Editor’s note: The simhat bat ceremony that has gained popularity over the past three decades is not only a simha, a joyous family occasion commemorated with ritual and food. On a deeper level, it signifies the entry of a newborn girl into the Jewish community and, thus, into the covenant between God and Israel.
The covenant is the eternal agreement between God and the Jewish people, which serves as the foundation for Jewish nationhood and the traditional Jewish belief system. This agreement encompasses both (a) the Jewish people’s fidelity to God and their acceptance of the Torah and its laws and (b) God’s promise to keep the Jewish people as His people and to give them the Land of Israel as an inheritance. The covenant serves as a national charter, provides the rationale for observing mitzvot, and captures the essence of Jewish existence.
All Jews—men and women—are members of the covenant; this status is attained immediately upon birth from a Jewish mother. The covenant is so fundamental that it transcends the biological, social, and ritualistic differences that define traditional gender roles and responsibilities within Judaism. As R. Eliezer Berkovits declares, “There is no doubt today that women are part of the Jewish people no less than men. The covenant was concluded with the Jewish people, and the land [of Israel] and the Torah were given to all of the Jewish people.”1
The covenant thus lies implicitly at the heart of every simhat bat, when a baby girl is welcomed into the Jewish community. Why, then, is the covenant typically not mentioned as part of Orthodox simhat bat ceremonies, when it would appropriately frame the essential religious significance of newborn Jewish girls? More fundamentally, why does the association of girls with covenant often provoke an obvious sense of discomfort? What is it about the covenant that makes some people think that it is only for males?
The answer lies in the relationship between the covenant and circumcision. It is important to recognize that the covenant and circumcision are distinct. Circumcision is one biblically mandated symbol of the overarching covenant, among others, such as Shabbat, mezuzah, tzitzit, and tefillin. Significantly, the Torah explicitly mentions covenant and circumcision together only in Genesis 17, where circumcision is introduced. A small handful of other Torah passages implicitly portray circumcision as a symbol of the covenant (e.g., that a man must be circumcised to eat the Paschal lamb), but these references are the exception, not the rule. The Torah repeatedly uses the independent term “covenant” (“brit”) to mean the foundational bond between God and Israel, without any mention of circumcision.
Covenant in the Torah and Rabbinic Sources
The covenant is the most prominent theme of the Torah’s narrative and the raison d’être of the Jewish people in this narrative. The Torah spells out the terms of the covenant every time it articulates God’s eternal love for the Jewish people and their obligations to worship God, observe the commandments, and remain holy. Likewise, every mention of God chastising the Jewish people for their idol worship and other transgressions reflects a violation of the covenant. Furthermore, the Torah associates the covenant with fundamental components of Jewish existence. For example, a covenant is made at Matan Torah (the giving of the Torah) (Deut. 5:2), and the Ten Commandments are the “covenant” or “the words of the covenant” that are inscribed on the “tablets of the covenant” (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13, 9:9–15). Both men and women are initiated into the covenant (Deut. 29:9–12) and are included in the “nation” of Israel (Deut. 31:12). It is significant that none of these concepts or references is related to circumcision.
The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel endlessly plead with the people to stop desecrating the covenant and describe God’s forthcoming punishments and ultimate forgiveness. Yet these prophets do not mention the physical act of circumcision with respect to the Israelites (although circumcision is used a few times as a metaphor). In fact, these prophets go to great lengths to disassociate the covenant from ritual.
Whereas the theme of covenant suffuses the Torah, the Talmud focuses more on legalistic details than on fundamental philosophies. Nonetheless, we see that one mishnah (Nedarim 3:11) refers to Jews as “circumcised,” regardless of whether a man is actually circumcised. Thus, we see that circumcision itself does not affect one’s covenantal status. An opinion in B.T. Avodah Zara 27a states that women “resemble one who has been circumcised.” At least five halakhic authorities, over the span of centuries, explain that this is so because both women and uncircumcised men are part of the community of Israel.2 It follows that all Jews are covenantal members, irrespective of circumcision.
It is also significant that the Rambam does not characterize circumcision in terms of the special relationship between God and the Jewish people, nor does he refer to circumcision as “brit milah.” Rather, he devotes attention to the technical details of fulfilling the circumcision commandment and emphasizes the specific covenant between God and Abraham. The Rambam conceptualizes circumcision as a means of weakening a man’s lust and, at the same time, of creating a covenant, meaning an alliance or league, among believers in God’s unity (e.g., Jews and Moslems). The Rambam thus distances circumcision from the distinctive, exclusive covenant between God and Israel.3
Taken together, these sources demonstrate that circumcision is but one facet (albeit an important one) of the larger concept of covenant, and the metaphysical notion of covenant transcends the physicality of the circumcision symbol. Therefore, the symbolic entry of girls into the covenant, though not marked with circumcision, is as real and significant as that of boys.
A Misleading Conflation
Nonetheless, circumcision and the covenant have been conflated for many centuries, and this misconception remains so entrenched today that the two have become practically synonymous. Circumcision “occupies the field” with respect to the covenant, and circumcision has become the primary, instinctive association with the word “covenant.” In essence, the physical symbolism of circumcision has subsumed the metaphysical covenant. The development of this mistaken belief was not inevitable, and is the result of historical factors.
One contemporary example of this phenomenon is the pervasive usage of the term brit milah (“covenant of circumcision”) rather than simply milah (“circumcision”). The brit milah terminology, which first appeared in the Mekhilta (on Ex. 19:5) in the third to fourth century, seems to have become accepted in the Middle Ages. By contrast, common usage does not covenantalize Shabbat, a prime manifestation of the covenant in Jewish life. The Torah refers to Shabbat as an ot, a sign or symbol, and as brit olam, an everlasting covenant, the precise terminology that the Torah applies to circumcision. The Mekhilta passage that first used brit milah interestingly also uses the term brit Shabbat, yet no one today refers to Shabbat as brit Shabbat. This observation highlights the point that circumcision today carries greater covenantal recognition than Shabbat.
Among English speakers, the semantic covenantalization of circumcision has become entrenched with the rampant use of “brit” or “bris” to refer to circumcision and the circumcision ceremony. Even though this usage is likely meant as a shorthand, it has unwittingly stripped the covenant of its independent, fundamental role in Judaism.
This conflation has been longstanding. In one particularly vivid example, Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, a ninth-century midrash, has the Israelites putting on their doorposts, on the evening of the first Passover, a mixture of the blood of the Paschal lamb and the blood of circumcision. The midrash connects this mixture of bloods to Ezekiel 16:6, in which God states, “I said to you: ‘In your bloods live’; I said to you: ‘In your bloods live.’” This verse, whose recitation has become integral to the circumcision ceremony, speaks of the covenant in the context of an allegory of the Jewish people’s infidelity to God and their desecration of the covenant. Moreover, the blood referred to in Ezekiel is a mother’s birth blood, a “female” blood that bears no relationship to circumcision. Using this covenantal allegory to represent the blood of circumcision, therefore, demonstrates a blending of covenant and circumcision that has entered the circumcision liturgy.
Another familiar liturgical example is in the second blessing of Birkat Hamazon, in which we thank God for “Your covenant that You have sealed into our flesh.” This phrase attributes physicality to the covenant, transforming the metaphysical covenant into the physical mark of circumcision. This blessing thus portrays circumcision as the primary—or perhaps the only—manifestation of the covenant. While this liturgy is the product of the relevant discussion in the Babylonian Talmud (Berakhot 48b-49a), the Jerusalem Talmud (Berakhot 1:5) assumes that the second blessing of Birkat Hamazon references the generalized covenant between God and Israel.4 This contrast demonstrates that the covenant has not always been principally associated with circumcision.
A scene from nineteenth-century Germany dramatically highlights the fallacy of equating the covenant with circumcision. There was a movement among Reform Jews to refuse circumcision for their sons. As a result, a number of community councils in Germany excluded uncircumcised boys from their registers, thus denying these boys entry into the Jewish community—a move that incited vigorous controversy. The traditional rabbinate, with the aim of compelling parents to circumcise their sons, supported this aggressive move. Addressing these rabbis at a conference, R. Chaim Soloveitchik asserted that circumcision is not a requirement for membership in the Jewish people, and that refusing to circumcise is no more violative than desecrating the Shabbat or transgressing in other ways. Relaying this story about his grandfather, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik voiced his approval of the rabbis’ aim, but, significantly, agreed that his grandfather’s position was correct as a matter of halakha.5 This story demonstrates the widespread belief that circumcision is required for inclusion in the Jewish people, but also confirms that this belief is erroneous.
Covenant as an Independent Concept
The unfortunate result of this misconception is that the commandment of circumcision, which is a symbol of the covenant, has obscured and overshadowed the covenant as an independent concept. Many people, therefore, mistakenly believe that the covenant applies only to the extent one is or can be circumcised. Because women are not circumcised, many Jews today have a gnawing discomfort with associating women and covenant. A few may even believe outright that women are not members of the covenant. In other words, if the covenant is the same as circumcision, and if circumcision is only for men, then the covenant must also be only for men. Conflating covenant and circumcision, therefore, has the actual or potential effect of wrongly excluding women from the covenant as a matter of common perception.
It is my belief that this misguided understanding is the reason that Orthodox simhat bat ceremonies typically avoid any reference to the covenant. However, to the contrary, women can be—and, in fact, are— members of the Divine covenant, despite their inability to be circumcised. Moreover, inclusion in the covenant should be ceremonially recognized at birth, when this momentous status takes hold. Ritualizing covenantal membership at birth sets the stage for a life devoted to covenantal responsibilities and guided by ol malkhut shamayim.
It is important that we correct this misconception and explicitly ritualize the covenant as an essential pillar of the Jewish tradition for all Jews. A covenantal simhat bat does just that, by recognizing women’s rightful place in the covenant, the most fundamental expression of the special relationship between God and the Jewish people. Welcoming a daughter without symbolically entering her into the covenant misses an opportunity to incorporate the framework articulated in the Torah itself.
Thus, the purpose of a simhat bat should be to enter a newborn girl symbolically into the covenant by means of a clear covenantal theme and a focal covenantal ritual. As our daughters begin their lives, we should declare that they are full-fledged members of the ancient covenant, with its eternal dynamic of Divine love and human responsibilities. Symbolically situating our daughters within this dynamic is our best means of setting them upon a lifelong course of Torah and mitzvot.