Circumcision for the Child of a Homosexual Couple: Perspectives and Policies

1. On one hand, Torah law forbids the male homosexual act [Lev. 18:22] and does not grant halakhic status to single gender family arrangements, and on the other hand, Jewish law requires that circumcision take place on the eight day after birth [Lev. 12:3].

2. The standard formulae “sustain this newborn boy to his mother and his father” and “may the father be happy with his offspring, and the mother with the fruit of her womb,”[a] are not mandated to be recited by Oral Torah, [b] this passage’s recital is a tradition of convention but not covenant, [c] since it is not an obligatory formula, it may therefore be amended or deleted as situationally appropriate, the decision to be left to the community Rabbi or the officiating Mohel.

3. I suggest the passage be changed to yismechu horav be-yilodan, ve-yagilu megaddelei fi’utan, ”may his parents be happy with their newborn boy, let his guardians be glad with their little son.” See Responsum Minhat Shelomo 1:18, s.v. omnam nir’eh, who rules, so to our view correctly, that the passage is recited as a matter of convention rather than obligation. It should also be noted that the responsum’s author, Rav Shelomo Zalman Aurebach is on one hand a Haredi scholar, but remains highly regarded in Modern Orthodox world because he is always a straight shooter, a piously meticulous reader of text, who rules according to the source’s logic and language, and not the politically accepted consensus.

4. Modern Orthodox rabbis and Mohalim will likely be challenged for allowing this change in Orthodox usage on the grounds that we are [a] somehow legitimating homosexuality, [b] changing the “Tradition” without reasonable warrant or Great Rabbi approval, and [c] capitulating to the fads, foibles, and flaws of contemporary secularity. While we may not legitimate, validate, or approve of any act that Halakhah forbids, the child, being born to a Jewish mother or having been adopted and converted with the intent to be raised by two Jewish individuals as an observant or somewhat observant Jew, the fact that the adult “parents” seek out Orthodox rabbinic guidance would argue that there is absolute and unqualified obligation to circumcise the child. If we refuse to circumcise the child, we lose this social unit to the Orthodox community, making their Jewish bond almost impossible to sustain. To our view, it is far better to be inconsistently observant than consistently non-observant. Furthermore, Maimonides maintains that a local rabbi has the right to rule as he deems proper, appropriate, and reasonable as long as no explicit biblical or rabbinic norm is violated by his ruling. Just as Talmudic law does not oblige us to sit shiva for an intermarriage, we do not act wisely or correctly, in my view, by rejecting LGBTQ family units who wish to bond, albeit inconsistently, within the Orthodox orbit.

5. Conceding that the family arrangement is irregular presents a challenge for which I have no satisfactory solution. But parameters may be suggested. The Rav and mohel may neither violate Jewish law nor give the impression that Jewish law condones what it does not. This truism being said, the counter argument that dealing, addressing, or negotiating LGBTQ issues is an implicit and therefore unacceptable recognition and validation is also an unacceptable, if understandable, policy. First, Jewish law does not recognize “recognition” as a recognized legal category and second, by treating the non-Orthodox streams as evil rather than misguided, Orthodoxy unnecessarily alienates significant populations of Americian—and Israeli—Jewry.

6. Modern Orthodox rabbis [a] may violate no Oral Torah, statute, norm, or rule and [b] within that constraint, should be as welcoming, embracing, accepting and non-judgmental as possible. Pastorally, we should follow the rule that God alone has the right to be judgmental [mAvot 4:8], which frees the community Rabbi to assume a “social worker” role of non-judgmental friend who is free be supportive in a situationally appropriate way. After all, human dignity [bBerachot 19b and elsewhere], it’s Biblical corollary, that the image of God inheres in every human being [Genesis 1:27, 9:6, and mAvot 3:14], which would argue against treating people as strategic pawns in a political game. If the Sages could sit with the Sadducees in the Great Sanhedrin, we should be permitted to service inconsistently observant Jews and, for that matter, any Jew who appears at our community’s doors, without rushing to judgment, because we are required to embrace and love, not judge and reject, other Jews.