?And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.? (Gen. 17:13)
At A Glance Author Yiddishkeit Contact Yiddishkeit@bme.anon Studio BlackSun Location Montreal In the early chapters of Genesis, the God of the Jews makes a bargain with an elderly man named Abraham. The deity will provide a land for Abraham?s children, along with eternal protection, if Abraham will make a modification ? ritual circumcision ? to his body and the body of all the men of his household. In the moment that the edge of the blade cuts into his flesh, Abraham ? and all Jewish men after him ? becomes consecrated to God in a very real way.
Performed eight days after birth, Jewish ritual circumcision (?bris milah?) is the means by which a boy is welcomed into the Jewish people. In the full view of the gathered community, his flesh is cut away to reveal something previously hidden from view; his soul is marked as belonging to his God and his faith. It is one of the defining moments in his life, a moment which places a visible reminder upon his body. Every day of his life, a Jewish man can look down at his scar and be reminded of his love for God and his eternal and unchanging connection to his people. His faith is sealed upon his flesh forever.
There is nothing comparable for women.
Somewhere in the first few months of a girl?s life, her father can go and announce her name in the synagogue. Her flesh is not touched, her body is left unmarked by any sign of faith, covenant or commitment. Some modern authors have proposed creating a ritual for girls analogous to that for boys; a breaking of the hymen at eight days, immersion in a ritual bath (?bris mikvah?), or something along similar lines. Not unsurprisingly, very few ? if any ? girls have undergone such a procedure.
I am a Jewish woman, in my early twenties, raised in a high-end Conservative/low-end Orthodox household. We attended synagogue every week, I went to Hebrew school on a regular basis and, yes, my brother and father were circumcised. Attending the circumcision ceremonies ? the bris milot ? for the sons of friends and relatives, I was always struck by the incredible weight placed on the removal of such a tiny scrap of skin, at the incredible feelings of joy and welcome coming from the assembled community. Something momentous happens to a boy at that ritual; something wonderful and eternal that, for one second, we all shared, and that he carries with him for the rest of his life.
In the past few years I have drawn back from, and then returned to, my faith in a very real way. I appear no different on the outside, though; the struggle and the reconciliation, the peace I have finally found, make no difference when I look at myself in the mirror every day. The outside of my body no longer matches the inside of my soul, and for the last while I have felt an odd disconnection between the two. Lacking a solid mark to join me to my ancestors, I have let myself be set adrift; lacking any physical connection to my foremothers and fathers, I have let myself be uprooted by the constant pressure of modern life and modern concerns. I need something upon which to focus my will and my desires, that physical sign which becomes a reminder and a lifeline for the wondering and wandering soul.
Making the decision to mark the covenant of Abraham onto my body was the easy step. The questions of where, when and how ? especially how to explain this to my mother! ? were much more difficult to reconcile. At first, I grew discouraged, having been taught since childhood (as most Jewish children are) that any tattoo or piercing other than ears and nose was forbidden under Judaism and would lead to rabbinic censure, as well as prevent my corpse from being buried in a Jewish cemetery. A bit of research, however, placed that teaching firmly within the bounds of the International Conspiracy of Jewish Parents.
Predicated upon the text in Leviticus 19:28, the prohibition against mods has also been justified based on concepts of modesty and community standards, both of which have changed dramatically in the thousands of years since the prohibition was first recorded and explicated. A recent reponsa (1998, For full text, see http://www.jtsa.edu/pubs/jtsmag/vol7iss2/hatesh.html) from the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, a Conservative institution, held up tattooing as a forbidden modification, based upon the idea that we are created b'tzelem Elokim (in the image of God), and tattooing makes a bright and permanently visible change to that already-perfect creation.
While the Committee did not address scarification and branding, those mods would seem to be included under the same reasoning as tattooing, as they produce similar permanent results. Piercing, however, is seen as impermanent, and the Committee?s declaration effectively permits body piercing for Jews, within certain limits of modesty (piercing the genitals for fashion purposes when the genitals should not be put on public display) and hygiene (easily-infected or rejected piercings). Even then, Jews who are modified, the Committee concluded, must be permitted to participate fully in all synagogue ritual activities and be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
While many of my decisions in life have fallen outside of what Conservative and Orthodox Rabbis might consider perfectly lawful, I still feel the need to make the attempt to conduct my life in a way that does not flagrantly flaunt my disobedience and sin. I suppose the Parental Conspiracy worked better than I thought. That desire to stay within the law even as I rewrite ritual to include myself means that my choices of mod are limited in scope from the millions of possibilities out there in the modification subculture. While tattoos are expressly forbidden by Scripture, and brands and scars are implicit categories tied in with tattooing (except, of course, for the Scripturally-mandated scarification of circumcision), piercings are permitted in certain contexts. Piercing, then, has become the focus of my research and inquiry.
The ?how? determined, the next question became ?where.? What would be the most appropriate place on my body upon which to mark my sign of the covenant? It would, depend, of course, on what the sign is meant to represent. The circumcision, as the only model for my search, is a genital mod, performed on a highly visible part of the male body. The scar is placed on a man?s instrument of reproduction in order to connect him to future and past generations of his fathers, but it is also located where it is as a reminder. A man cannot avoid looking at his penis on a daily basis, and that visual presence acts as a constant trigger to focus his thoughts on holiness.
As a woman, my anatomy is markedly different than that of a man, and the internal placement of my reproductive organs makes it rather difficult to pierce a ring through them. That noted, what can be done? The clitoral hood performs much the same function as the foreskin, and marking the hood would seem to be analogous to the bris on first reflection. Clitoral and clitoral-hood piercings are quite commonplace nowadays, and many piercers are well-practiced in the execution of said mod. On further thought, however, the similarities begin to peel away. The penis is a multi-functioned organ, used for reproduction, pleasure and elimination of waste. The clitoris, on the other hand, exists solely to provide pleasure to the woman, and has no real function in reproduction (although reproduction would, admittedly, be far less fun without one); it is also buried within the labial folds, and is functionally invisible to the woman to whom it belongs without the use of mirrors or yogic contortions. When combined with the rabbinic injunction not to obtain piercings in places where they could easily become infected ? something which applies to the genitals, as they tend to harbor odd bacteria ? clitoral and/or clitoral hood piercings look far less appropriate than they originally seemed.
Piercings to the navel, while they have become sweepingly popular in recent years due to the influence of pop-culture figures, carry the possibility of mirroring the bris much more closely than a female genital piercing. The navel is the site of the umbilical cord?s attachment, the first connection existing between a mother and child. It is a highly visible portion of the body, and a mod there is impossible to ignore for any length of time. A mark of fertility and fecundity, the navel also carries resonance within Jewish mysticism, the eternal city of Jerusalem considered the ?navel of the world.? Continuing on, in an unbroken chain, my navel connects my future children to me, then to my mother, and through her to my grandmother, all the way back to the mothers of our people, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. It is their spirits whom I seek to find once again, the women whose courage, strength and pride I can only hope to emulate in my daily life.
Settling the ?how? and the ?where,? my next task is to consider the ?when.? Certain environmental factors do come into play, my decision not entirely generated by theology or spiritual desires. I reside in Montreal, a cold and damp city for most of the year, and the precious few months of summer are the only time when it is reasonable to wear the loose and non-restrictive clothing necessary to ensure a quick and smooth healing of the piercing. Accepting that the mod must needs be performed in the late spring, so that it will be mostly healed by the time fall rolls around, the holiday of Shavuot seems the most appropriate. A holiday that occurs in late May this year (2001), it commemorates the day that the freed Hebrew slaves gathered at the base of Mount Sinai, in the vast and cruel desert, to receive the word of their God from the hands of Moses Rabbenu.
It seemed only right, somehow, to create a blessing for this occasion, for nothing like it is available in Scripture. There are ceremonies for circumcision and reading the law, for waking up and going to sleep again, but there is nothing, so far, for the woman who wishes to renew her commitment to God and her faith. For hundreds of years, Jewish women have attempted to craft personal rituals for their own use, in the hopes that the less-formal prayers could better convey their hopes, fears and dreams to God than the formalized ritual prayers crafted by and for men. These techines have been resurrected in the last few decades of scholarship, and it is the work of these long-dead women which has inspired me more than anything else. Speaking to God from the truth of my heart, crafting the blessing which appears below, I am ready to face the world as a whole, strong and centered woman; a Jew on my own terms.
On the day that we received the Ten Commandments from Sinai, the day that God formed his final covenant with the Jewish people, I will sit down in the piercer?s chair, say my brief prayer, and renew my covenant with the Holy One, Blessed be He.
?For surely, Thou art to me a bridegroom of blood.? (Exodus 4:25)
To be said before the piercing takes place:
Blessed are You, O Lord my God, Creator and Redeemer,
who has sanctified me with Your commandments and
sealed Your covenant into my heart.
As You blessed Sarah with laughter, grant me the ability
to recognize joy when I am surrounded by sorrow.
You who endowed Rebecca with courage, give me the
strength to face change with an open mind and heart.
Let me share in the boundless patience of Rachel, and the
understanding to let blessings come in their proper time.
Open my womb and make me as fruitful as Leah; as I
celebrate my fertility today, let me also celebrate my
children and my children?s children in the years to come.
Blessed are You, O Lord my God, who has made the
covenant with Your people Israel.
To be said once the piercing is complete:
Blessed are You, O Lord my God, God of my foremothers,
who has commanded us to cause the drops of the blood of
the covenant to flow, for the sake of the covenant which
You have set in our flesh. Surely, You are a bridegroom of
blood to all Israel.