[Avodah] Vayichad Yisro - Disparaging Non-Jews

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 02/03/2016 09:13 PM, Michael Orr via Avodah wrote:
>> MO:
>>> Nowadays, almost any Jewish audience of a significant size, ...
>>> is quite likely to have gerim or children  or grandchildren of gerim
>>> among it. Certainly when we extend those  who we must be concerned not
>>> to offend to include all who have any ger  forebear within the previous
>>> ten generations...

> ZS:
>> If this is the case today then surely it must have been even more so
>> in Chazal's day, when giyur was so popular that historians tell us at
>> one point 10% of the Roman empire was Jewish.  And yet they limited the
>> proverb to the presence of a known ger. Kal vachomer nowadays.

> As per my previous point, they do not limit this principle of
> proper speech to an actual known ger but include speech to the
> issue/zera of a ger up to the 10^th generation.

You have avoided addressing my objection: if today this must include any
audience, whether it includes a known ger or not, then how much more so
in their day, so why did they limit it in this way? Why did they say
"before a ger", if they meant "before anyone, because you never know
who's a ger"? And if they didn't mean that in their day, then how can
you say that in our day, when we have *fewer* gerim than they did?


> 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.

> 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."

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?


-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name