[Avodah] Those Whose Halakhic Status Is Questionable

[Zev Sero]

On 29/1/22 21:47, Jay F. Shachter via Avodah wrote:
>> Tevilah must be in front of a beis din, and yes, it absolutely must be
>> lesheim giyur.  That is clearly stated in hilchos giyur.
>>
> Yes, that is clearly the halakha, but I'm not sure that it's the halakha.
> First of all, when you say a beis din, I assume you mean, lav davqa a
> beyth din, since we see from Hilkoth Issurey Biah 13:6, and from the
> better-known Hilkoth Issurey Biah 13:17, that an actual beyth din is
> not needed bdi`avad.
> 

What do you mean?  Those sources say the exact opposite, that a beis din 
of three is absolutely needed, and without it the person is not a ger at 
all.  There can't be such a thing as a geirus without one.  So no matter 
how many times a non-giyores goes to the mikveh, in the presence of only 
the mikveh lady or other women, she cannot become a giyores thereby.



> I was thinking of Hilkoth
> Issurey Biah 13:8, according to which it is possible for there to be
> evidence that establishes that you are a nokhri, but does not
> establish that your children are the children of a nokhri. 

That's not about gerus but about ne'emanus.  If a person says he 
"converted" without a beis din, he is in fact claiming not to be Jewish; 
the question is whether we believe him.  With regard to himself, whether 
he's telling the truth or not, his admission is better than 100 
witnesses, so he is to be treated as a goy.  Lechumra, of course, not 
lekula.  He can't get out of a conviction, e.g., for eating treif, by 
claiming to be a goy.   But he has no ne'emanus to passel his children, 
so with regard to them we *don't* say giyur without a beis din is OK, we 
say that we don't believe he didn't have a beis din. We think he's 
lying, and he really did have a beis din, but since he declares 
otherwise we will treat him as he says he is.

The same thing happens if a mother admits that she had an affair and her 
child is a mamzer.  She is believed about herself, and her husband must 
divorce her, but she has no ne'emanus about her child.  With regard to 
the child we say she is lying and never had the affair.

Or suppose someone sells property and then admits that he had stolen it. 
  With regard to himself we believe him and he must now pay his "victim" 
the value of the "stolen" property.  But with regard to the purchaser we 
don't believe him, and he keeps the property.


> No one on this
> mailing list has a problem with the notion that a man can be convicted
> of, e.g., adultery with a married woman, while the woman is acquitted
> of the same crime.  

Yes, but whether she actually is an adulteress is a question of fact, 
not of evidence.  If her husband believes that she did in fact commit 
the act, then he must divorce her, and if the beis din is convinced of 
it it can compel him to divorce her.  Because "asura laba`al" is not a 
function of the rules of evidence, but of the actual fact. If only 
Hashem knows that she is assur to her husband, she is still assur, and 
he is unwittingly violating that issur.



> Thus it was from Hilkoth
> Issurey Biah 13:8 that one can have the idea that, if a Torah-observant
> mother goes to the mikveh -- which every Torah-observant mother does
> -- her children are Jews,

But that is clearly not so.  If she was not Jewish and did not convert, 
then her going to mikveh can't change that.  Even if only Hashem knows, 
her children will still be goyim, and those who marry them will be 
unwittingly be in that position.  The daughters' children will be goyim, 
and the sons' wives will be pesulim lik'huna, so if they are widowed and 
then marry kohanim their children will be chalalim.


If the Rambam permitted marrying the Egyptian Kara'im with whom he was 
familiar, it was because each individual had a chazaka of being 
descended in the female line from known Jews, and not a mamzer.  He 
certainly did not permit marrying Kara'ite "converts", or known 
mamzerim. Beis Hillel did not permit marrying the mamzerim produced by 
Beis Shammai marriages that, according to BH and the halacha, were 
issurei kares.  They trusted BS to tell them which of their children 
were kosher and which were mamzerim.


I agree with you that the alarms being sounded about the proposed 
reforms in Israel are exaggerated.  On the contrary, the Rabbanut had no 
right to seize control of giyur in the first place, even in Israel, let 
alone in the whole world, as it has done, and all Kahane wants to do is 
return the halacha to what it always was. Actually he doesn't even want 
to go that far; he just wants to move it a little bit back in that 
direction. The Rabbanut may cry that its usurpation was in a good cause, 
and it might even be correct, but it was still a usurpation.



-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone health, wealth, and
zev at sero.name       happiness in 2022