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Rabbi Hoshaya Answered the Philosopher Who Mocked Circumcision

Wheat has to be ground before anyone can eat bread. That was Rabbi Hoshaya's answer when a philosopher called circumcision pointless.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Hair Grown in Foolishness
  2. Mustard, Lupines, Wheat
  3. Not for All Flesh
  4. The Cut That Completes

The philosopher did not ask a polite question. He implied that circumcision was not a divine command at all, only a pointless cut on a finished body. Rabbi Hoshaya did not answer with a sermon. He threw the question back across the room, and the room suddenly felt smaller than the philosopher expected.

Rabbi Hoshaya Answered the Philosopher Who Mocked Circumcision Click for full size

Two men. One mocking the covenant mark. One refusing to let creation be treated as already complete.

Hair Grown in Foolishness

"Why," he asked, "do you shave the hair on the side of your head, but leave the hair on the corner of your beard?" The philosopher, caught mid-smirk, answered that the hair on his head grew when he was foolish, when he was a child. Hoshaya pushed harder. "If that is the case, then you should pluck out your eye, cut off your hands, and break your legs. They also grew during your foolish childhood."

The philosopher bristled. "Have we really sunk to such frivolous arguments?" Hoshaya refused the dismissal. "I cannot just send you away without an answer. Everything created in those six days of Creation needs something more. It needs an action to bring it to its perfected state." The joke about hair was never only a joke. It was a trapdoor into unfinished world-making.

Mustard, Lupines, Wheat

Mustard needs sweetening to be palatable. Lupines need sweetening to be edible. Wheat needs to be ground into flour before anyone bakes bread. Humanity, too, needs a completing act. Creation is potential. Human hands and commanded marks bring things to their realized form. The knife is not an insult to the body. It is the body's entrance into covenant work, the way grinding is wheat's entrance into bread.

The philosopher wanted nature left alone. Hoshaya answered that nature is unfinished on purpose. The six days left tasks for the seventh-day people. To refuse the completing act is not reverence for the body. It is a refusal of partnership with the Creator who left the world needing work.

Not for All Flesh

A separate midrash fences the same commandment with hard logic. A general rule says anything first given to the sons of Noah and then repeated at Sinai binds everyone. Circumcision was given through Abraham and repeated at Sinai. "And on the eighth day he shall be circumcised" (Leviticus 12:3). By the rule it should bind all humanity. The Talmud refuses.

The Sinai verse, it explains, was not repeating the command for the nations. It came to teach that eighth-day circumcision overrides even the Sabbath. From the start the command was to Abraham alone, to him and his seed after him. If the seed of Abraham is bound, should Ishmael's line be bound too? Scripture answers. "For in Isaac shall seed be called to you" (Genesis 21:12). Then Esau's line, since Esau descends from Isaac? The answer narrows further. In Isaac, but not all of Isaac, only the branch that carries the covenant. The sons of Keturah are drawn in by the warning against breaking the covenant. The sign is fenced on every side. Completion is real. Universality is not automatic.

The Cut That Completes

Hoshaya's kitchen metaphors and the legal fence belong to one struggle. The philosopher says the body is already finished. The midrash says the body is flour still waiting for the mill. The legal stream says the mill is not universal. It is Abraham's house, Isaac's chosen line, a people marked on the eighth day even when that day is Shabbat.

The knife is both completion and boundary. It perfects what the six days left open, and it refuses to pretend every nation was asked to carry the same sign. Hoshaya answers the mocker with mustard and wheat. The legal midrash answers the universal rule with Isaac's name spoken as a gate. Between the philosopher's sneer and the covenant's narrow door stands a body that is loved enough to be finished, and a people that is chosen enough to be marked.

No one in the story pretends the cut is light. They only refuse the claim that lightness is the highest religious value. Some commands complete. Some commands fence. This one does both, and the midrash will not apologize for either work.

Hoshaya leaves the philosopher with mustard on the table and a body still waiting for its completing mark. The legal midrash leaves the nations outside a gate labeled Isaac. Between kitchen and gate the covenant keeps its double work. Finish what the six days began. Name who was asked to wear the finish in the flesh.

The philosopher wanted a world that needs nothing from him. The sources answer with a world that still needs grinding, sweetening, and a mark on the eighth day. That answer is not soft. It is the only answer that keeps creation and covenant from collapsing into one another or floating apart.

CircumcisionHoshayaAbrahamCovenantCreationIsaacPhilosopher
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Bereshit Rabbah 11:6Bereshit Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

It's a loaded question. The philosopher is implying that circumcision isn’t a divine command at all, but just… pointless. (Bereshit Rabbah 11).

Rabbi Hoshaya, being the wise person he was, doesn't directly answer. Instead, he throws the question back. “Why,” he asks the philosopher, “do you shave the hair on the side of your head, but leave the hair on the corner of your beard?” It's a bit of a zinger.

The philosopher, probably a little taken aback, replies, “Because the hair on my head grew when I was foolish, when I was a child.” Okay, fair enough.

Rabbi Hoshaya isn’t done. He pushes further: “If that’s the case, then you should pluck out your eye, cut off your hands, and break your legs! After all, they also grew during your foolish childhood!” (Bereshit Rabbah 11).

The philosopher, clearly not impressed with this line of reasoning, exclaims, “Have we really sunk to such frivolous arguments?” It’s a rhetorical question, of course. He’s saying, “Come on, Rabbi, this is ridiculous!”

But Rabbi Hoshaya isn’t trying to be ridiculous. He’s making a point. “I can’t just dismiss you without an answer," he says, "Here’s the thing: everything created in those six days of Creation needs something more. It needs an action to bring it to its perfected state." Mustard needs sweetening to be palatable. Lupines, a type of bean, also need sweetening to be edible. Wheat? It needs to be ground into flour before we can bake bread. And even humanity, in a way, needs to be perfected. (Bereshit Rabbah 11).

The idea here, as the Bereshit Rabbah explains, is that creation is an ongoing process. God created the potential, but we, as humans, have a role to play in bringing things to their full, realized form.

So, what does this all mean for us? It suggests that we're not just passive recipients of creation. We're active participants. We have a responsibility to refine, to improve, to sweeten the world around us – and ourselves, too. We are, in a sense, co-creators with God, constantly working towards a more perfect world.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 81:12Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

Any commandment that was said to the sons of Noah and repeated at Sinai applies to both [Israel and the nations]. Now consider circumcision, which was said to the sons of Noah, "And you shall keep My covenant", and was repeated at Sinai, (Leviticus 12:3) "and on the eighth day he shall be circumcised." One might think it was said to Israel and not to the sons of Noah! That verse "and on the day" comes to permit circumcision on the Sabbath, meaning even on the Sabbath. Or if you prefer, say: from the outset circumcision was commanded by the Merciful One only to Abraham, "And you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you", yes; another person, no. But if so, let the sons of Ishmael be obligated! Scripture says (Genesis 21:12), "for in Isaac shall seed be called to you." Then let the sons of Esau be obligated! "In Isaac," but not all of Isaac. Let the sons of Keturah be obligated! "He has broken My covenant", this comes to include the sons of Keturah.

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