[Avodah] yovel

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:55:38AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: What does intermarriage prove? Half of all intermarriages result in
: Jewish children.

In last year's iteration of the topic I wrote
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n005.shtml#04>. RZS critiqued
some of my points, RAF defended them. RZS summarized Rav Aharon
Lichtensteins "Brother Daniel and the Jewish Fraternity" at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n008.shtml#04>

Quoting part of RZS's post:
    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....

But whether it was a one-time gezeirah or a general rule, the gemara
itself tells us that the 10 shevatim either no longer exist (no Jewish
descendents) or are no longer Jewish.

Which is why I think it makes more sense to focus on whether Binyamin,
Shim'on, Yehudah, and the refugees from the other shevatim who fled to
Yehudah are in their proper lands or not than whether the majority of
Israelites are hidden among other nations and thus in chu"l.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself
micha at aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Bernard Shaw
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