[Avodah] Would Ruth's conversion be rejected today?

[Zev Sero]

On 25/05/2012 11:56 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 11:06:27AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:

>> Again, nothing to do with her conversion.

> For some reason Zev is choosing to be oblique.

I didn't think I was being oblique.  Is it really a common
misconception that "biah bekahal" means conversion?!  It never
occurred to me that so many people would make this mistake.
Is this like people who think Esther was Mordechai's niece?


> Just as is well known about a mamzer, a Moavi too can marry a
> mamzeres or a giyores.

In other words someone who is not in "kehal Hashem".


> And like a mamzer (but unlike a Jew who is ethnically Adomi
> or Mitzri), the child is also excluded "gam dor ha'asi lo yavo
> lahem beqehal Hashem" but here it is added "ad olam".
> Anyone know the difference in implication?

The Sifri says that "dor asiri" implies that the 11th generation
is permitted.  Thus the plain meaning of the pasuk about a mamzer
would seem to mean that the disability is not forever.  But then the
pasuk about Amoni uMoavi says "gam dor asiri...ad olam".  If their
issur is forever then why mention the 10th generation?  What's
special about it?  So the Sifri says it's mentioned in order to make
a gezera shava to mamzer, and to teach us that a mamzer's disability
is also forever.

But this doesn't explain why the Torah couldn't have just spoken
plainly, said "ad olam" in both cases, and not mentioned the 10th
generation at all.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon