A Jewish Ceremony for Newborn Girls: The Torah’s Covenant Affirmed

4 | Women and Covenant

u 4 Women and Covenant I went for a checkup a few weeks after the birth of my fourth child, Tamar. In the course of making conversation, a medical technician asked me about my occupation. I responded that I am writing a book about rituals for newborn Jewish girls. He looked at me incredulously and said, “I didn’t think such a thing existed; I thought only Jewish boys had a ritual.” Around the same time, I took Tamar for an appointment with her pediatrician . My eldest child, Dafna, was having a pageant at her elementary school, and my husband and I were planning to take Tamar. I inquired about how best to shield my newborn from the swarms of germs she would likely encounter on this outing. The doctor offered little advice, noting that “had Tamar been a boy, she would have already been exposed to many people at a circumcision ceremony.” The doctor’s assumption was that no one had gathered to celebrate Tamar’s birth. In fact, both were wrong. On her eighth day of life, Tamar was joyously welcomed at a ceremony at home, in the presence of family and friends, at which she was symbolically entered into the eternal covenant (brit) between God and the nation of Israel. The importance of ceremoniously initiating every newborn Jewish girl into the covenant is a key message of this book. In the previous chapter, we learned about the dominance of the covenant as a theme in some early Simchat Bat ceremonies, and how the role of the covenant appears to have diminished somewhat since then. Before more closely considering the content of covenantal ceremonies, however, we must first delve into the Jewish conception of covenant. The covenant is the central pillar of Jewish faith and nationhood in that it embodies (1) the Jewish people’s fidelity to God as the one and only God, and their agreement to keep God’s commandments, and (2) God’s promise to keep the Jewish people as His people, make them multitudinous, and give them the land of Israel as an inheritance. 94 covenant After Moses’s first encounter with Pharaoh, God declares the essence of His covenant with the Jewish people: “I have taken you to Me for a nation, and I will be God for you” (Exodus 6:7). Toward the end of his life, Moses articulates the terms of the covenant: “God establishes you [the Israelites] today as a nation for Him, and He will be a God for you, as He has said to you and as He swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Deuteronomy 29:12). The Torah functions as the written embodiment of this everlasting covenant, which God made with the Jewish people at the Sinaitic Revelation (Exodus 34:27, Deuteronomy 5:2–3). In addition, the Land of Israel is a significant feature of the covenant. God first promises this homeland to Abraham and his descendants by dramatically commanding Abraham to journey to this faraway land (Genesis 12:1). Encapsulating the essence of Jewish existence and the eternal relationship between God and the Jewish people, the covenant is the centerpiece of traditional Jewish faith. The covenant inextricably links God, Torah, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel by defining the Jewish national character and traditional religious belief system. The covenant is thus both a national charter and a raison d’être for the Jewish people. The foundational role of the covenant in Judaism, manifested in the Torah and the Land of Israel, cannot be overstated. While modern thinkers have articulated the concept of covenant in different ways, the centrality of the covenant remains unquestioned. For example, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993), head of the Yeshiva University rabbinical school for forty-­ five years, conceptualizes the covenant as consisting of a “covenant of fate” and a “covenant of destiny,” which together comprise all of Jewish existence. The covenant of fate was made in Egypt when God imposed His sovereignty and compelled the Israelites to become His people. While the covenant of fate has produced loneliness, alienation, and suffering, it has also resulted in shared experiences, mutual responsibilities , and the obligation to perform acts of loving-­ kindness for other Jews. By contrast, the covenant of destiny results from free will, when the Jewish people affirmatively consented to receive the Torah at Sinai. This existence is active, directed, substantive, and holy. “Destiny is the font out of which flow the unique self-­ elevation of...