[Avodah] Ikkarim Redux

[Arie Folger]

RMB quoted RGStudent's blog:
> > R. Hershel Schachter (Eretz Ha-Tzvi 17:4-5) quotes in the name of R.
> > Joseph B. Soloveitchik, based on Eruvin 19a, that God's covenant with
> > Avraham required four things of Jews: 1) Belief in God's unity, 2)
> > Performing circumcision, 3) Not intermarrying, 4) Belief that God gave to
> > Avraham and his descendants the land of Israel.
<SNIP>
> > I'm not entirely sure if R. Schachter
> > would extend this idea that far, although see his article "Synagogue
> > Membership" in the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society.

Hehe. I heard RHS, in his shiur about synagogue membership (available IIRC 
from http://www.torahweb.org), explicitly states that nowadays, many of the 
intermarried are intermarried out of ignorance of the seriousness, and not 
out of rebellion. Remarkably, his story about contact with an intermarried 
man was about someone who had been in a yeshivah day school! Spotting him 
once in a shiur about hilkhot 'hanukah, when stating that a wife can light 
for her husband, he added: "of course that only applies if the wife is 
Jewish." Most people found this a hillarious joke, but, added RHS, he had 
meant it for the one intermarried man he had spotted. I shall care to add, 
perhaps this was the first shiur the man had attended in years.

If you can't find the recording, you may email me, and I will check my 
archives. I should have some downloaded shiurim I listened to on my mp3 
player.



-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com