Identity, Mishegas, Politics, Religion

Jewish Life Without Baby-Penis Sucking as Bad as Auschwitz!

“Orthodox leaders are so infuriated by the city’s educational efforts that some threatened to protest at the mayor’s inauguration wearing yellow Stars of David. In other words, some Jewish New Yorkers were ready to display a symbol of Nazi persecution at City Hall because the health department issued advice to parents about a procedure than can kill babies.”
Full Story, but must be Times Select subscriber to read this article.
Failed Messiah notes that a beneficiary of the metzizah b’peh may be the “special ed” industry and its professionals, thanks to the increased risk of brain damage from the herpes virus.
While some traditions may prove untenable in Modern Times, some things are definitely worth fighting for, so let us join the Chassidim against the Sonei Yisroel (Haters of Israel), who seek to bring another Holocaust upon the Jewish people by outlawing metziza b’peh.
[Update] I took down the most offensive (if incontrovertible) name-calling term within this post, but if anyone thinks we are going to ever return to the days when all aspects of circumcision are glossed over between the honor of being the Sandek until the part about the “festive meal,” you can forget about it.
Those days are over.
It’s naked lunch time now. Babies are dying. Babies are getting very sick. And permanently brain damaged.
The Talmud is very, very wrong.
It is impossible that the Torah, which never mentions metzizah b’peh, really demands it be done.
What else needn’t be done? Brit Priah, perhaps?

19 thoughts on “Jewish Life Without Baby-Penis Sucking as Bad as Auschwitz!

  1. sarcasm
    JewSchool is sorely lacking post categories. For example, look at the paucity of categories used for this article:
    Shoah, Politics, Oddities, Ritual, New York City
    I mean, c’mon. You guys could easily take all the proper nouns of this post and turn them into new categories!
    /sarcasm 😉

  2. to be honest, i’m really trying to make the categories a useful device for finding previous posts. considering how much we cover, jewschool can be a really effective research tool. however, it’s all a matter of how well we tag the information to make it accessible.

  3. If bris milah is our following the covenant of Avraham and his circumcision and he circumcised himself, did he do metzizah on himself? I hate to walk into the middle of this huge debate here, but can some explain where metzizah comes from?

  4. The old Testament was written over 3,000 years ago.
    Some things made sense then.
    But circumcision and Kosher food are not necessariy in modern soceity.
    The foreskin protects the glans from injury.
    Since most people shower once a day it,s ok to have your foreskin intact.
    it also feels better having foreskin than not.
    The same is for kosher food.
    Pigs are cleaner animals than cows.
    many people have them as pets.
    Paul in the new testament allowed gentiles and uncircumcised men into his temple.
    I think it,s time for Judaism to be more accepting of others.
    yours Gregory David Tal.

  5. This issue is completely insane. Doesn’t the Talmud also say something about preserving life, and abandoning even the most important mitzvot (such as those related to Shabbat) in orderr to save a life? The fact that people see this as “just another attack on the Orthodox community” is infuriating.
    To me, there is clearly — clearly — a middle ground between performing metzizah b’peh and completely abandoning circumcision as a sign of the covenant (as Gregory David Tal proposed).
    I feel like a significant segment of the Orthodox population is trying to focus so much on doing things in opposition to other movements, or other cultures, that it’s doing itself (not to mention its reputation!) serious damage. Since when did halakha become a license to kill??

  6. I’m going to have to agree with flurry, here. I would say that the positive commandment to preserve life would supercede any percieved mitzvah derived from metzizah b’peh. We can continue to perform brit milah without metzizah b’peh, and if metzizah is causing harm (or, indeed, has the POTENTIAL to cause harm) then it would seem to me that we are not to use this method.
    That said, I’m trying to discern which comment is more offensive; Gregory David Tal’s or John Brown’s.
    Surely we can have an intelligent debate about this without resorting to equivocating Orthodox rabbis who wish to continue metzizah b’peh with paedophiles.

  7. Gregory David Tal,
    “Accepting”? Maybe you could try accepting that we don’t call the the Hebrew Scriptures the “Old” Testament. Unless by “acceptance” you mean giving up who we are and becoming more like you. Maybe we can start with tolerance. You go first.

  8. To some of the commenters above, I would like to point out that 1) the post only applies to some segments of Orthodoxy (and I wish David Kelsey would make this clearer in his post) and 2) the last link given in the post (on the word “wrong”) is essential to understanding the issue, and I think it should be given more prominence in the post.

  9. Mobius, long time no speak . . .
    I see that the Talmud requires Metzizah, but the Gemara does not seem to specify a method. The thing I never understood about this case is why surgical suction is not used – the “b’peh” does not seem to be a requirement.
    I think I have an explanation for why Metzizah is required. When it was the case that instruments could not be sterilized and germ theory was poorly understood, this practice would draw off blood that had been in contact with the instrument.
    And in light of current events, the Gemara is quite chilling – “He who washes his face and does not dry it well – scabs will break out on him.” (Shabbat 133b) Were these ‘scabs’ Cold Sores, i.e., herpes?
    Seems to me that Metzizah should be quite doable without using the lips, and noting in the Gemara compels their use.

  10. What a rabbinically classic image…a Rabbi giving a blow job to a baby boy and suckin on theblood like a vampire. That’s nasty. That’s just nasty. That”s just wrong. That’s what happens when you choose whacked out man-made religion over God and His Truth. I’m praying for all you Jew Schoolers…you really need Y’shua now more than ever.

  11. Yeah it’s just nasty. This “tradition” crap is getting way too strange. Don’t let sanity get in the way of tradition, why would anybody let this be done to their child? Medical techniques have come a long way but this is just a joke. I really can’t see any logical reason for this but a sinister one. Leviticus 3:17 is pretty clear on this, considering how careful these Rabbis would be in anything else it’s more than an oddity that this is carried out. How could they be sure that none of the blood is digested through a later meal? Looks like Torah is sidestepped for tradition once again. This kind of act leads to blood libels.

  12. Talmud is interpretation of Torah. Ergo, Torah trumps Talmud, despite the lunatic pseudo-religious quoting Talmud all too frequently.

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