[Avodah] [Areivim] jews?

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> The KOM is not done by BD. It's done by the child upon reaching an
> adult.

It seems to me you are reading something into the sources that is not there
(see  below). 

> : BTW though, even this opens up a relatively simple way of dealing with
> the  issue faced by the State of Israel - get Beis Din to convene every
>year and accept ol mitzvos for every minor born to an Israeli who came in
>under the  law of return 

> Such a child would not be apiring to the ideal of keeping mitzvos upon
> turning 12 or 13, and thus we would not have an [implied] KOM. The geirus
> would not be chal unless the parents provide chinukh.

Again only if you agree with your statement above that the child indeed does
have to do KOM on reaching adult, something you are yet to prove.

I wrote:

> : Source? - the Shulchan Aruch seems to say precisely the opposite:
> : Yoreh Deah siman 268 si'if 7 "And whether he was a minor megayered by
> : his father or by beis din he is able to protest when he becomes a gadol
> : and [then] his din is not like a Yisroel mumar, but rather like a non >
> : Jew".
> 
> : Si'if 8:  "in regards to what are we speaking, when he does not conduct
> : himself as a Jew [noheg minhag Yahadus] when he becomes a gadol, but if
> : conducts himself as a Jew when he becomes a gadol then he is no longer
> :able to protest."
> 
> Se'if 8 seems to go beyond what I said -- we require both implied
> acceptance through behavior and a lack of formal renunciation. 

Read it again carefully.  The key words are "yachol l'mchos" - is able to
protest - which comes directly from the gemora as you cited.  A new adult
who was converted as a child is able to "protest" and by so doing, he can
get out of the Jewish status that was conferred upon him.  If he fails to
protest (despite no KOM), the sources seem to say pretty explicitly that he
is a Jew.  Once he conducts himself as a Jew (let us say he performs one
single mitzvah, regardless of what his view might be regarding all of the
other mitzvos - in which he might not in the slightest be prepared to
accept), then even that ability to protest would seem to have gone.  

> In v25n115, RDE gives sources that show a very maximal definition of
> KOM, starting with Bekhoros 30b.

Yes.  But, as I indicated in a previous post: 

a) Bekhoros 30b is clearly talking about adults, you can't use that as a
source for katanim. 

b) Bekhoros talks about what beis din should do if a person comes and says
they will accept the mitzvos except for one (ie not accept them as a ger) it
does not talk about what happens  -either (i) if they did accept him anyway
(is he a Jew or not? - ie you can't get from Bechoros 30b to posseling gerus
retroactively, and while sources in Nach are all very well, without them
being then brought aat least in the gemora if not in the codes, you are
rather out on a limb in relying upon them, especially when they are hardly
clear cut - which is why I believe the Kusim are a much better source than
the wives of Shlomo HaMelech, because at least that is a gemora source); and
(ii) if he says that he will accept all the mitzvos but is in fact lying
(which he demonstrates by not doing any of them - or at least some key ones
like shabbas - the modern case - my guess is that many if not most Israelis
give gifts of food to their friends on Purim, for example, probably light
channukah candles, may well light shabbas candles, and I am sure we could
throw in a few more like this if you were determined to tot them up - so I
suspect at least in the Israeli context you could certainly find a mitzvah
or two if you searched hard enough); and

c) Bekhoros 30b is not brought l'halacha by the codes. Given the general
policy for the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch to quote gemora verbatim where
possible, that is significant.  There is an awful lot of fancy footwork
being done to show how really the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch holds like
Bekhoros 30b, but if they really held like Bekhoros 30b, why didn't they say
so?  The language was there to be used and quoted, and it is, as you have
stated, pretty straightforward.  The most logical inference from the fact
that the language of Bekhoros 30b is absent from the Rambam and the Shulchan
Aruch is that they did not hold like it.  But if they do not hold like
Bechoros 30b, what do they hold like?  And why do they not hold like
Bechoros 30b?

You don't have to hold like the Shach, but it seems clear that is where he
is coming from.  Ie he holds that the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch do not
hold like Bechoros 30b, as the story vis a vis Hillel and the convert
contradicts Bechoros 30b, and they are holding the one over the other.  I
agree that is not necessarily the only interpretation of the various
gemoros. One can hold, as you cited, that the story with Hillel all occurred
before he converted, and hence it is not contradiction to Bechoros 30b - and
I agree that there are commentators who take that approach.  But you (as
opposed to the Marasha, who is not doing an analysis of halacha l'ma'ase)
then have to explain the absence of Bechoros 30b from the codes, where one
would have expected to find it.


 I recommend the copy at
> <http://lists.aishdas.org/htdig.cgi/avodah-
> aishdas.org/2008q1/006718.html>,
> which won't have all those question-marks the digest turns Hebrew into.
> 
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana