摘要：Circumcision is the first commandment given to the children of Abraham, and it is also the strangest. The Jewish obligation to injure the body of a newborn child has been a source of opprobrium from both Jews and Gentiles–not only in the modern world, which celebrates the rights of individuals to protect their bodies, but also in the ancient pagan world, which was well familiar with other blood-covenants. Yet despite the peculiarity of the practice and the at times virulent opposition to it, Jews have continued to observe it through the ages, even in communities that abandoned nearly all the other traditional practices. For this reason, circumcision has often been seen, and continues to be seen, as the most extreme example of the Jews’ insistence on distinguishing themselves from other peoples. Circumcision, in other words, is seen as the most glaring case of Jewish particularism.
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