[Avodah] [Areivim] Rov Jews in EY?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 01:43:08PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:

> : >But this is already discussed in the gemara and rishonim, WRT the 10
> : >shevatim. My understanding of "Yisrael, af al pi shechata, Yisrael hu"
> : >only applies to someone who knows he is a Yisrael.
 
> : Where is this to be found?
> 
> See R' Aharon Lichtenstein's "Brother Daniel and the Jewish Fraternity".
> http://books.google.com/books?id=_QshqTu9nGIC&lpg=PA57&pg=PA63#v=onepage
> 
> And then try to summarize this discussion and reply on Avodah...

His case boils down to the gemara on Yevamos 17a about the ten tribes.
Assuming that Yirmiyahu didn't bring them back, and that they remained
in the places named in Tanach, where they made up a majority of the
population, the gemara first says that if a goy from those places is
mekadesh a Jewish woman she needs a get.  This is then rejected, for
one of two reasons: 1) The women of that generation of the 10 tribes
miraculously became barren, so that they have no Jewish descendants;
or 2) "They" [presumably the Sanhedrin of the time] "made them complete
goyim", which the gemara bases on a pasuk in Hoshea that says they had
goyishe children ("bnei neichar").

RAL follows the second answer, and seems to assume that this was not
a gezera but a psak din about anyone whose children are "bnei neichar",
which he is medayek to mean that they feel like strangers to Am Yisrael,
and therefore the same applies to anybody who is completely alienated
from Am Yisrael.  I'm not sure I followed his reasoning all the way,
but this is what I think he's saying.

The other basis he cites is a story about R Chaim, as told by RYBS,
who helped a Bundist but refused to join in congratulating a meshumad,
saying that the latter's children wouldn't know they're Jewish.

Interesting, but I'm not convinced.  I'd like to see it in *some* posek.
The pashtus haloshon of the gemara on which he ultimately bases his
theory ("lo zozu mishom ad she'asa'um") seems to be to be against him,
and like the Bach that he cites in footnote 32.  If it was a psak din
clarifying what the din is in such a situation, rather than a takana
that changed the halachic metzius, why would they need to do it on the
spot (wherever and whenever that spot was)?  And what is the lashon
"she'asa'um"?

And I don't think we can build such an enormous tower on the foundation
of an orally transmitted story about R Chaim, in a matter that depended
on mussar and gefihl rather than halacha.  It seems to me rather that
R Chaim was simply judging the relative severity of the two sinners,
and explaining why one was worse than the other. But if one *were* to
derive a psak from this story, it would be the exact opposite: R Chaim
was concerned that the meshumad's children won't know that they're Jewish,
not that they won't be Jewish.  If they won't be Jewish then who cares
whether they know it?  Let them davka *not* know.  "Ki yosir es bincho"
teaches us that your grandson from a shiktze is no relative of yours,
and you have no reason to care if he serves AZ or jumps off a cliff.
But if they *will* be Jewish and yet won't know it, then the story
makes sense; R Chaim was echoing the concern of the chumash, that if
your daughter marries out then he (the sheigetz) will teach your Jewish
grandchildren to serve AZ.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher