[Avodah] Baptized Jews and the Law Of Return

[Akiva Miller]

.

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> You should see R' Aharon Lichtenstein
> http://books.google.com/books?id=_QshqTu9nGIC&lpg=PA363&pg=PA57#v=onepage
> ...
> RAL offers three different approaches to resolution. He ends
> up siding with #3, that the convert in Yevamos is someone who
> reverts to the rituals of his old religion. But someone who
> goes beyond that to give up their Jewish identity would indeed
> not be Jews.

One must be wary of the phrase "would indeed not be Jews". As RAL
reiterates there, over and over, "Jew" can mean different things in
different contexts. For example, Please see what he wrote there on pages
66-67, distinguishing between "shem Yisrael" and "kedushat Yisrael":

> If we ask, in purely descriptive terms, whether anyone born of
> Jewish parents is a Jew, the answer must be yes. As an epithet,
> the term "Jew" remains applicable to any individual who was
> ever endowed with Jewish status - even to a mechumad. Hence, he
> is obligated to pursue a Torah life, and should he decide to
> return, he would perhaps require no new conversion.[38]
> However, if we ask whether a meshumad has anything of a Jewish
> personality and character, and whether, therefore, he continues
> to be endowed with the personal status of a Jew, the answer is
> a ringing no. He remains a Jew without Jewishness. What he
> retains is simply the descriptive epithet: shem Yisrael. Of
> kedushat Yisrael, however - of the sacredness of the Jewish
> personality, that which essentially constitutes being a Jew - he
> is bereft.

> [38] The first point, that the obligation remains, is certain.
> The second, that reentry would not necessitate gerut, is open
> to question. One might argue that even for one who is endowed
> with shem Yisrael, the recovery of kedushat Yisrael requires
> gerut. It may also be contended that gerut would not be required,
> but only because the return to the fold would retroactively
> cancel the earlier renunciation.

My point is that - according to RAL - even the very most extreme meshumad,
who severs his connection to the Jewish people so completely that he has
totally lost his kedushat Yisrael, still has shem Yisrael, and IS STILL
OBLIGATED IN MITZVOS.

This is a critical distinction. To refer to such a person as a non-Jew
would easily mislead people to think that he is now relieved of his Jewish
obligations. It would be most tragic if the meshumad himself was led to
such a conclusion, for it would divest him of the last shred of motivation
to return. He would think of himself as an ordinary outsider, for whom
gerut is totally optional.

(As a side point, I am somewhat disappointed that RAL focused so totally on
the status of the meshumad himself. I would love to know what he would say
about the next generation. Suppose we are talking of a woman meshumedet,
who still has shem Yisrael, but abandoned her kedushat Yisrael. Do her
children have shem Yisrael or not? It has always been my presumption that
her children (and the children of her daughters, etc etc ad infinitum)
would be obligated in mitzvos, but this article makes me wonder about that.
To phrase it in more technical terms: For a newborn to have shem Yisrael,
does it suffice that his mother has shem Yisrael, or must she also have
kedushat Yisrael?)

Akiva Miller
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