This week’s parshah begins with the mitzvah of bris milah. The Chasam Sofer takes note of the different ways in which the Torah refers to bris milah, depending on whether the person being circumcised is a Jew or a non-Jew. When a Jewish baby is born, the Torah commands us to remove the “flesh of his orlah,” but when describing the laws of eating the Korban Pesach (of which a non-Jew may not partake), the Torah tells us that non-Jews must first have their orlah removed. The Chasam Sofer explains that Jews are born with “circumcised hearts” — our very essence is pure and only the “flesh of” the orlah has to be removed to reveal this. A non-Jew, by contrast, possesses essential impurity which is referred to as “his orlah,” and when he is circumcised, his very essence changes.
We must internalize this very fundamental lesson. Jews are by definition good — even if we have gone astray, all that happened is that the fundamental goodness has become covered up — and all that needs to be done is to clean away the dirt and reveal the essence.
When we look at other people, whether a spouse, a child, or anyone else, it makes so much difference if we see them as fundamentally good, albeit with issues, rather than fundamentally problematic and in need of “fixing.” Jews don’t need fixing — they just need some help clearing off all the issues. And if a particular issue can’t be cleared up, it doesn’t mean that the person is damaged goods or that we should give up on them.
