Circumcision of the Heart

Most translations of this verse use the term "circumcise" for "cut away," because it is the exact same verb used for ritual circumcision in Genesis and Leviticus.

For Rashi, this is a matter of heart blockage. The heart here is the mind or the intellect that is able to receive God's words, i.e. the Torah. But there is a blockage over the heart that acts as a barrier to receptivity.

To remove this blockage is to work at being more receptive to the words of the Torah.

For Ibn Ezra, the extra layer of the heart is one that is about outsized appetites (in his words they are "thick" and "heavy"). To remove this layer of of hearts would mean to work at controlling one's physical appetites and temptations. These are the things that block people from fully serving God. Alternatively, Ibn Ezra entertains the idea this is about cleansing the heart so that one understands the truth. This could be seeking to understand the world and how it works in reality, or clearing up misconceptions about God, ourselves, others around us, so that we perceive them as they are, entertain healthy feelings about them, and respond appropriately.

Ramban has a similar notion to Ibn Ezra's second idea, which is that this is about allowing the truth to penetrate our hearts (i.e. intellects). The layer being removed is not about outsized appetites or about our minds being cloudy or impure in some other way, but rather about simply being closed off to the truth. What kinds of things can close us off from the truth? Lack of desire to confront reality? Incorrect self-perceptions? Avoidance? Denial? Incorrect information from another source that is competing with the truth?

Sforno sees the "foreskin" as prejudice, assumptions, pre-conceived notions about the world and anything in it, all of which would have clouded our judgment and led us to feel a certain way about matters, and then to have behaved or acted in accordance with those prejudices, which would have led us to make mistakes. Removing this "foreskin" would then be about confronted our prejudices, etc, taking a fresh look at how we have acted in the past based on them, and then being able to do teshuvah to repair those mistakes or correct those behaviors or actions. It is a kind of tzimtzum/contraction and humility that enables us to do this "removal" of this layer.

In another vein, Rabbeinu Bachya describes this "orla" any character trait that in getting in the way of one's personal growth, which could vary from person to person. Perhaps one person does not have enough humility, or another lacks patience with themselves and with others, and another person is always reacts to a situation without thinking it through first. And any numbers of out of whack traits that keep that person from growing and maturing, and thus able to approach the mitzvot as a system that has tremendous spiritual value.

Reggio, who notes that this is a metaphor, views the "foreskin" as the impediment to experiencing awe of God. Perhaps this is about being numb to the majesty and beauty of the world, cynical and jaded views of the world and anything and everything in them. To move from "it's just a sunset," to "behold the beauty and majesty of God's presence in the world." To look at the world a new with a renewed spiritual sensitivity, which would be a good analogy, since removing the foreskin would render the skin beneath it freshly exposed and sensitive, but only for a while. That sensitivity would fade eventually. This kind of metaphorical "circumcision" could be done again and again.

In this classic Rabbinic Midrash, we have a fragment of a passage from the Talmud, where we have a list of every term and metaphor Moses uses for the Yetzer Hara, the Evil (or Self-serving) Inclination. If so, this would then make this verse about reining in our self-centeredness, our appetites, our creaturely physicality which drives us to consume, procreate, dominate and to look out only for ourselves. This is about making us more sensitive to the needs of others, not to the exclusion of ourselves, but in balance with our own needs.

In this work, the foreskin of the heart is all about arrogance and pride, never being able to hear from anyone that one made a mistake, hurt someone, did something wrong or damaging, and so on. Removing that protective layer increases one's humility in particular to be able to hear the voice of rebuke in one's life, to make oneself sensitive again to hearing those voice and to embrace both the message and the one delivering the message. This is about being open to change, course correction, personal and spiritual growth, mutual responsibility for each other, being able to love oneself and others to the extent that when we hear a rebuke, we know that it comes from a place of love, to feel that love, and then to continue to love ourselves to move and grow in a different direction and to love that one who helped us grow.