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© 2012 John D. Brey.

Most sagely statements on the subject of chukkim (supra-rational statutes in the Torah), to include the thorny nature of Jewish identity, proceed from the belief that although Jews are aware that their faith is being tested by obedience to commandments whose rational meaning is not always understood, they nevertheless understand that when Messiah arrives all these things will become clear. Which is to say that Jewish faith (and identity) is founded on eschatological hope and not hopeless irrationality.

This eschatological hope is not, as Derrida has suggested, something hopelessly deferred, such that faith in the deferred hope sustains itself by means of a permanent deferral of the object of the hope. This hope, far from being deferred, has affirmed itself by filling up what was lacking in even the most seemingly irrational statute of Jewish faith: brit milah, fleshly circumcision.

It’s true that before you have Jewish faith, you need to have Jewish identity. And it’s true that the nature of that identity is as knotty as any chok (any irrational statute of Jewish faith). Nevertheless, no matter how knotty the question of Jewish identity, it must be untied before engaging the question of Jewish faith: What is Jewish identity?

The answer comes down to one extremely important question: Which came first, a Jewish woman or a Jewish man? ---- Jewish law states that to be Jewish is to be born from a Jewish woman. So it would appear that according to Jewish law there must be a Jewish woman before you can have the first Jewish man. Jewish law confirms that this must be the case since even if a Jewish woman procreates with a Gentile man, the offspring will be Jewish, while if a Jewish man procreates with a Gentile woman, the offspring will be Gentile.

Therefore if we start with a Jewish male, by Jewish law we can never give birth to Jewish offspring, and the Jewish race will be over almost before it begins. . . At first glance it would appear that Sarah is the first Jewish woman (and therefore the first Jew) while Isaac is the first Jewish male, i.e., the first person born to a Jewish woman (as Jewish law requires for Jewish identity)? ----- Unfortunately, this theory runs into an intractable problem since unless Isaac (who is the first person born to a Jewish woman) has children from a sister born to Sarah, then according to Jewish law none of his offspring could be Jewish? And since Isaac doesn't marry a Jewish woman (who would have to be his sister), it appears that Jewish law doesn't apply in the most applicable case? . . . the case of the first born Jew.

There's only one solution to the conundrum and it's writ large in the text largely associated with Jewish identity:

My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. . . And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

From this scripture we can assume that Abraham and Sarah both become at least tokenly "Jewish" when Abraham circumcises the flesh of his foreskin. We can make this assumption since proper exegesis of the passage makes Jewish law conform to the larger narrative of the Torah. It does this because of the statement: "and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you."

This one statement solves the conundrum of Jewish identity and paves the way for every statute to receive the fullness of its meaning since this statement clarifies the fact that removing the flesh of the foreskin is only a "token" or symbol of God's actual covenant to Abraham, which “actual” covenant to Abraham is that God's covenant will be in Abraham’s flesh. In other words, nothing "actual" occurs when Abraham removes the flesh of his foreskin, since that’s a "token" or sign, of what is actual. . . So what is actual? . . . That God's covenant will be in Abraham's flesh.

But what is Abraham's flesh? ---- It's "Jewish" flesh. . . . And we're right back to our question concerning what “Jewish flesh” is and how it relates to Jewish law.

To bring Jewish law into conformity with the fact that Isaac's wife isn't Jewish, and yet Isaac and his wife have Jewish offspring, we must apply the same exegetical maneuver that explains why Abraham became "Jewish flesh” the moment that he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. The same maneuver explains why Abraham becomes “Jewish” without a Jewish mother (without transgressing the law of Jewish identity which states that you must have a Jewish mother to be Jewish). This maneuver requires only that we take the Torah at its word when it tells us that cutting off the flesh of the foreskin is a "token" of a covenant that will eventually, eschatologically, be reality some day, in Abraham's flesh and blood. In other words, in the same sense that removing the flesh of the foreskin is a symbol, or "token," of a spiritual reality, so too, Jewish identity is a token of an actual spiritual identity tied to the reality that is God's covenant in Abraham’s actual flesh and blood.

Isaac can father "Jewish" offspring from a non-Jewish woman without transgressing the law that only a Jewish woman can birth a Jewish male because of the fact that cutting off the flesh of the foreskin is a “token” of emasculation, such that if a Gentile woman (like his wife) has birth from an “actually” emasculated father (rather than a father wearing the “token," or “mark,” of emasculation), then she’s “truly” (rather than “tokenly”) Jewish, while if the father of this child is truly emasculated and births his own son, he too is truly Jewish (rather than being merely tokenly so).

This exegesis transforms Jewish eschatological faith in the “tokens" or signs, or the fleshly “mark” of their faith, into the reality of that faith, since the first actual Jew, is born to Jews who (like Abraham and Sarah) are only tokens of what it is to really be Jewish. Which is to say that like Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Mary are “token” Jews. Joseph wears the token mark of emasculation in his flesh. Joseph and Mary are token Jews until the birth of the covenant in their actual flesh and blood (the flesh and blood of Abraham and Sarah) transforms their faith in the tokens of their faith, into the reality of their faith, through a Jewish man born not by means of an organ wearing the sign, or token, or mark, of emasculation, but a son of Abraham born of an actual emasculated pregnancy.

Abraham and Sarah's token faith is retroactively transformed into reality when a male child is really, rather than ritually, born from a pregnancy that was in reality, rather than ritually, cut free of the flesh of his human father, who, like all other tokenly Jewish men, was born of a male member only symbolically etched with the token of emasculation, the token of Jewish identity. Until the emasculated birth of the first actual Jew, every Jew was only a token Jew, circumcision only token emasculation. And yet since that birth really, rather than ritually, took place, every ritual leading up to it is retroactively transformed from mere ritual into utter reality by means of the actuality of the virgin birth. Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Mary, are “really” and not just “tokenly,” Jewish . . . after the birth of the covenant in their flesh . . . since the actual covenant in their flesh retroactively transforms all Jewish ritual into reality. It accomplishes this amazing feat by means of an eschatological-retroactivity empowered by Jewish faith in Jewish identity.