[Avodah] Baptized Jews and the Law Of Return

[Micha Berger]

So, here are the three shitos RALichtenstein discusses about how to resolve
the apparently conflicting gemaros.

1- The Rashba (Yavemos 22a) takes the case of the marriage of a backslid
geir (Yevamos 67b) as primary. And the gemara about Kusim does not mean
that Chazal reject their attempt at conversion. Rather kol demeqadeish
al daas chakhamim meqadeish gives Chazal the power to deny the validity
of their attempts to marry (other) Jews.

Variant on this theme:

1b- The Ittur (quf, Qiddishin 78a) says that R' Yehudai Gaon says that
Chakhamim DO allow their marriage to a Jew, and that the statement is
about stam yeinam, shechitah, and other laws that are limited to maaminim.

Th SA (YD 159:3) similarly says that we may not pay a Kusi ribis, but
we may charge him.


2- HaGahos Mordekhai (Yevamos 107) holds that the person is literally not a
Jew -- but. Because we cannot know the extent of someone's apostacy,
we aren't mindreaders, for something as major as eishes ish, we recognize
lechumerah his marriage to a Jewish woman.


3- R' Chaim Solovei[t]chik notes that the Rambam WRT seider nashim
(Ishus 4:15, Issurei Bi'ah 13:17) as following Yevamos, like #1.
And yet WRT taharah, Peirush haMIshnayos (Nidda 7:4) says a Kusi's body
is not metamei tum'as ohalim, because nakhriim don't. R' Chaim says that
Yevamos refers to a geir who returned to his old practices, in RAL's
terms "an apostacy of action". But the Kusim and the 10 Shevatim
not only changed behavior, but also ceased identifying as Jews.

The opinion I mentioned earlier as R' Aharon's was his following his
wife's ancestor.


The quote RAM provides from Leaves of Faith pp 66-67 I saw more as a
subject - object distinction. In his own eyes, he has the din of a Jew.
But in the eyes of how others are supposed to relate to him, he does not.
And it's the latter -- how are we to classify others -- that was under
discussion.


To quote RAM on another point:
: (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...

RAL writes a little later:
> It might be be argued that it only applies to a mass secession, whereby
> not only an individual but his whole social context becomes uprooted. Or
> one might contend that only the children, born in complete ignorance of
> their origins, are affected, whereas the apostate, paradoxically, might
> remain a Jew.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Feeling grateful  to or appreciative of  someone
micha at aishdas.org        or something in your life actually attracts more
http://www.aishdas.org   of the things that you appreciate and value into
Fax: (270) 514-1507      your life.         - Christiane Northrup, M.D.