Avodah Zarah 27

A 2020 article in the New York Times describes a relatively new phenomenon: female doctors in the United States training to become mohels (traditional Jewish circumcisers). Brit milah has traditionally been performed by male ritual practitioners, however journalist Alison Krueger writes: “now women — many of them doctors and not necessarily rabbis — are offering a new option, holistic in its approach, for Jewish parents. They have so much business, they said, that they can’t keep up with demand. Some have quit their day jobs to perform the brit milah full time.”

What makes female mohalot (the feminine plural of the word mohel) so new? Today’s daf provides some insight. The Talmud begins by exploring whether a non-Jew (circumcised or not) or an uncircumcised Jew can perform the ritual. There are, on the one hand, several concerns about employing non-Jewish mohels: the (now familiar) worry that they are dangerous to Jews, along with questions about whether the Torah requires a Jew — or, more specifically, one who is circumcised or one who is subject to the commandment of circumcision (not necessarily identical, as we will soon see) — to perform the ritual. On the other hand, there are practical considerations, like the possibility that the only person qualified to perform the ritual in a given town is not Jewish. There is no definitive answer to this question, with rabbis on all sides of the issue.

The rabbis then turn to women: Can they perform a brit milah? 

Rather, there is a difference between these two opinions with regard to a woman. According to the one who says that the halakhah is derived from the verse: “And as for you, you shall keep My covenant,” (Genesis 17:9) there is no reason to permit a woman to perform circumcision, as a woman is not subject to the mitzvah of circumcision. And according to the one who says that the halakhah is derived from the verse: “He must be circumcised,” (Genesis 17:13) there is reason to permit a woman to perform circumcision, as a woman is considered as one who is naturally circumcised.

A debate about whether women are permitted to perform circumcision — which, according to one view, should be done by someone who is subject to the commandment — lends insight into how the rabbis think about women. Women are not subject to the commandment to be circumcised. But this is precisely because women are, in some sense, already circumcised, insofar as they are indeed lacking a foreskin. As the Gemara puts it, women are, “naturally circumcised.”

This leaves us at another impasse. It is unclear whether women can perform circumcision. But if you know the Bible well, you may recall that one of the earliest recorded circumcisions was done by a woman — a non-Israelite woman at that: 

But isn’t it written: “Then Zipporah took a flint…” (Exodus 4:25)

The Talmud refers to one of the strangest episodes in the Book of Exodus. When Moses, Zipporah and their two sons are on their way to Egypt to lead the Israelites to freedom, God meets Moses at an encampment and threatens to kill him. Immediately, “Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, ‘You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!’ and God left him alone.” (4:25-26) There is much that is mysterious about this elliptical scene, but what matters for our discussion today is that Zipporah, Moses’ wife, circumcises their son. In fact, she is only the second person in the Torah who is explicitly described as performing circumcision, after Abraham himself.

So isn’t it obvious that women can perform circumcision? The anonymous voice of the Talmud reads Zipporah’s actions in these verses more passively to reject that claim. 

Read into it: And she caused to be taken (i.e., she did not take the flint herself). But isn’t it written: “And she cut off?” Read into it: And she caused to be cut off, as she told another person, and he did so. 

And if you wish, say: She came and began it and Moses came and completed it.

The Talmud provides two possible readings which limit Zipporah’s role in the circumcision of her son. Perhaps she directed Moses and he performed the circumcision. Or perhaps she started it and he completed it. Without ever explicitly forbidding women from performing circumcision, these readings limit the historical precedent and undermine the possibility. And indeed, we see a similar move happen with much later halakhic codifiers. Rabbi Yosef Karo (c. 1488–1575 CE) in the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 264:1) states that a woman is permitted to perform a circumcision, but Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1530-1572) glosses Rabbi Karo’s statement with a note that “some say that a woman should not perform a circumcision … and so our custom is to be zealous to find a man [to do it].”

Whether it’s because of a sense that public rituals should be performed by men, or a recognition that cisgender women have never experienced that particular ritual for themselves, it is clear that many parts of Jewish tradition have been uncomfortable with the idea of women performing a brit milah. But the multivocality of our tradition means that many women have found space within it to take on this role — just like Zipporah did.

Read all of Avodah Zarah 27 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 15, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.