In my last post I wrote about art and life and the creation of said things, so this is a chiaroscuro, a sketch if you will that may have some dabs of thought here and there.

First of all let me say that I'm learning more at fifty than I have at any other point in life it seems. Circumcision for example originated with the Egyptians and was later practiced by the Israelites. Archaeological proof exists for this in the form of a terra-cotta phallus-circumcised unearthed in ruins in Egypt. This isn't the point of my thoughts today just an illustration of how things we learn change us.

But since I'm here I'll share this thought the circumcision made without hands that we have been taught is the cutting away of the old man I think is baloney. Jewish males are considered Jews after the Moil performs the Bris precisely on the eight day after birth. It is a time of family, of welcoming the little fellow into the family and of extending the both the lineage of that particular family's heritage and that of the Jewish nation. It is their responsibility to see to that through their protection and nurturing.

The baby Jesus had this performed in the proper way by loving parents and so was welcomed into the Jewish nation as a human. I want you to hear this and hang with me ok? A child unknowingly becomes a Jew through the efforts of others, I say unknowingly because it is done without their assent to the ritual. Of course in the Hebrew bible (or Old Testament) the men who were first circumcised had to consent to it. Later at either the bat or bar mitzvahs they become accountable of age to take on themselves the responsibility of being a Jew. Enough sketching for today.
John