[Avodah] 10 tribes -- exile without redemption

[Ben Waxman via Avodah]

On 6/9/2017 4:32 PM, Lisa Liel wrote:
> Who says it was?
As was stated in other posts on this thread, it is a machloqet in the 
Gemara if they will or won't come back. That more or less proves my 
point - their return, if it happens will be something completely 
different than what happened with the rest of the tribes.  Even if we 
take the claims of various people claiming to be descendants seriously, 
they still have to convert. Their return will be tipot-tipot, 
individuals, that have to be re-integrated and not whole groups.
>
> Avodah zarah (not tzara) was worse in the northern kingdom because of 
> assimilation.  The northern kingdom had assimilated to the point where 
> they were culturally as much Phoenician as they were Israelite.  But 
> even that wouldn't be cause for permanent exile. . . . Not at all.  
> Jehu could have reunited the kingdom.  And there were people from the 
> northern kingdom who came back to us when the guards that were first 
> posted by Jeroboam I were removed.  But having two separate exilic 
> populations of Bnei Yisrael would have been disastrous in very many ways. 
That's a bit harsh. The ten tribes had to disappear in order for our 
exile to have ended successfully?

The whole story leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth - the lack of (or 
weak) attempts to reunite the tribes, the lack of memory of them (how 
many kinot on Tisha b'Av deal with the Temple and how many deal with the 
10 tribes? we don't even have a fast day for them), this feeling of 
"good riddance" and history being written by the victors, it doesn't 
speak well of our history.

Ben