[Avodah] When did Judaism begin?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:23:40PM EDT, R Zev Sero wrote to Areivim
> about the avos through our ancestors up to matan Torah:
> :                We consider all those people to have been practising
> : Judaism, whether with the legal status of Bnei Noach or of Yisrael.
> : They were serving Hashem, learning Torah, and doing mitzvos, albeit
> : as "einam metzuvim"....
> 
> I think we hold lehalakhah they weren't "Jewish".

Yes.  Lehalacha that is how we hold.  But it's a matter for discussion.
It isn't immediately obvious and universally agreed.  And while they had
the halachic status of Bnei Noach, they weren't exactly the same as them
either.  My point, though, was that no matter what their legal *personal*
status, what they were practising, to the extent that they did, was
Judaism.

In the same sense, a Ben Noach today who accepts the truth of the Torah
and keeps the 7 mitzvos because Hashem told Moshe that he has to, and
also keeps additional mitzvos of his choosing, is clearly a follower of
the Jewish religion, and thus in English he is a "Jew" in the same sense
that a Xian is a Xian or a Moslem is a Moslem.  What he isn't is a Ben
Yisrael, which is what *we* mean by a "Jew".  (This is the issue that
lies at the heart of the recent UK court case.)


> IIRC, we pasqen that
> gid hanaseh fried in cheilev would require two qorbanos. Usually we
> would say ein issur chal al issur, but since gid hanasheh once applied
> to non-Jews, it is a different kind of issur than kashrus.

Though according to the opinion that they only kept mitzvot asei this
wouldn't be a question; they could easily have been Jewish, but gid
hanashe was forbidden to them and chelev was permitted.

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