אשה כי תזריע וילדה זכר וטמאה שבעת ימים כימי נדת דותה תטמא: וביום השמיני ימול בשר ערלתו: (“A woman, for she will conceive and bear a male, and she will be tamé’ a period of seven days; like the days of her menstruation will she be tamé’. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin [‘orla] will be circumcised”; XII, 2-3).
The language of verse 3 appears essentially to repeat that of a commandment originally given to Avraham, already recorded:זאת בריתי אשר תשמרו ביני וביניכם ובין זרעך אחריך המול לכם כל זכר: ונמלתם בשר ערלתכם והי' לאות ברית ביני וביניכם: ובן שמנת ימים ימול לכם כל זכר לדרתיכם וגו' (“This is My covenant which you will keep between Me and you, and between your seed after you; be circumcised, every male of you. And you will be circumcised, the flesh of your foreskin, and it will become a covenantal sign between Me and you. And eight days old every male of you will be circumcised for your generations”; Genesis XVII, 10-12). Given that this commandment is incumbent on all descendants of Avraham for all generations to come, why does the Torah find it necessary to repeat it here?
B.
The Talmud records several different halachoth derived from verse 3 above, for example, that the entire eighth day is kosher for performing a circumcision (mila), but that, since זריזין מקדימין למצות, the “zealous hurry to do mitzvoth,” it is customary to do it in the morning (פסחים ד.); that even if, e.g., the baby is ill and mila must be postponed, it should still be performed in the daytime (יבמות ע"ב:); or that one should not perform mila until after the sun has cleared the horizon (מגילה כ.). But the halacha most widely associated with our verse is that mila on the eighth day overrides shabbath (שבת קל"ב., נדרים ל"א:).
The Hizquni, for one, declares that this halacha is the reason for our verse. He is not alone; indeed, others perceive a deep, intimate connection between shabbath and mila. The Ba‘al ha-Turim, for instance, notes that verse 3 contains five Hebrew words, the same as Genesis II, 1: ויכלו השמים והארץ וכל צבאם (“And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host”), which immediately precedes the first shabbath. The Mëchilta suggests that the reason the Torah mandates waiting eight days before mila is so that the baby experience the strengthening sanctity of at least one shabbath before being enrolled in the bërith mila, an idea echoed by the Or ha-Hayyim, who notes that the created universe similarly only gained stability and permanence through the holiness with which the first shabbath was imbued. This last idea arouses our interest, for Hazal several times observe that a human being, an adam, is in many ways a microcosm of the universe which he inhabits. Thus כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא (“Anyone who preserves one life [nefesh] of Israel is as though he has preserved an entire world”; סנהדרין ל"ז. במשנה, וע"ע במדבר רבה פכ"ג סי' ו' ופרקי דר' אליעזר פמ"ח); or האדם הוא עולם קטן (“An adam is a small world”; עיי' פירוש לספר היצירה רי"ב וע"ע בין השאר זוה"ק ח"ג רנ"ז: ורנ"ח. ברעיא מהימנא ומורה נבוכים לרמב"ם ח"א פע"ב ). Hence, the parallel between physical Creation at its culmination and the bërith mila between a human being and the Holy One, Blessed is He, noted by the Ba‘al ha-Turim and Or ha-Hayyim cited supra.
But the parallel seems only to go so far, if only because physical Creation achieved stability and permanence in seven days, through the sanctity of shabbath, whilst bërith mila, the parallel process in a human being, requires an eighth day. Why?
The Maharal mi-Prag notes in at least two places in his Hiddushei Aggada that המילה ביום השמיני כי המילה היא על הטבע שכל אשר נברא בז' ימי בראשית הוא הטבע וגו' (“Mila [occurs] on the eighth day because mila is above nature [teva‘], for everything which was created in the seven days of Creation is teva‘....”; ח"ב לקידושין ל.), and "גדולה המילה שדוחה את השבת" דבר זה פשוט כי המילה היא ביום השמיני ומספר שמונה למעלה מן הטבע לגמרי כי שבעה ימים הם נגד ימי בראשית והמילה היא הוי' למעלה מן הטבע ולכך המילה ביום השמיני שהיא אחר שבעה ואין לה צירוף אל ימי החול. כלל הדבר כי המילה היא על השבת במדריגה ולכך המילה היא דוחה את השבת (“‘So great is mila that it supersedes the shabbath’. This matter is simple, for mila [occurs] on the eighth day, and the number eight is completely above teva‘, for seven days [of the mother’s tum’a] are apposite the days of Creation, and mila is [a level of] existence above and beyond teva‘, and therefore mila [occurs] on the eighth day, which is after seven and has no relationship to the [six] mundane days. The totality of the concept is that mila is on a higher level than shabbath and for this reason mila supersedes shabbath”; שם ח"ב לנדרים ל"א:). The seven days of tum’a which the new mother undergoes bear a relationship to the full seven days of Creation, and the seventh day, which would be shabbath, is undifferentiated from the rest, since, as the Or ha-Hayyim suggests, the effect of shabbath was to allow physical Creation to “set,” to acquire stability and permanence, and hence was its culmination. For this reason, there is no distinction between the seventh day and the preceding six. This suggests that there might still have been some measure of provisionality even after the first shabbath, something involving the unique potential of mankind.
The necessary event was Mattan Torah, as the Maharal explains elsewhere, in his Gur Aryeh on our passage. He begins by quoting a midrash (also cited by Rashi): כשם שיצירתו של אדם אחר בהמה חי' ועוף כך תורתו אחר בהמה חי' ועוף הה"ד "זאת תורת הבהמה" כו' ואח"כ "אשה כי תזריע" (“Just as the formation of the adam comes after that of the animals, so does his Torah come after that of the animals, for it is written, ‘This is the Torah of a beast....’ [XI, 46], and afterward, ‘A woman for she will conceive....”; ויקרא רבה פי"ד סוף סי' א'). The Maharal then goes on to explain: וי"ל דגם תורתן איך יהיו מתנהגים הוא דבר דומה לבריאה כמו שהבריאה היא תיקונם הכי נמי תורתן היא תקון הווייתן לכך כשם שמקדים בבריאה חי' ועופות הכי נמי בתורתן דאין התורה אלא גמר תקונם ובשביל כך אמרו "הוסיף ד' בשישי" לומר שכל מעשה בראשית היו תלויים ועומדים עד ששי בסיון אם יקבלו ישראל התורה מוטב ואם לא יחזרו לתהו ובהו וזהו מפני שאין גמר בריאתן רק על ידי התורה שהיא מתקן העולם והוא עיקר תיקונו ואם לא יקבלו יחזרו לתהו ובהו שאין כאן תקון וגו' (“And one should say that also their Torah, i.e., how they conduct themselves, is a thing similar to Creation, just as Creation [means] the establishment of their norm [tiqqunam], so, too, is their Torah the tiqqun of their existence; therefore, just as the animals precede in order of Creation, so, too is it with their Torah, for Torah is nothing else than the final stage of their tiqqun; and for this reason [Hazal] said, ‘Ha-Shem added on the sixth’ to say that all the acts of Creation were conditional and provisional until 6 Sivan [2448]; if Israel would accept the Torah, it would be good; and if not, they would return to primordial chaos [שבת פ"ח.], and this would be because there was no final stage in their creation save through the Torah, which sets the norm and standard of Creation, the root of its tiqqun, and if they would not accept it, they would return to primordial chaos, because there would be no tiqqun here...”).
On completing each stage of Creation, G-d ratified what had gone before by pronouncing it tov, conventionally translated “good.” However, each of these stages remained provisional, unstable, until the final stage. With the advent of the adam, G-d pronounced Creation tov më’od, “very good,” and shabbath immediately ensued, setting and stabilizing the created structures. But this stabilized physical realm was still provisional, in that the metaphysical links which would render it sustainable were still unconnected and dormant. It possessed sufficient permanence to persist in the face of the forces of entropy which continually ate away at its “stuff,” until Israel came into existence and arrived at the foot of Sinai. 6 Sivan 2448 was the turning point, the moment at which Israel would either assume their responsibilities and accept the Torah, making those vital connections, or the universe would dissolve into chaos as entropy leveled all energy gradients.
This, then, is the process analogous to bërith mila. After nine months’ gestation in his mother’s womb, the baby is born, bë-‘ezrath Ha-Shem, physically whole and functional. However, in order to take his place amongst Israel, to be raised and trained to learn and observe Torah as an ‘eved Ha-Shem, thereby keeping the universe in existence and flourishing, the metaphysical “cap” represented by the ‘orla must be removed (עיי' נפש החיים ש"א פ"ו ובחרת בחיים שם סי' ו' ובמילואים וע"ע אור החיים ריש פרשתנו). That the actual meaning of the word ‘orla is a blockage or obstacle impeding a flow is evident from, e.g., Moshe’s words: ואיך ישמעני פרעה ואני ערל שפתים (“...and how will Pharaoh listen to me, and I am uncircumcised of the lips [‘aral sëfathayim]”; Exodus VI, 12).
And this leads us to one last comparison.
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