Nedarim (32a) When Moses was lax in the performance of circumcision, Af and Hemah came and swallowed him up, leaving nought but his legs. Thereupon immediately Zipporah ‘took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son’; straightway he let him alone. In that moment Moses desired to slay them, as it is written, Cease from Af and forsake Hemah. Some say that he did slay Hemah, as it is written, I have not Hemah. But is it not written, for I was afraid of Af and Hemah? There were two angels named Hemah. An alternative answer is this: he slew the troop commanded by Hemah, but not Hemah himself.
The question I have is why did he delay the mitzvah of circumcision?
ReplyDeleteAnd then also why did this recur in the generation of the midbar, who were uncircumcised, and only did it when Joshua commanded them to before entering Israel?
Various answers
DeleteFirst
1) Eliezer was born just before they left for Egypt so he delayed the circumcision thinking that travelling right after would be dangerous. Plenty of time to do it once arriving in Egypt.
2) Yisro made a deal with Moshe Rabeinu that his first child could worship God but the rest would worship avodah zara so he wasn't circumcized on purpose.
Second
At first there was not much of an issue. The original plane, remember, was to go to Sinai, get the Torah, not build a golden calf and then go straight to Israel. Given what was expected to be a short time in the desert they would wait to circumcize newborns until they got to Israel since doing it during desert travels would be dangerous.
The backup plan was to get to Sinai, get the Torah, build a golden calf, spend 120 days saying sorry, then spend almost a year building the Mishkan, then going straight to Israel. Again, how many kids would be born during that time? They could be circumcized in Israel and avoid the dangers of the desert.
Final plan wound up geting going to Sinai, getting the Torah, building a Golden Calf, spending 120 days saying sorry, spending almost a year building the Mishkan, then getting to the border of Israel and rejecting it, then wandering in the desert for 30 years because someone left his iPhone on a rock somewhere and they had to find it. Again, travelling in the desert was dangerous so they just didn't do it.