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© 2017 John D. Brey. 

Serious and careful exegesis cuts away the Masoretic malfeasance Christians and Jews have been force-fed in Genesis chapter 17 for a long time. In verse 10 and 11 we read:

10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

It's even more explicit in Hebrew than in the King James English that two different things are being mentioned in these two verses: the covenant of circumcision (not explained), and the "token" or “sign” of the covenant of circumcision (explained as cutting the flesh of the foreskin). The covenant of circumcision is directly associated with, "fertility" (Gen. 17:6), marriage, and most importantly the bridegroom’s firstborn, while the “sign” of the covenant (cutting-off the foreskin of the phallus), which is distinct from the actual covenant of circumcision, is performed on the infant on the eighth day. ------The distinction between the sign, versus the reality, would be perfectly explicit in correct exegesis of the text if not for the fact that the Masoretic interpretation of the text mangles everything in so egregious a manner that it almost looks purposeful.

The KJV (from the MT) interprets verse 12 like this:

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

The word translated "man child" doesn't mean "child." ----The "child" is thrown in because of the mistranslation of the Hebrew word "semen" שמן (shin-mem-nun).  -----The Masoretes mistranslate the word "semen", which is a Hebrew word for "fertile," as though it were the word for the number "eight," (semoneh) which is the same consonants (shin-mem-nun) with the addition of a heh suffix שמנה.

Someone unfamiliar with the flow of Genesis chapter 17 could easily underestimate the shenanigans taking place in the Masoretic mistranslation of the verse since in the original statement concerning circumcision there are two subjects, the circumcision itself (associated with fertility, the wedding, and the firstborn), versus the "token" or mark of circumcision, said, additively, i.e., secondarily, to be the removal of flesh on the "eighth" day. -----The mistranslation of verse 12 conflates the two subjects in verse 10 and 11 (the covenant of circumcision, and the sign of that covenant) as though they’re one event, the one allegedly taking place on the eighth day. The conflation occurs either by a brilliant slight of hand (turning the word for "fertile" into the word "eight") or else by a genuine mistake?

The brilliance is obvious. By translating semen in verse twelve as "semoneh" (eight), the two events appear to be the same thing, since verse 12 is clearly speaking of the same thing as verse 10, i.e., the actual covenant, rather than the "token" of the covenant, associated with the eighth day after birth.

Correctly translated verse 12 should read:

And he who reaches the days of fruitfulness בן שמן  [which begin under the chuppah] shall be circumcised, all men in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money, of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

Isaiah 5:1 uses the same Hebrew words (בן שמן) "ben semen" to speak of being, "very fruitful." In that passage the thing being called ben semen ("very fruitful") is a "horn" similar to David’s fertile horn found "sprouting" in Psalms 132:17. The only grammatical difference between the two phrases is that at Genesis 17:12, the manuscript uses a tav-suffix producing the construct form linking "fruitfulness" ben semen בן שמנת, to the word "days" ימים, to produce "days of fruitfulness."

Verse 13 (of Genesis 17) has a peculiar hapax legomenon that’s disturbed and fascinated Jewish exegetes for some time. It's the phrase "himmol yimmol." -----At his wedding, the son of the covenant must "circumcise his circumcision" (himmol yimmol); he must complete, at the crowning moment of "fertility" (Heb. semen), i.e., his wedding night, what he was marked for on the "eighth" (Heb. semoneh) day. Anyone familiar with all the players in this exegesis would be entertained beyond measure with what the Jewish exegetes do with himmol yimmol in order not to have to correct verse 12 as it’s corrected here. Correcting verse 12 causes a domino affect the effect of which is completely and utterly unacceptable to modern Jewish sensibilities.

In the ancient world the lord always owned the firstborn (see Exodus 13:2). -----For the pre-Jewish religions god practiced jus primae noctis every time a man married a woman. The firstborn was his. It was god's offspring, and thus became his "priest." ----All the firstborn were god's priests. His priesthood was made up of his own sons, whom he fathered jus primae noctis. This being the case, the bride's marriage ritual paralleled the grooms. She went into the temple (the house בית of god) and deflowered herself on the divine "sprout" (Hebrew zizs): usually a golden or wooden phallic ornament salubriously prepared for her by "anointing" it with "oil" (Heb. semen) so that her "firstborn" son would be born of the "anointing" (the "oil" or "semen") belonging to god. Her firstborn is born of god’s fertility.

The firstborn belongs to god and becomes a priest in the "house of god" since that's where he’s conceived. -----He's merely returning to the place of his conception when he enters the house of god (the temple) as a priest of god his father. He's merely returning to the "anointing," through which he was conceived, when he returns to the house of his father. Bride and groom both deflower themselves (tear the membrane of virginity) as a wedding ritual so that god can obtain his priests ----his firstborn----the first-fruits of his planting (Isa. 60:21).

The bride deflowers herself as a wedding ritual, in the house of god (the temple), while the bridegroom is deflowered by the bride's father, the grooms father-in-law (hatan), so that he becomes a "bridegroom of blood" at the hands of the bride's father. The bride's father wants his grandson to become a priest (which requires him to be born of god) so that symbolically he deflowers his son-in-law (draws blood from his membrum virile, brit milah) guaranteeing that his grandson will be a priest in the house of god (the temple).

In the symbolism, the bride and groom both come under the chuppah wearing white linen garments ornamented with blood. The bride's garment is red-and-white by reason of her deflowering in the temple, while the groom's kittel is red-and-white by reason of his own deflowering (periah) at the hand of his father-in-law. Circumcision, and the emphasis on the virginity of the bride, is about the priesthood of God. God is to be the father of the firstborn so that he can people his house with his own sons, the priests.

As pointed out in the essay on the sotah, Ramban claims she swears she's still a virgin, hasn't cheated on God, even with her husband, at which time the text, the Hebrew text of the Tanakh mind you, claims (to the chagrin of the Jewish interpreters), that she's made pregnant by the sotah water if she's found true to her word . . . i.e., she's made pregnant through her faithfulness to virginity. -----Interpreters from the Middle Ages wondered out loud about a passage of scripture (Num. 5) that implies the virtuous sotah is made pregnant not by her husband, but by the water where the Torah scroll was dissolved in colloidal gold.

Justification for the foregoing exists in even a cursory glance at the word “hatan.” -----The word for the circumcisee directly relates the circumcisee to the father-in-law. ----- Halot, Gesenius, Brown-Driver-Briggs, and half a dozen other Hebrew lexicons, relate hatan, to the father-in-law, and imply that the word seems to represent a particular masculine rite-of-passage related to the father-in-law. Ibn Ezra says the mother calls her newly circumcised son "bridegroom." And Rabbi Hirsch's Etymological Dictionary makes the relationship clear:

חתן ---- relate; tie together for mutual satisfaction

e/c: 1: marrying (Dt 7:3 ולא תתחתן כם) 2: delightful family relationships (Gn 19:12 התן מי לך פה ) 3: wedding (Ss 3:11/sp ביום חתונתו וביום שמחת לכו) 4: father-in-law (ex 18:1 חותן משה יתרו כהן מדין) 5: mother in law (Dt 27:23 שוכב עם חותנתו) 6: bridegroom (Ps 19:6 כחתן יוצא מחופתו) 7: infant at circumcision (Ex 4:25 חתן דמים אתה לי).

So what’s the problem with admitting that circumcision was originally a wedding ritual? What’s at stake in conceding that circumcision is in truth a wedding ritual?

Precisely the interpretation of Genesis chapter 17 that’s so bollixed up that it looks purposeful. Two things are being discussed in Genesis chapter 17, circumcision itself, which isn't explicated, and the sign of circumcision, which isn't itself circumcision. The child is marked on the eighth day after birth. The father explains the mark at bar mitzvah, and the bridegroom allows his bride to birth the firstborn Jew, born of a virgin pregnancy, an emasculated conception, by what he bravely allows himself to endure under the chuppah:

Only revelation has the knowledge ---and it is the primary knowledge of revelation---that love is as strong as death. And so a man wears, already once in his life, on his wedding day under the bridal canopy, his complete shroud which he has received from the hand of the bride. Not until he is married does he become a true member of his people. It is significant that at a boys birth the father prays that it may be vouchsafed him to bring up his son to the Torah, the bridal canopy, and to good works. . .Thus, in the individual life, it is marriage that fills mere Jewish existence with soul. . . the bridegroom wears his death attire as his wedding attire, and at the very moment he becomes a true member of the eternal people he challenges death and becomes as strong as death.

Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, p. 326.

There are three celebrations (hatan) of Jewish manhood, all, oddly enough, circumscribed by the removal of the man-hood (so to say). -----First is ritual circumcision on the eighth (semoneh) day. And the bris is the cause célèbre (hatan) par (so to say) excellent. -----Next is bar mitzvah, the second masculine rite-of-passage, i.e., puberty (sexual maturity). -----Which is followed by the chuppah, the final hatan of masculinity, and the final rite of passage, which Franz Rosenzweig implies is where a Jew finally becomes what the hatan (called the bridegroom of blood) implied from the very start.

What’s ritualized on the eighth (semoneh) day, becomes a reality under the chuppah (where lawful fertility begins). ----The only kosher Jewish "semen" --- fertility --- is the blood drawn ritually the eighth day and which becomes a reality only on the wedding day (when the days of fertility begin).

That's precisely what the mysterious phrase "himmol yimmol" explicates at Genesis 17:13. -----The hatan, the circumcised youth, who becomes the bar mitzvah, must circumcise-circumcision (himmol yimmol) beneath the chuppah, to become a true member of the eternal people. He must perform a deeper cut than the mohel or else say to hell with all that circumcision is or ever will be. The original scar merely marks the spot where the true circumcision will occur at the point when the ritual Jew becomes a member of the holy people, i.e., under the chuppah. “Thus, in the individual life, it is marriage that fills mere Jewish existence with soul. . . the bridegroom wears his death attire as his wedding attire, and at the very moment he becomes a true member of the eternal people he challenges death and becomes as strong as death” (Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, p. 326).

In the most crucial place, Genesis 17:12, Jewish tradition mistranslated "fertile" שמן as "eight," שמנה, since it doesn't know why Moses would be saying to "circumcise" on the "days of fertility" (marriage). -----And yet in the earlier part of the chapter, Moses clearly and unambiguously speaks of two things, first circumcision, and then a second thing, the mark symbolizing circumcision (removing the foreskin to leave a mark). The making of the mark occurs on the "eighth" (שמנה) day, while the actual circumcision occurs when the "days of fertility" שמנת בן ימים begin under the chuppah.

The Masoretes, not knowing why Moses would relate actual circumcision to the "days of fertility" (marriage) שמנה בן ימים, decide he must actually mean the "eighth" day, when in the early part of the chapter, Moses never relates circumcision to the eighth day. He only relates the making of the mark of circumcision (the mark that signifies what will be required when the days of fertility come) with the eighth day. -----It serves the purpose of the tradition the Masoretes were serving to equate the mark of circumcision with the reality the mark only represents in a symbolic, visual, manner. By conflating the two, the Masoretes don't have to deal with the fact that they don't know what actual circumcision is, and thus inadvertently circumcised the circumcision (himmol yimmol) when he arrived by means of a virgin birth since his father was truly a bridegroom of blood while he (the firstborn Jew) opened the womb with his own hand since his mother was true to her virginity up to his very birth. He is thus, by means of the truth, nature, and even the anthropology of his birth (pre-Jewish jus primae noctis), the first actual priest of God.

Himmol Yimmol המול ימול means "circumcise the circumcision." ---- But since the Jewish sages don't always distinguish between the "mark" of circumcision, versus the reality of circumcision, they have to find some other way to interpret the statement that you must circumcise the circumcision (circumcise where the “mark” of circumcision is).

Scripture here [Gen. 17:11] distinguishes between the מילה [circumcision] act itself and the מילה [circumcision] as a sign inscribed upon our flesh.

The Hirsch Chumash, Bereshith 17:11.

Rabbi Hirsch knows two things are spoken of by the word "circumcision." ----One is the reality, and the other is merely the "sign" marking the place where the reality must occur, i.e., the בשר (flesh) in all its euphemistic glory. -------So if the "mark" is the sign of where the reality of circumcision will take place, then what’s the reality of circumcision that takes place there, precisely, and specifically?

In Genesis chapters two and three we find the strange story of the marriage and subsequent sin of Adam and Eve. Though the text isn't explicit, everything points to the idea that the consummation of the wedding, Adam's fertility, i.e., genital-sex, is not only the original loss of innocence, but the original sin itself. When people object to this reading, proponents often point out the difficult to swallow truth that childbirth, the original childbirth, is cursed by reason of the nature of the sin? Secondarily, the murderous Cain is the result of the first childbirth, which is cursed by God as though it had something to do with the original sin. Eve's pregnancy is cursed because of the original sin. Only with difficulty, and a degree of disingenuousness, can a serious exegete deny that Cain is the product of the original sin such that the means of his conception is where the original sin is hatched.

In Genesis chapter 17 we see something startlingly similar. ------Abraham is told to enter into the covenant with God, which Rabbi Hirsch claims is not a new covenant but the reinstatement of the original covenant between God and Adam. And how is Abraham to reinstate the original covenant between God and Adam? By removing the very flesh Adam gained in Genesis 2:21 to make the conception of Cain conceivable. Adam has surgery to become a genital Jew (an abomination). He thereafter has Gentile sex, genital sex, phallic-sex, producing the first Gen[i]tile, Cain, who is ironically born of Jewish parentage insinuating that every natural-born Gentile is a genital Jew by birth, and not a Jew through and through (as were Adam and Eve before the Fall). Concomitantly, every natural-born Jew is also a genital Jew by birth, and only escapes that abominable state, and only ritually, on the eighth day when the genital flesh is symbolically removed (brit milah) producing A Token Jew (see essay), which is a genital Jew with the mark of return, redemption, return to the state of prelapse Adamic-flesh, cut into his otherwise fertile organ.

Abraham does the exact opposite of Adam. ------He takes a blade and performs prophylactic surgery precisely where the original surgery was performed on Adam (in Genesis 2:21). And to the exact opposite affect. Abraham subtracts the flesh בשר Adam added. . . Voila, just as we’re told Eve is pregnant after the original sin, the original act of genital-sex (made possible by the closing up of labial flesh to form the organ that produces gender duality), so too, we’re told immediately after Abraham performs elimination-surgery (precisely where Adam had a surgical addition) that Sarah is pregnant and is going to have a son.

Circumcision (prophylactic surgery) leads to Sarah's purified pregnancy just as surely as the surgery in Genesis 2:21 leads to Eve's contaminated pregnancy. One is additive surgery, the other is subtractive surgery. One births the first Gentile (Cain), and the other (Isaac); the biological symbol of the first actual Jew who will be born from a conception perfectly circumscribed, ritually, symbolically, by the nature of the establishment of the covenant as it's ritualized in Isaac's unique conception and birth..

Contrary to all the foregoing, and periah, the Masoretic interpretation is epispasm par excellent. Even the Masoretes knew himmol yimmol המול ימול means, to circumcise the circumcision, such that to make sense of the statement they imply it means only a Jew can circumcise another Jew, or only a circumcised person can circumcise another person, or any concatenation they can find to makes sense of "circumcising the circumcision" (see BT Abodah Zarah 27a). And yet none of their exegetical maneuvers changes the fact that Sarah became pregnant when Abraham went under the knife. And just as Eve became pregnant when Adam went under the knife.  Eve gets pregnant when Adam adds flesh. Sarah gets pregnant when Abraham subtracts flesh. Eve gets pregnant from the semen of the new flesh. Sarah gets pregnant when blood anoints, marks, symbolically crosses (so to say) out the offensive flesh.

The very flesh Adam gains through demonic graft, is marked with the "sign" of circumcision on the eighth day, setting it up for removal on the "days of fertility" בן שמן ימים (yom ben semen) that begin beneath the chuppah.

Genesis 17:10 speaks exclusively of actual circumcision. The next verse, 11, speaks of the "sign" of the circumcision.  Rabbi Hirsch's exegesis of Genesis 17 claims it shows there are two things, the "sign" (verse 11) and the actuality the sign symbolizes (verse 10).----- Verses 12 and 13 then bring verses 10 and 11 together by stating that on the "days of fertility" שמן בן ימים (marriage, beginning under the chuppah), every male marked for circumcision on the eighth day must follow through or be cut off from the covenant. He must cut off the circumcision scar, circumcise the circumcision, or be cut off himself. The choice is his.

Verse 13 ends all falsehood and false exegesis by reiterating what's said in verse 12: he that reaches the "days of fertility" (marriage) must "circumcise the circumcision." -----He must follow through with what he was marked for at birth, when his flesh was wrapped in swaddling-clothes, death-cloth, lying in a merger between the verses just exegeted. -----It's grammatically difficult, if not outright disingenuous, to make himmol yimmol  המול ימול say “only the circumcised can circumcise" (since, for one, that begs the question of the first circumciser). ––––Likewise, within any reasonable interpretation of the context and word usage, the phrase isn't saying that if someone is born without the foreskin they still have to be circumcised. Point blank (so to say), it's saying: "circumcise the circumcision."

But even if it's true that the Masoretes erroneously conflate the sign of circumcision with circumcision itself, to imply that once a person has the sign cut in their flesh, the actual circumcision has just taken place . . . and if it's also true that the Masoretes conflate two Hebrew words in order to affect the first conflation (they conflate semen שמן and semoneh שמנה --- such that the phrase "days of fertility" ימים בן שמן, becomes "eight days old") there still remains the obvious question of questions concerning the allegedly correct interpretation? I.e., what the heck does it mean to be circumcised under the chuppah (to be cut where and when the days of fertility begin)?

A reasonable explanation for what it would mean to be circumcised under the chuppah would no doubt go a long way toward making serious exegetes give up their flawed conflating of what are clearly two different events (the cutting of the sign, versus the actual cut). -----So what does it mean, in a Jewish context, to be circumcised under the chuppah? What does it mean to be a "bloody bridegroom" חתן דמים?

* * *

It would seem like a strange detour at this point to segue into Rabbi Hirsch's interpretation of the menorah. And though it's strange, it's fruitful (so to say). -----Without doing a whole essay on Rabbi Hirsch's in-depth examination of the menorah (see essay, The Hirsch Menorah) it turns out that Rabbi Hirsch relates the menorah to the unique birth that is the first genuine case of himmol yimmol: the "sprout" from out of the stump of Jesse’s former fertility. The actuality born from the prototypical ritual and symbolism of Isaac's covenant ratifying birth:

If we examine this passage from Isaiah [11:2] more closely, we will find it consistent with all that we have noted as the construction plan of the menorah, a consistency so striking that we cannot help thinking that this passage is, in fact, an expression in words of the ideas symbolized by the menorah.

Collected Writings III, p. 223.

Rabbi Hirsch continues:

The passage in Isaiah continues: והריחו ביראת הי "and he shall be enlivened by the fear of God." According to all etymological analogies הריחו can only mean to "permeate" a man with a spirit, to fill him with a spirit, or to "spiritualize" him. Thus, the Divine spirit coming to rest upon the "shoot from the stock" of Yishai is described in terms of the sevenfold fullness of its many aspects, and one of these seven aspects is singled out as the root of, and medium for, all this spiritualization.

For those with dust covering their bibles, and for some, perhaps their minds, Isaiah 11 is speaking of not just any ole personage, or any ole birth, it speaks of the unique spiritual birth of the "anointed one," the son of oil שמן בן, the Messiah. ----According to Rabbi Hirsch, not only does the spirit come to rest on him, but he's actually "spiritualized," like no one before or after him. And just one of the sevenfold fullnesses associated with the menorah is singled out as the root of, and the medium for, all this spiritualization:

To make the analogy complete, the bearer of this seven-rayed Divine spirit comes forth as a shoot growing from one root; it's upon this bearer that the one Divine spirit rests with its six parts. Thus, if we portray the passage in Isaiah graphically, we should have a diagram of the menorah in terms of its symbolism as follows:

Though Rabbi Hirsch's exegesis here is worthy of an entire examination in itself, it suffices this essay to point out just one of the many interesting things Rabbi Hirsch associates with the menorah (which, the menorah, he actually makes an image of in his book). Rabbi Hirsch draws the menorah using Hebrew words as the elements of the tree he’s drawn. The menorah, as he draws it, is made up of Hebrew words, every one of them of extreme interest and import. -----But the most important of all, for this thread of thought, is the first word Rabbi Hirsch uses as the "root" out of which the menorah grows: גזע (geza); Gesenius: the stump of a felled tree.

The menorah, which Rabbi Hirsch equates with a unique birth (post himmol yimmol) spiritualizing the "anointed son" (ben semen), the Messiah (the subject of Isaiah 11), get this, grows out of the stump of a felled tree. And this felled tree isn't any ole felled tree stump. On the contrary, it's the stump of Jesse’s felled patrimony. It's as though Jesse has a tree associated with his progeny, his patriarchal line, such that his greatest progeny, the son of oil, the "anointed one," Messiah, will be born not from the natural trunk of the tree of Jesse, as was David, but from the stump left when the tree is cut down to the ground (himmol yimmol). Jesse, like all of Abraham’s sons, is marked (on the eighth day) for the birth of Messiah. But only Messiah is truly born of the circumcising of the mark of circumcision. Only Messiah is the “anointed one,” the only human genuinely born of the jus primae noctis of God (Colossians 1:15).

David is grown out of the natural sexualized trunk of the tree of Jesse (David is a natural born genital Jew) while David's greater son, the anointed one, the seed of Jesse, spoken of in Isaiah 11, grows out of the actual "stump" of the tree of Abrahamic patrilineage that was only ritually marked for elimination by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesse.  The ritually marked flesh of Adam's abomination birthed Isaac and David while the personage in the cross-hairs of Rabbi Hirsch's examination was born from the actual stump rather than a stump symbolically adorned to prophetically presage the days of the beginning of Divine fertility.

Messiah doesn't just grow out of the stump as though that's an unimportant triviality of the whole narrative. On the contrary, there’s two primary issues involved; the stump, the end of the tree of Jesse, and the "sprout," which the Hebrew word makes an asexual basal-shoot coming out of the root of a felled tree. It's not a natural branch of the preexistent tree, nor even of the trunk, but a “shoot,” which sprouts asexually, as a clone of its source (the root).

Rabbi Hirsch shows that this anointed seed grown out of the stump of Jesse is manifest in all respects in the nature of the menorah; which Rabbi Hirsch has growing out of the geza גזע, the "felled tree" of Jesse.

We should stress here once again that the menorah must never be made from מן חגרוטאות, scrap metal. This specification may well convey the message that the inclinations of man, which are to be bearers of the Divine spirit, must be those original unadulterated gifts with which man was endowed at the time of his creation, but not elements acquired from other sources, artificially grafted onto his personality . . ..

The phallus is scrap metal. It's an "alloy" of male and female (Wolfson), Jew and Gentile (St. Paul), life and death (our current epoch). -----The phallus wasn't part of Adam's original physical endowment. Even as neither death, male, female, Gentiles, and or genitalia, were part of Adam's original endowment. -----On the contrary, the flesh associated with all these things adulterated Adam to engage in the original sin of adultery. The flesh associated with all these adulterations and adulteries was "grafted" onto his person (loins) and personality (the evil inclination) as his ticket out of the temple of God also known as the Garden of Eden.

Circumcision under the chuppah implies that the alloyed flesh grafted onto Adam to begin the current epoch of humanity must be removed before the Kingdom can arrive. Circumcision, under the chuppah, means that Messiah, the son of oil, the anointed one (conceived through divine jus primae noctis), must come from a pregnancy affected in a manner related to Adam's original, non-phallic, endowment. ---- It means Messiah (Isaiah 11) will "sprout" as an asexual clone out of the stump of patriarchal flesh, therein signifying that his birth was intended to take place prior to the arrival of the flesh that was artificially grafted onto the original parent (Genesis 2:21).

The righteous Jewish bridegroom would sooner be a "bridegroom of blood" than father a son with the flesh of Molech. He'd rather die than allow his firstborn to be born of anything but a circumscribed conception (himmol yimmol). He'd sooner die himself than allow his firstborn to be born with a death-sentence hanging over his head so that his son is born technically dead, and only alive in the most superficial sense, since death is his destiny as dictated by means of his conception.

The righteous Jewish bridegroom comes to the chuppah wearing his kittel, his death attire, implying that he'd sooner die himself than subject his firstborn to a guaranteed death-sentence. The righteous groom makes a pact in blood (a covenant of blood) against Molech, whom he cuts under the chuppah; that blood being his declaration of war against death itself (see essay, The Death of Death).

This new branch Isaiah calls here--as the "remnant" is designated holy in 4,3 ---by the name "seed of hallowing." This is no more the natural propagation and maintenance of the people, it is selection by removing . . . he means the place where truly takes place the hallowing of Israel by YHVH . . . the meaning of the "seed of hallowing" here is a particular kind of propagation of the people, set apart in the personal, removing and preserving interference of God, a kind of propagation that conducts the people through death to life, and now the regenerated people is hallowed.

Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, p. 133.

Rabbi Hirsch interprets Isaiah 11:2-3 to be speaking of the messianic personification of the menorah. Which is to say that the messianic-branch growing out of the circumcision of the Jewish line of Jesse (the felled trunk of Jesse's patrilineal tree), is, by Rabbi Hirsch's stars, the personification of the menorah. Rabbi Hirsch teaches that Messiah is the "light of the world" represented by the menorah. This personification of the menorah, implying that it's the messianic-branch found in Isaiah 11, the light of the world personified in Isaiah 11, is, according to Rabbi Hirsch, representative of the original endowment of the human race before the grafting on of alloyed flesh (Gen. 2:21). In this sense, Messiah is the firstborn of creation, the first-fruit of creation, had not the grafting-on of alloyed flesh taken place just prior to the original sin and its result, the birth of the bastard Cain, and the bastardization of Jewish flesh leading to the current reign of the serpent.

If equating the menorah, the light of the world, with the messianic branch found in Isaiah 11, sounds Christological to the ears of traditional Jews, then those ears had best be sealed with wax, or those eyes covered with a protective membrane, when we turn the page to the next paragraph of Rabbi Hirsch's exegesis of the menorah:

Only if the menorah was made from gold, then its base, shaft and branches had to have גביעים כפתורים ופרחים, "flower cups, knobs and blossoms." The position and number of these ornamentations were precisely specified and, as mentioned earlier, were so essential that not a single one could be missing מעכבין זה את זה.

Of these three ornamentations the symbolic significance of the פרחים---flowers---is the most obvious. פרח is the term commonly used for "flower" or "blossom," and פרוח the term commonly used for "flowering" or "blossoming." Hence, wherever פרחים occur as symbolic ornamentations, we should not depart from the image conveyed by "flowers " and "flowering." Indeed, they will remain our point of reference when we establish the significance of the other ornamentations associated with them; in the present context, these are mainly the גביעים---flower cups ---and כפתורים--the knobs.

The menorah, the light of the world, is the Tree of Life. It's branches have blossoms and flowers symbolizing the fact that the menorah is not only the light of the world, but the Tree of Life as well. -----But if the menorah is the Tree of Life, then surely it must produce fruit from those flowers; fruit to be eaten by those chosen to partake of the produce of the Tree of Life? -----What Rabbi Hirsch implies next might have gotten him into serious trouble if anyone bothered to pay attention to what he says. The Christological import of his following statements are pretty much off the charts. Keep in mind, reading what follows, that these statements are in the context of Rabbi Hirsch telling us that the menorah represents the messianic shoot growing out of the stump of a felled tree as related in Isaiah chapter 11:

 

The symbolic significance of גביע is also quite clear. The term denotes "chalice," or "flower cup." The use of this term in Jeremiah 35, 5 ("and I set before the house of the Rehabites cups full of wine, and gobblets") seems to indicate that גביע refers not to the drinking cup but to a larger vessel in which the wine was brought to the table and from which it was then poured into כוסות  –––goblets.

Wow. Messiah isn't just the light of the world. He's not just the clonal basal-shoot grown out of the root of a patrilineal tree cut to the stump (brit milah). He's the "chalice," the holy grail, where the food of everlasting life is stored (he’s the Light of the World and the Tree of Life where the fruit of everlasting life resides). -----Was Rabbi Hirsch affected by the myths of the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail?

A "grail", wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190.[1] Here, it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast.[2] . . . In the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph d'Arimathie that the Grail was Jesus' vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the Crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, a theme continued in works such as the Vulgate Cycle, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.[4]

Wikipedia.

Christ's body is fancied throughout Medieval art as the holy chalice where the wine of everlasting life is found. Jesus stated candidly and explicitly that his body was the food, and his blood was the wine, required to gain everlasting life. ----Is Rabbi Hirsch claiming the same thing when he says the virgin-conceived (brit milah) messianic light of the world is also the holy grail? -----Rabbi Hirsch, who's already compared the menorah to Messiah, making Messiah the light of the world, is now claiming Messiah is also the holy chalice, the holy grail, where the fruit of everlasting life (produce from the Tree of Life) resides. -----Is he doing this intentionally? -----Or has he just got so caught up in the exegesis that he doesn't realize how far he's strayed into Christian territory?

Accordingly, it is used as a metaphor denoting man's destiny apportioned to him by God. . . Hence, גביע would be that receptacle in which the entire amount of the liquid available for drinking is received, accumulated and held together. . . This symbol was necessary precisely to show that this whole light-bearing tree, though made of one piece and representing perfection in all its parts, should signify not a rigid form of existence but a life of eternal, fruitful blossoming.

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, Collected Writings, Vol III.

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