[Avodah] Fwd: Re; Geirut

[Meir Shinnar]

WRT RMB's bringing in the name of RYBS about understanding the rambam on geirut.

It is difficult for me to be holek on RYBS, but, BMKVT, I found the
pshat cited  quite difficult in the rambam, because it seems explicit
against the problem the rambam is raising.  Furthermore, most poskim
and shut have traditionally understood the rambam differently , and
have brought him as a ra'aya.  Therefore, it is difficult fo rme to
accept it as pshat in the rambam

The problem is as follows:  The rambam's problem is with the wives of
shelomo and shimshon, where the following points are made:
(references are to the machon mamre edition - hilchot issure biah,
chapter 13 (halachot numbers are different in the printed  - hal 10-14
correspond to 14-17 in the printed edition)

1) Shelomo and Shimshon could not possibly have married foreign women.
(halacha 10)

2) The women they married are of foreign origin, and i) Converted for
a utilitarian reason ii) were not converted according to  bet din iii)
It was shown that they were insincere  as they did avoda zara after
the giyur (hal 13)

3) Because it was clear that their conversion was insincere, the katuv
considers them as goyot, and that they are still forbidden.
This may suggest that the rambam considered them as goyot - with an
invalid conversion.

However, this is not the end of the story - because the concluision of
3 would cause problems for the 1- if the meaning is that the katuv
considers them as goyot and as forbidden means that their legal status
was that of goyot and forbidden - rather than a statement trying to
describe the attitude of the katuv to these wives.

The rambam then specifically rejects the notion that these women were
halachically goyot - in hal 14.

he says about people who converted for secondary reasons  hare ze ger.
 veafilu noda shebishvil davar hu mitgayer - ho'il umal vetaval, yatza
miklal hagoyim  - an explicit statement that the previous statement
about the katuv considering neshe shlolmo as goyot is not a a halachic
determination - they are not goyot .
He then says, vehosheshim lo -, ad sheyitbaer tzidkuto.
RYBS, kedarko bakodesh, in a brisker derech wants to create an
intermediate state - that gerut ends up being a two step process - he
yatza miklal hagoyim, uliyede yisrael lo higia - but again, BMKVT,
this is hardly pshat (and such an intermediate state is hardly found
anywhere in poskim), and I don't see how it can be reconciled with the
end of the halacha.  Furthermore, for a two step process in halacha -
one would expect clear definition of each step - but here, there is no
clear boundaries, actions or criteria for the second step - it would
seem that the process of actually becoming a Jew (after ceasing to be
a non Jew) should have some clearly defined parameters...

 (BTW, The simple pshat (and apparently the one that was accepted by
most poskim until recently ) seems to be that even though the gerut is
chal, in such a gerut, he does not have the hezkat kashrut of a
regular Jew - and hosheshin lo - and presumably, one wouldn't want to
get married to such a person unitl one is sure ..- just as one would
not want to marry a yisrael meshumad - but he still has the halachic
status of a Jew - and this notion of hezkat kashrut fits far better
with the relatively nebulous notion of hitba'er zidkuto))

The problem with positing this intermediate status  - because
immediately he says about these gerim - not just a general din about a
regular ger, but about these gerim - afilu chazar ve'avad avoda zara -
hare hu keyisrael meshumad, ......meachar shetaval na'asa yisrael.
Furthermore, we know specifically that he is talking about these gerim
who converted for a reason or without knowledge of mitzvot - not about
stam gerim who then strayed back - and not even about gerim with an
initially inappropriate conversion shehitbaer zidkuto - because he
then applies this din to the wives of shimshon and shelomo - who he
just said were inappropriately converted, and we know that they never
intended to convert properly - the rambam says af al pi shenigla sodan
- that is, we found out their proper motivations - they were still
gerim and the kidduhsin of shelomo and shimshon were valid (even if it
was an inappropriate marriage, it wasn't against halacha) - that is,
the hishvan hakatuv of 13 is not a statement that they actually were
goyot.....

It is a thematic unit, from hal 10 -14, starts off with  a statement
that shimshon and shlomo could not have gone against halacha - then
emphasizes the difficulty and enormity of the problem -  and ends up
with an explanation - which concludes that they were gerim - even if
they shouldn't have been accepted, even if they were never sincere -
and therefore shimshon and shelomo could marry them - and could stay
married to them even when their original insincerity became known.
Any other conclusion leaves a tension - between the resha and sefa....

Again, I am always leery of disagreeing with RYBS - and especially
when it seems so pashut (as I know he knew how to learn far, far (add
a few more..)  better than me) - but BMKVT I  don't see how one can
reconcile the end of halacha 14 with a view that the conversion was
incomplete - that these women were no longer goyot but were not yet
gerim - and therefore how this pshat works.  One can perhaps parse
different parts of the halacha as applying to different cases - but
the pshat in the   I can understand RYBS paskening this way, but don't
see how this is pshat in the rambam.  One can of course pasken like
other rishonim - but that is a different issue...

Meir Shinnar

Meir Shinnar