<br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">R' Daniel Eidensohn wrote:<br>
. The Syrian community banned converts for<br>
> pragmatic reasons as did the Argentine community. Ezra<br>
> rejected the foreign wives and their children - and made no<br>
> attempt to convert them because of the danger they posed to<br>
> the new Jewish community in Israel.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>Suggested experiment:<br><br>Read Just about Every parsha in the Torah as somehow an exhortation NOT to intermarry.<br>See how many fit this mold/model. You will be surprised. as part of this mindset see this: Hazal's criticisms of Esav/Edom were PRIMALY about his choice of wives [katzti bechayai..] and hence the midrash re: Dina. IOW, Esav's decendants might have been kosher if he had had a kosher wife. <br>
<br>It might give a new peshat in Yehuda and Tamar! IOW Tamar was to be put to death for going outside the family. But once she was found to be impregnated from inside the family [ viz. a quasi-pre-Sinai Yibbum] she was now OK. <br>
</div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Kol Tuv / Best Regards,<br><a href="mailto:RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com">RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com</a><br>see: <a href="http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/">http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/</a>