ABSTRACT
Conventional notions of violence rely on a Manichaean framework: violence exists within oppositional binaries expressed in the exertion of force by one on another and consequently, is destructive and oppressive. This chapter argues that we move away from a Manichaean framework that uses dualistic categories of good and bad towards a more nuanced view of violence with respect to circumcision. The Judaic scholarly tradition provides an opportunity for conceptualising the relationship between violence and circumcision. In explicit terms, Jacques Derrida resists conventional notions of writing as secondary to speech such that text serves as a mere signifier for speech. Derrida's challenge to writing in the narrow sense is clear. Scholem identifies a distinction between how a philologist might approach writing in contrast to a Kabbalistic approach.
