A friend sent me this article by Leon Wieseltier. We had a small discussion about the seriousness of the article. I believe the prepuce is a pretty serious matter, but this paragraph is indeed hilarious: ‘I swear that the prepuce is not a requirement of pleasure. I cannot speak for Maimonides, I can speak only for myself. My evidence is entirely anecdotal--but what anecdotes! If the objective of the knife was, in Maimonides’s words, that “violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed [for procreation] are diminished,” then the knife failed.’