsa of the Rabbi of Frankfurt on the Main in the past generation, Marcus Horowitz, Mate Levi, II 54-55. The reason for the hesitation on the part of the Orthodox rabbinate was not that it is wrong to circumcise the child of a Gentile mother with the regular mitzvah of circumcision (i.e., not merely a medical circumcision). The Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 266:13, says that he may not be circumcised on the Sabbath (but clearly may be circumcised on a weekday). David Hoffman in “Melamed Leho’il,” Yoreh Deah 82, and also Moses Schick in his responsa “Yoreh Deah” 248 agree that he may be given the regular religious circumcision. Nevertheless what troubled Marcus Horowitz was that, since this child was Gentile, the circumcision must be a conversion circumcision; but conversion requires also the ritual bath. Now Horowitz is in doubt whether in this mixed household the child will be raised as a Jew and will ever be given the ritual bath. Thus he will never be fully converted and, growing up in the Jewish community, may nevertheless marry a Jewess.

As for us in the Reform movement, we have definitely decided (see Report of Committee on Marriage and Intermarriage) that we will not require all the ritual ceremonials in the conversion of an infant; that if the child is enrolled in our school or inscribed in our cradle roll, we will consider his Confirmation at the end of his education as complete conversion. And I am certain it was the intention of the Conference to accept the child at its enrollment, or cradleroll inscription, as Jewish already. In other words, the enrollment expresses the full intention of the parents to raise the child as a Jew.

Therefore in the case of the child of a Gentile mother, the rabbi should certainly participate in the brit milah, but only if the parents will agree to raise the child as a Jew and give it a Jewish education. In this regard we follow the caution of Marcus Horowitz who agreed to the circumcision if such a promise were made. Since this circumcision is a conversion circumcision, the child must be named as the child of Abraham. This, I believe, covers most of the questions asked.