[Avodah] Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews

[Michael Orr via Avodah]

On 02/03/2016 09:13 PM, Michael Orr via Avodah wrote:

Zev Sero:
> This doesn't seem tenable to me, because if his non-Jewish "blood"
> is less than 100% then he is no longer a ger. The proverb must refer
> to a tenth-generation ger, i.e. all of his ancestors for the last ten
> generations were gerim.

MO:
> It is not necessary to resort to such a far-fetched interpretation.
> A much more natural meaning is that the term "ger... until the 10^th
> generation" includes the issue/zera of the actual ger "up until the
> 10^th generation."

ZS:
>What's far-fetched about taking the word they used seriously? They didn't
>say the descendants of a ger, they said a ger. And we know there is such
>a thing as a many-generation ger. So on what basis do you apply it to
>someone who isn't a ger, because one of his parents was a yisrael?

Are you seriously saying that this proverb was concerned to address
the case of a "ger" who has only ger ancestors back for 10 generations
(which would be at least 1000 persons)?

Aside from the absurdity of dealing with such an improbable case, such a
person in any case is not a ger since the child of a ger is not thereby a
ger.And if you are going to be loose enough to say a many-generation ger
is still a "ger", then you can say the same about descendants of gerim,
(that they are gerim). That is the Gra's interpretation, according to
Rav Steinsaltz' note as I read it, and WADR seems to me to be the only
reasonable way to understand it.