[Avodah] Jew Or Not?

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:27:53AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
:>This is a difference between C & R on one hand, and shmad on the other.
:>Someone who leaves Yahadus for a movement that self-identifies as Jewish
:>can be accepted as a BT without qabbalas divrei chaveirus.

: Where do you get all this? ...

Three dayanim from the Vaad Harabbanim of Queens. I'm giving you halakhah
as it was applied in the field. I do not know of anyone who requires a BT
to go to the miqvah before they would count him toward a minyan. However,
I do know of at least 2 people whose mother or maternal grandmother
converted where the beis din did so rule.

The observation that the case of the departee himself who is returning
shows a distinction beween j4j and C/R was made by R' Elliott Shimoff
a"h on scj on a number of occasions. I picked it up from him.

(The relevent SA is YD 268:12, c.f. Rama and Pischei Teshuvah.)

: 1. Who told you that it applies also to the meshumad's descendants?
: If the makor is from a medieval takanah to discourage shmad, then it
: applies only to the meshumad himself, not to his descendants.  And in
: this case, who says there was ever a meshumad?

You're suggesting that someone is an n-th generation converso who grew
up thinking she was a Xian with weird customs and there was no meshumad
in the line?

And the maqor appears to be mesechtes Bekhoros 30b about amei
haaretz. Where did you see someone attribute it to a medieval taqanah
and meshumadim? For that matter, the gemara discusses the criteria for
an am ha'aretz's son. The tana qama in the beraisa says the children and
the rest of the family are carried along with his qabbalah, R' Shimon b
Gamliel require they must go to three chaveirim themselves. Both would
appear to agree in the case where the father didn't.

: 2. Who told you that it doesn't apply to returnees from R/C? ...

Ask the folk at ANY kiruv organization.

This is a good question, as C/R appear to me to qualify as amei ha'aretz
in the gemara's sense of the term. But not upon what I wrote in particular
-- I was just stating halakhah pesuqah (as I wrote, above). Do Chabad
Houses require tevilah and qabbalas divrei chaveirus before counting
men who walk in off the street for their minyanim?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A life of reaction is a life of slavery,
micha at aishdas.org        intellectually and spiritually. One must
http://www.aishdas.org   fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            -Rita Mae Brown