[Avodah] Rav Sternbuch's psak regarding kiruv of non-Jews

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

Disclaimer: I am not qualified to comment on whether or not we should be actively trying to convert children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. I only want to comment on one detail of Rav Sternbuch's letter.

R' Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> Rav Moshe Sternbuch ... wrote a letter which he asked me to
> translate and distribute. He personally read and approved
> the translation.
That translation of the letter says:
> According to the unanimously held Torah view - any person
> with a non-Jewish mother is completely non-Jewish.

I question the use of the word "completely" here. If I'm not mistaken, if the children of such an intermarriage do convert, their Jewish father is considered as having been makayem pirya v'rivya. If so, there *is* some sort of Jewishness to them, even though they are not chayav in taryag mitzvos.

This may or may not be related to an idea I've heard many times in the name of Rav Yosef Soloveitchik, that a distinction is made between two categories. One was "Kedushas Yisrael", and I've forgotten what the other was, perhaps "Klal Yisrael". But his point was that such children do have Kedushas Yisrael, even though they are excluded from the other category.

Akiva Miller