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    An uncircumcised Bar-Mitzvah – Ask the Rabbi

    Q. If a Jew has not been circumcised, can he have a Bar-Mitzvah?

    A. Circumcision of a male baby is a mark of Jewish identity (Gen. 17).

    It indicates that not only the soul but the body too is part of our religion. Why this particular part of the body symbolises dedicating sexual desire to the right purposes.

    If a boy has not been circumcised he should have the operation when he becomes an adult. However, even without a circumcision he is still a Jew and can have a Bar-Mitzvah.

    Actually it isn’t a ceremony that makes him a Bar-Mitzvah, which is a legal term which applies when one becomes 13 even without a ceremony.

    Sometimes the doctors oppose circumcision because of its alleged hygienic defects, though milah is a simple, safe operation that causes very little pain or ill-effects and prevents penile cancer.

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