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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: Micha Berger <A
href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org">micha@aishdas.org</A><BR><BR>>>Why does
everyone speak of the 10 lost shevatim?<BR><BR>Didn't Malkhus Yehudah include 3
shevatim -- Yehudah, Binyamin and<BR>Shim'on -- plus the majority of
sheivet/non-sheivet of Levi? <<</FONT></DIV>
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size=2><BR> </DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>>>>>></DIV>
<DIV>The claim has been made (I don't know where) that individual
members of all 12 (13) tribes lived in Yehudah and were exiled to Bavel at
the time of Churban Bayis Rishon -- and returned to E'Y at the time of Binyan
Bayis Sheni. But they lost their tribal identities and just kind of
assimilated into Shevet Yehudah, except for those who had a distinct
memory/family tradition of being from Shevet Levi. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mordechai in the Megilla is identified as being from Shevet Binyamin and
yet he is called "Ish Yehudi" so evidently he lived at the time when tribal
identities were becoming blurred and everybody was just being included in Shevet
Yehudah.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It could be that when Moshiach comes, Eliyahu Hanavi will reconstitute all
the tribes by telling each Jew exactly what Shevet he is /really/ part of, ben
achar ben. Maybe the "lost" tribes will never be "found" because by now
they have been goyim for too many generations. But we will still have
twelve tribes, just by correctly identifying all the Jews who have been wrongly
assigned to Yehuda all these years.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At any rate, we have two identified tribes remaining today, Yehudah and
Levi, which by simple arithmetic suggests that *ten* tribes have been
lost. (Unless you want to say that there were really 13 tribes, if you
count Menashe and Ephraim as two and also count Levi. In which case, 11
tribes are "lost," but most people would count Menashe and Ephraim as one for
this purpose.)</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><B><BR></B><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR><BR></B><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Looking for a car that's sporty, fun and fits in your budget? <A title="http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017" href="http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017" target="_blank">Read reviews on AOL Autos</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>