The word “Brit” is translated as a covenant, the Mitzvah is referred to as “Brit Milah”. “Milah” literally means “word” or otherwise “to cut”. Why does this Mitzvah which the Rabbis say is equal in weight to the sum of the remaining 612 Mitzvot, and with which Abraham was finally able to receive prophecy, have such a strange name? The covenant of circumcision, literally.

If we understand that the holy tongue is precise we understand that every meaning of a word is a part of the real meaning of that word. So why does “Milah” mean “word” and “cut”? We learn that a word is the process of bringing the infinite spiritual concepts and thought into the physical world through speech and sound.

The Brit Milah can be thought of as the carving out of an infinite soul to occupy a physical space for the purpose of fulfilling G-d's holy covenant. Abraham dedicated his life to having the physical world recognize its infinite source. So too do we each bear the physical mark of Hashem's covenant with our father Abraham, pointing back to our infinite source.

Amazingly, the Rabbis teach that the Brit Milah is the moment when the G-dly soul begins to descend into a Jewish child’s body; Judaism teaches that a person's soul isn't simply the spirit that dwells in the body -- it has separate parts, which are imparted to a person progressively -- in several successive stages; As you might have guessed, Brit Milah is one of these key stages, at which point there is an additional impartation of the child's as-yet-incomplete soul.