Circumcision is not just an analysis of the flesh, but an approach and dedication to Gd. • Even today, like then, we need to keep the covenant

• Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

The Vayachel affair is described at length by a story taken by Nablus Ben Hamor. The Bible is full of details and shows us all the negotiations between Nablus and Shimon and Levi. The condition that is finally accepted is a promise from Nablus that all his city members will bear their flesh, have an alliance and in return receive their sister Dinah. My brother Dinah is proper, and indeed the townspeople are circumcised and on the third day, as we know, Shimon and Levi come and kill all the males and take Dinah their sister with them.

Beyond the questions the story raises, beyond the scrutiny of Jacob about "and said of Jacob El-Smaon and Al-Levi, Acrtm Ati, Lhbaisni Bisb earth, Bcnani and Bfrzi; and Ani, Mti Msfr, and Nasfo Ali and Hconi, and Nsmdti I and Biti" (LED, for) costs The issue here was why they used this alliance tool and in some way even hurt it because despite the city's people doing what they asked for, the Jacobites did cheat on them and killed them.

But it must be explained that the alliance is beyond just surgery in the flesh. The circumcision is an act of zooming in and sanctifying the holiness of God, is the ability to live a different life now, of a completely different quality of life. And what made Nablus people far from being such an act was not their intention to approach God but to take control of the Israelites as they told the sons of Israel. Their city: "Mayhem and Canaan and all of them go to the house" (Genesis 24:23) and in order to achieve their purpose, they were prepared to undergo a little surgery to please the sons of Jacob.

Later, the tribe of Levi excelled in observance of the circumcision, as Moshe Rabbeinu praises them: Their sons "(Rashi), even when the other tribes did not fulfill their sons, the Levi tribe strictly adhered to this commandment. In Egypt, too, they were the only ones who deceived themselves, but the first time they saw the special observance of circumcision was here in Dinah.

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Even later, during the Hasmonean period (Levi descendants, who were priests) the importance of the alliance can be seen. One of the decrees the Greeks sent for Israel is to repeal the word. Their aim was not to undermine the outward sign that the people of Israel are making on themselves. But their aim was, like the rest of their decrees, to change the culture of Israel, to fight for the key values ​​that matter to us. The alliance was the main feature of which the people of Israel had adhered over the years with great devotion, and the Greeks knew that once they succeeded in preventing it, they would be able to touch the deepest places of the people of Israel.

The Hasmoneans recognized this, and went to battle for the anchors of the people of Israel, for its alliances, for its most basic points of identity, for the ability to live a life that has a seal of truth, that has oil that has not touched a foreign hand. For all these things the Hasmoneans fought.

We, too, in our generation are required to live a life of covenant. An alliance that symbolizes will and great choice in spaces we have not always chosen, in our family, in our people, in our traditions and of course in our D work. Go back to them with joy, with depth of mind, with connection. It is not always easy, it requires us to get out of ourselves, it requires prices, but finally a big blessing 'because you kept your saying and your alliance will stop.'

The writer is the training coordinator of the Ezra youth movement