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Monograph on brit milah on the twenty-fifth anniversary by I. de Groot the secretary of the central committee responsible for brissen. The title page has an illustration of a mohel’s kit open displaying his implements for performing a circumcision. It is dated with the verse “And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised” (Leviticus 12:3) and the date 25 Juli 1926.. The text is in Dutch with occasional Hebrew discussing the carrying put of the berit milah. Included is a listing of the medicines required such as Een pakhe Dr. Brunsche watten and 10 gram zeepspiritus. At the end of the monograph are Hebrew text to be recited and last a list of mohelim and their locations in Holland.
Jewish circumcision originated, according to the biblical account, with Abraham who, at divine behest, circumcised himself at the age of 99. Genesis 17:11–12 reads: "Every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt Me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations." Abraham circumcised his son Ishmael, all the males of his household, and his slaves. In the following year when Isaac was born, he was circumcised on the eighth day.
The promise that Abraham's seed should inherit the land of Canaan was bound up together with this covenant. The punishment for failure to observe this command was karet, to be "cut off" from one's kind (ibid 21:4), understood by the rabbis to mean "excision at the hand of heaven from the community." This commandment is considered so important that the rabbis declared (Shab. 137b) that were it not for the blood of the covenant, heaven and earth would not exist. Abraham was said to have circumcised himself on the tenth of Tishri, the day later celebrated as the Day of Atonement, when the sins of the people are forgiven. |
