[Avodah] Ahab

[Lisa Liel via Avodah]

On 11/26/2015 11:09 PM, Saul Guberman wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Lisa Liel <lisa at starways.net 
> <mailto:lisa at starways.net>> wrote:
>
>
>             So was the switch to matrilineal descent from a takana
>         Ezra or before?
>
>
>     Why do you think it was a switch?  It was always matrilineal
>     descent.  Ever since Sinai.
>
>     Lisa
>
> All of the Avos, Shefatim & Kehuna are through the father.  Nothing 
> mentions the mother.  Therefore it seems that there is a switch at 
> some point.  Ezra is the first mention of getting rid of a non Jewish 
> spouse.  He does not mention anything about the children.  So one 
> might assume that even in this instance the kids follow the father not 
> the mother.

The Avot and Shevatim don't matter, because no one was born Jewish 
before Sinai.  It wasn't a think.  Everyone had to choose it themselves.

As for sources, Devarim 7:3-4.  "And do not marry with them.  Do not 
give your daughter to his son, and do not take his daughter for your 
son.  Because *he* will turn away your son from following Me..." The 
Gemara in Yevamot 23a learns from these pesukim that the reason it says 
"*he* will turn away your son" is that the gentile man who marries your 
daughter will turn away your (grand)son from following God.  Meaning 
that the offspring of a gentile father and a Jewish mother is Jewish.  
And there's no concern about the children coming from a gentile mother 
and a Jewish father, meaning that such a child isn't Jewish.

Lisa