Avodah Mailing List

Volume 34: Number 17

Wed, 10 Feb 2016

• 1. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)
• 2. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews ()
• 7. Re: Rav Shimon Schwab on Women Learning Torah (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Rav Shimon Schwab on Women Learning Torah (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)
• 11. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Lisa Liel)
• 13. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Micha Berger)
• 14. Keilim and Bitul beShishim (D Rubin)
• 15. Re: Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews (Zev Sero)

None of this is necessary, since the halacha is clear that someone
whose ancestors were all gerim is a ger, even if the family has been
Jewish for centuries.


-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 01:41:24PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: None of this is necessary, since the halacha is clear that someone
: whose ancestors were all gerim is a ger, even if the family has been
: Jewish for centuries.

Of course knowing what chumash, Nakh, and the gemara mean is necessary.
And they seem to imply to me that the Qeini were a tribe of geirei toshav,
of whom Tzipporah, Rachav and Ya'el converted.

Notice this also means that the Qeini were a Midyan breakaway, as
Yisro's descendents end up in Judea, not Midyan.

 ----

As to whether someone whose ancestors are all geirim is a geir, that
appears to be the SA's position WRT who may marry a mamzer. And we are
machmir in not letting her marry a kohein (AhS 7:21) but the Pischei
Teshuvah 4:3 says that bedi'eved, staying married is the better choice.
Not only do we not recommend a gett, we disrecommend it. When it comes to
serarah, the NbY (qama CM 1) says that Rechav'am was not barred as
a ben geirim.

The answer seems more nuanced than a simple yes-or-no, we need to ask
"WRT which din?"

Meanwhile, I found an answer to the question in the OP -- Rambam, Issurei
Bi'ah 15:8 does not refer to 10 generations. He writes that anyone who
descends entirely from geirim may marry a mamseres "until the name of
his geirus lapse and it is not known that he is a geir".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What you get by achieving your goals
mi...@aishdas.org        is not as important as
http://www.aishdas.org   what you become by achieving your goals.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Henry David Thoreau

On 02/10/2016 02:20 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 01:41:24PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : None of this is necessary, since the halacha is clear that someone
> : whose ancestors were all gerim is a ger, even if the family has been
> : Jewish for centuries.
>
> Of course knowing what chumash, Nakh, and the gemara mean is necessary.
> And they seem to imply to me that the Qeini were a tribe of geirei toshav,
> of whom Tzipporah, Rachav and Ya'el converted.

Why do you think they imply that, rather than that they were a tribe
of gerei toshav, for generations.  That Yael was a giyores doesn't
mean that she converted.

> As to whether someone whose ancestors are all geirim is a geir, that
> appears to be the SA's position WRT who may marry a mamzer. And we
> are machmir in not letting her marry a kohein (AhS 7:21) but the
> Pischei Teshuvah 4:3 says that bedi'eved, staying married is the
> better choice. Not only do we not recommend a gett, we disrecommend
> it.

Yes, because the Torah doesn't forbid a giyores, it forbids a zonah,
which we understand to include anyone not born Jewish.  A giyores who
was born Jewish isn't what the Torah meant by "zonah".

> When it comes to serarah, the NbY (qama CM 1) says that Rechav'am was
> not barred as a ben geirim.

Why should he have been?  His father was a Yisrael.


> Meanwhile, I found an answer to the question in the OP -- Rambam,
> Issurei Bi'ah 15:8 does not refer to 10 generations.

Of course not.  I don't recall anyone suggesting that it did.
I'm not aware of *any* halacha that uses a boundary of 10 generations.


-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 02:27:53PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: >And they seem to imply to me that the Qeini were a tribe of geirei toshav,
: >of whom Tzipporah, Rachav and Ya'el converted.

: Why do you think they imply that, rather than that they were a tribe
: of gerei toshav, for generations.  That Yael was a giyores doesn't
: mean that she converted.

To repeat:

1- Whatever geirus Yisro underwent, it didn't require it being after
maamad har sinai.

2- It did require Rachav convert to marry Yehoshua.

3- That Yalqut is discussing people who converted, eg, "al sheqorvah
atzmah kakh qorvah haMaqom."

...
: >When it comes to serarah, the NbY (qama CM 1) says that Rechav'am was
: >not barred as a ben geirim.

: Why should he have been?  His father was a Yisrael.

Please see the NbY, who doesn't suggest your limitation. He just says
a ben geirim can lead. Maybe the NbY holds like the Tur, making geirus
dominant (rather the Rambam and SA who hold it's recessive).

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l

On 02/10/2016 02:58 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> 1- Whatever geirus Yisro underwent, it didn't require it being after
> maamad har sinai.

There was giyur before Sinai, but it just meant becoming a naturalized
citizen of Bnei Yisrael rather than whatever one was before.  There was
no kedusha involved.

According to the view that the story of Shlomit bat Divri's son took
place before matan torah, this was the question before Moshe: When he
found out that he was not considered a Ben Yisrael because Bnei Noach's
yichus goes after the father, he was megayer, so Moshe had to ask whether
this wiped out his conviction, as it would do after matan torah.  The
answer was no, it didn't; the aspect of giyur that wipes out all previous
sins is the entry into the Bris, not the change of nationality.   (Malbim)


-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

Gerus did have a "religious" as well as a "national" aspect in that a  ger 
had to have a bris milah even before Sinai.
 

--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
=============


-------------------------------------------------------------------   

 
In a message dated 2/10/2016 3:07:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
z...@sero.name writes:

There  was giyur before Sinai, but it just meant becoming a naturalized
citizen of  Bnei Yisrael rather than whatever one was  before.

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On Thu, Feb 04, 2016 at 09:02:18PM -0500, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote:
: RnCL conflates RSS z'l' writing that women do not have the mitzvah of
: Talmud Torah with a position not espoused by RSS, that women would gain no
: sachar from learning...

Actually, the quoted statement was that women to not gain yir'as Shamayim
by learning nor would it prepare them for nevu'ah.

Eg:
    Only because talmud Torah is a mitzvah, a positive commandment for
    man, can it be a means to connect to Hashem and thereby increase his
    yiras Shamayim. Because a woman has no specific mitzvah of talmud
    Torah, she cannot utilize it as a means to increase her many ways
    of connection to Hashem.

In a stereotypical chassidishe hashkafah, deveiqus would be everything,
and this would make it very hard to justify sekhar from something does
nothing for her connection to Hashem.

However, RSS is neither a stereotype nor a chassid. And one can get
close to the ideal Mentch-Yisrael in ways other than that connection.

So I agree with RMP in substance: RSS doesn't actually rule out the Ran's
statement about her getting sekhar for learning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
mi...@aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
http://www.aishdas.org   a useless burden.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas haOlam

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 03:07:22PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: On 02/10/2016 02:58 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
:>1- Whatever geirus Yisro underwent, it didn't require it being after
:>maamad har sinai.

: There was giyur before Sinai, but it just meant becoming a naturalized
: citizen of Bnei Yisrael rather than whatever one was before.  There was
: no kedusha involved.

Agreed, but whaterver geirus Yisro underwent, it wasn't what we call a
geir tzedeq. One of the sources for learning milah utevilah is maamad
Har Sinai. Had Yisro (of this version) stayed, he would have undergone
entered Beris Sinai then, along with Benei Yisrael. But he didn't.

Aside from Rachav still requiring geirus, despite being a Qeini.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life is a stage and we are the actors,
mi...@aishdas.org        but only some of us have the script.
http://www.aishdas.org               - Rav Menachem Nissel
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Thu, Feb 04, 2016 at 08:41:03AM +0200, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote:
: The Rambam states clearly that Havayot d'Abayye v'Rava are the basic
: building blocks for developing a relationship with God...
: See the last halacha in Perek 4 of Hil. Yesodei HaTorah -

I don't see it. He requires "lehitayeil bePardeis". But many aren't ready
to do so yet. So, learn havayos deAbayei veRav, because they provide the
prerequisite yishuv hada'as and enable yishuv ha'olam. And with that,
a person would be ready to tour the Pardes and develop a relationship
with G-d.

Which is leshitaso, since he doesn't believe a personal relationship is
possible, and is aiming for philosophical knowledge (of what He isn't?).
And so it's all about the pardeis, which is theology, metaphysics and
physics.

: See Warren Zev Harvey's discussion of this Rambam at
: http://lookstein.org/articles/harvey.htm

Even from his argument (sec II), the Rambam seems to be saying that
while women are not obligated in talmud Torah, they are obligated to
believe at least 5 of the iqarei emunah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every child comes with the message
mi...@aishdas.org        that God is not yet discouraged with
http://www.aishdas.org   humanity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Rabindranath Tagore

On 02/10/2016 03:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> Aside from Rachav still requiring geirus, despite being a Qeini.

Waitaminnit, Rachav?!  Since when was she a Keini?


On 02/10/2016 12:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> BTW, the Yalqut Shim'oni on Yehoshua (remez 9) lists nashim chasidos
> giryoros: Hagar, Asnas, Tziporah, Shifrah (!), Pu'ah (!), Bas Par'oh,
> Rachav, Rus, and Yael eishes Cheiver haQeini. Implying she herself
> converted.

We have no information on her origins.  That her husband was a Keini
doesn't mean she was one.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name

On 02/10/2016 02:20 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>   When it comes to serarah, the NbY (qama CM 1) says that Rechav'am
>  was not barred as a ben geirim.

I looked up the NBY, and it's not as represented.  The question was
from Tosfos Sotah 41b dh Oso Hayom, where RI suggests that although
for all seraros it's enough for one parent to  be mizera Yisrael,
for melech *and only for melech* both parents must be.  So it's not a
question lehalacha, it's a question on the Tosfos.  How can the Tosfos
hold this, when Rechavam's mother was a giyores.

The NBY gives two answers.  The first accepts the premise that she
was a giyores, but suggests that this strict construction of "mikerev
achecha" applies only to "som tasim", the initial appointment; but
Rechavam didn't need appointing because he inherited it from his
father, so it wasn't a problem.

The second answer is to question the premise of the question; who says
Rechavam's mother was a giyores?  The Kesef Mishna says so, but where
did he get it?  So maybe RI holds that she wasn't.

What comes out of all this is that nobody (except maybe the Tur,
I haven't looked there)  holds Rechavam had the status of a ger.
There is one opinion that *if* his mother was a giyores then he
could not be *appointed* king, but he could inherit it.   Lehalacha,
though, he could be appointed too, because we don't pasken like RI.


-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
z...@sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".

On 2/10/2016 9:58 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 02:27:53PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
>
> ...
> : >When it comes to serarah, the NbY (qama CM 1) says that Rechav'am was
> : >not barred as a ben geirim.
>
> : Why should he have been?  His father was a Yisrael.
>
> Please see the NbY, who doesn't suggest your limitation. He just says
> a ben geirim can lead. Maybe the NbY holds like the Tur, making geirus
> dominant (rather the Rambam and SA who hold it's recessive).
>

And the Rambam says "ad she'yehei imo miYisrael".

Lisa

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
:> As the Mehilta says, based on DhY I 2:55, Chamas was a Qeini, and
:> thyerefore Yonadav was a descendent of Yisro. If her father and son
:> were, she must have been.

: What on earth does Yonadav have to do with Rachav?

As I said, he is identified as Rachav's son.

See also the LR' Sichah of Simchas Toran 1986, who cites the same
conclusion from the Sifri. Quoting the loose translation at
<http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2512270>:

    ...
    The Sifri continues:

        When Yehoshua divided the land for the tribes, he omitted the
        most fertile part of Yericho which was an area of 500 cubits
        by 500 cubits and he gave it to Yonadav, the son of Rachav (the
        family of Yisro) ... and when the Shechinah rested in the domain
        of Binyamin they vacated that section (in Yericho and gave it to
        Binyamin) as it says: And the children of Keni, the father-in-law
        of Moshe, went up from the city of the date palms....

    This needs clarification. Why was this most fertile section of
    Yericho not parceled out together with all the other areas of Eretz
    Yisrael? Why was it first given to the family of Yisro and only
    later transferred to Binyamin?
    ...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

See Shach in bosor becholov, siman 93:1 that talks about - ?? ??????
??????? ???? i.e. keilim that were different from their thick-walled pots,
that this assumption would not apply. Sorry i can't remember exact ?"?
but there is also Darchei Teshuvoh that deals with it.

Dovid Rubin

> Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 12:51:04 -0500
> From: Micha Berger via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>

> Halakhah works with the assumption that a keli doesn't hold 60 times its own
> volume, so that if the keli itself is treif, any food you cooked in it
> was "treifed up".
> Does this assumption with today's cookware made by drawing metal sheets
> onto a forming die or spinning it onto a mandrel?

On 02/05/2016 06:20 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> The Tur holds geirus is dominant, any one parent being a geir is enough
> to be a geir too, but I didn't see him mention any deadline.

> The SA that geirus is recessive, requires both parents being geirim.
> Along the way, note that the EhE 7:21 uses "ad kamah doros", which would
> seem to indicate lav davqa a literal 10.>

> (The SA is following the Rambam (IB 15) apparently, and the Ran (Qiddushin,
> Rif-daf 30b) takes issue with the Rambam.)

> Looking at the codes, I would conclude "10 doros" was taken as an idiom
> for "as long as pragmatically possible", perhaps a reference to Noach
> to Avraham.

I just looked at the Tur and he does not say this at all. On the
contrary, he says that unless all ancestors are gerim, one may *not*
marry a mamzer/es, and a girl *may* marry a Cohen.

However, unlike the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch, the Tur does rule that
this heter to marry mamzerim expires after literally 10 generations,
because of mar'is ho`ayin. This is the first mention I've ever seen in
any halachic source of 10 doros as a shiur for anything. The BY says
it's a machlokes in a braysa: the Tana Kama says 10 doros, but Yesh Omrim
that it's however long it takes for it to be forgotten that the family
are gerim. The Rosh paskens like the Tana Kama, the Rambam like the
Yesh Omrim; the Tur follows the Rosh, and the SA the Rambam.

Note however that everyone agrees that be'etzem the family remains gerim
forever, so long as no Yisrael married into the family, and if not for
mari'is ho`ayin they would be allowed to marry mamzerim forever.

The Ran, as you note, says it goes after the father, so a ger's son from a
Yisre'elis may marry a mamzer, but a Yisrael's son from a giyores may not.
And presumably this goes on forever, or as long as it's remembered that
the family are gerim.

On 02/10/2016 05:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> :> As the Mehilta says, based on DhY I 2:55, Chamas was a Qeini, and
> :> thyerefore Yonadav was a descendent of Yisro. If her father and son
> :> were, she must have been.

> : What on earth does Yonadav have to do with Rachav?

> As I said, he is identified as Rachav's son.

No, he is not.   I think you are confusing Reikhav (with a khaf, and
a tzeireh under the reish) with Rachav (with a ches, and a kamatz
under the reish).   Reikhav was (1) a man; (2) descended from Yisro;
and (3) several centuries after Rachav.

-- 
Zev Sero
z...@sero.name


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