1 DIVINE VIRILITY IN PRIESTLY REPRESENTATION: ITS MEMORY AND CONSUMMATION IN RABBINIC MIDRASH Sandra Jacobs This paper explores the figurative representation of male sexuality in the Priestly account of the covenant of the rainbow and examines its relationship to the requirement of circumcision. 1 The impact of these images in post-biblical and rabbinic sources particularly reinforces Carole Fontaine’s observation, that “all representation is purposive; it is not an accident when the human body is sculpted, drawn, carved, painted, decorated or indicated by iconic symbols (like stick figures or glyphs)” (2008:35). The view advanced here is that, firstly, the Priestly representation of masculinity is based largely upon perceptions of fertility and virility and, secondly, that this representation characterizes the subsequent rabbinic “genderization” of memory. Finally, it is suggested that for the later midrashic sages ideal masculinity is reconfigured somewhat differently: Not by its potential for prolific fertility or sexual virility, but rather by virtue of being the chosen object of divine desire, realized in only the form of the circumcised, Jewish male. 1) The Figurative Representation of the Bow in the Clouds The concrete image of the rainbow as a   “a bow in the clouds”, describing the self-perpetuating sign that appears after the flood, 2 does not, of course, preclude its 1 Diana Lipton kindly pointed out the significance of the symbolism of the rainbow in a series of personal communications on 20 and 21 March 2007. I also wish to thank Adrian Curtis and Bernard Jackson, who initially reviewed this material during the first year of my doctoral research; in addition Shani Berrin-Tzoref, Ovidiu Creanga, Joel Kaminsky, Shula Medalie and Nick Wyatt. 2 Genesis 9.13: “I have set my bow in the clouds and it shall serve as a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth”.