Volume 65 Number 81
Produced: Sun, 04 Sep 22 16:34:27 -0400
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
A tefillin query (2)
[David Ansbacher Martin Stern]
Civil marriage in Israel
[Martin Stern]
Is Geirus deOraisa? (4)
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz Elazar Teitz Chana Luntz Chana Luntz]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Ansbacher <dansba1944@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 04:17 AM
Subject: A tefillin query
Further to the binding of the tephilin shel yad (MJ 65#80), I've had a
question for many years. About 3 years ago, I asked someone whom I know is
well up in these matters and he said the reason for four, space and three,
loops was for the same as the tephilin shel rosh has on one side a
protruding shin with four upstands and on the other side a shin with three
upstands. Although he couldn't give me a reason, he did say it comes from
Kabbalah.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 07:17 AM
Subject: A tefillin query
Haim Snyder wrote (MJ 65#80):
> In response to Martin Stern (MJ 65#79):
>
> I use a different verse, "poteach et-yadecha umasbia l'kol-chai retzone" [Thou
> openst Thy hand and satisfiest all living with favor]. This gives me 3 loops, a
> gap and 4 loops.
Also Immanuel Burton wrote (MJ 65#80):
> ...
> when I was shown by my father how to put on tephillin, he suggested to me that
> I count the number of windings as I go by saying in my head the verse
> "Pote'ach et-yadecha, u'masbia le'chol-chai ratzon", which has a pause
> after the third word. In time, I found myself leaving a gap between the 3rd
> and 4th loops, not between the 4th and 5th loops, although, to the best of my
> recollection, my father never said anything about leaving a gap.
> ...
The problem with this verse is that it has two maqefs [hyphens] which might
be seen as joining two words into a single word, leaving only five words
altogether.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 03:17 PM
Subject: Civil marriage in Israel
For the last few issues we have debating various aspects of giyur [conversion].
However the elephant in the room is that marriage and divorce in Israel are
solely under the jurisdiction of the millet [religious group] to whom the
prospective spouses belong. If they are different, then there is no possibility
of contracting a valid marriage unless the couple goes abroad (e.g. Cyprus) and
marries there in which case the marriage is recognised in Israel. The only
alternative is that one partner converts to the other's religion.
There is also a problem with those who self-identify as Jews but are not
recognised as such by the rabbinate, predominantly immigrants from the former
Soviet Union who qualified under the Law of Return through having some Jewish
ancestry. Thus there is a demand that some way be found to make them Jews. Since
the vast majority do not wish to convert, especially if it requires the adoption
of a Torah lifestyle, there is a dilemma since that is a sine qua non for a
halachic conversion.
Most of the disputes regarding conversion hinge essentially on the degree that
one should turn a blind eye to converts' saying one thing - that they agree to
keep all mitzvot - while meaning something completely different - that they will
only keep as much as their spouse and his/her family who might be, at most,
traditional (whatever that means) do.
This casts a cloud of suspicion on all converts, some of whom are absolutely
genuine and conduct their lives strictly according to halachah. However the
latter are almost certainly a minority.
David Tzohar wrote (MJ 65#79):
> ...
> The gemarra concludes that gerei tzedek were not accepted during the monarchy
> of David and Solomon, the reason being that subjects were converting to enjoy
> the perks of Jewish citizenship. The same was true for the "mityahadim" at the
> end of the Purim story.
The situation in present day Israel is similar in that there are great
advantages in being Jewish, not least that one can marry.
This puts pressure on the rabbinate to take a 'lenient' approach to giyur which
would not be necessary if the state made some form of civil marriage available.
The main reason that it does not is due to opposition from the religious sector.
I believe its opposition is misguided and does more harm than good.
IMHO, it would be better to support some form of civil marriage (perhaps better
viewed as being merely the registration of marriages rather than their creation)
while salvaging what can be saved. The way forward might be that the former
religious marriages should be recognised while the civil forms would be
available to those who prefer them. As far as the rabbinate is concerned, those
who opt for the latter should be deemed to be stating that they do not want to
be halachicly married and so would not require a get [halachic divorce] to
terminate their 'marriage' as per Rav Moshe Feinstein's psak (at least bedieved
[ex post facto]). As a quid pro quo, the state should insist that marriages can
only be dissolved under the same auspices as they were contracted. This would
avoid possible mamzerut problems.
Admittedly this will mean that there will be two classes of Jew, one recognised
by the rabbinate, and one not, but that is already the case in practice at present.
Any comments?
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <sabbahillel@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 1,2022 at 07:17 PM
Subject: Is Geirus deOraisa?
Martin Stern wrote (MJ 65#80):
> David Tzohar wrote (MJ 65#79):
>> ...
>> The gemarra concludes that gerei tzedek were not accepted during the monarchy
>> of David and Solomon, the reason being that subjects were converting to enjoy
>> the perks of Jewish citizenship. The same was true for the "mityahadim" at
>> the end of the Purim story.
>>
>> This poses some difficult questions:
>> ...
>> 3 - Does this mean that we shouldn't accept converts in present day Israel?
>>
>> Food for thought.
> It would appear from the gemarra's conclusion that gerei tzedek should not be
> accepted in present day Israel. So how can 'liberal minded' organisations that
> also claim to be true to the Torah argue that one should be more lenient
> there? If anything one should be stricter.
Based on the way Jews are being treated in the world at large, and the attacks
on the State of Israel, I would not say that the situation for geirim is the
same as in the days of Shlomo Hamelech. It would appear that people willing to
join us are still allowing rhemselves to be in a worse position.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz
<SabbaHillel@...>
http://sabbahillel.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Elazar Teitz <emteitz@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 02:17 PM
Subject: Is Geirus deOraisa?
In discussing this topic in MJ 65#78, Yisrael Medad quotes Martin Stern (MJ
65#77), who wrote:
>> Yisrael is once again taking an over-literal view of the text while ignoring
>> the Torah sheB'al peh,
and responds:
> May I remind him and the list members that if the topic we are discussing
> i.e. whether something is 'd'Oraitha' (from the Torah), a very special and
> well-defined term of Jewish Halachic practice, it really doesn't help your
> argument to point to the Torah She'Baal Peh while ignoring that there
> actually is no Torah She'bichtav source for the mitzva.
It would seem from the tenor of this quote that Yisrael contends that the term
"d'Oraitha" is limited to Torah sheBichtav. This is simply not so. The term
"d'Oraitha" is itself a creation of Torah sheB'al peh, and is used to refer to
matters both in Torah sheBichtav and in Torah sheB'al peh.
Yisrael then poses the challenge:
> Does anyone know of a mitzva that is O'raitha that is not sourced in the
> Torah text?
The answer, of course, is "No." This, however, has no bearing whatever on the
original question posed by the topic heading, "Is Geirus d'Oraisa?"
The written Torah is full of references to geirus, from "Va'ahavtem es hageir"
["You shall love the convert"], to not oppressing the geir, to the law of gezel
hageir (referring to a person who has no heir, a situation which, under the
Torah's law of inheritance, is only possible in the case of a geir), to the laws
distinguishing between first- and second-generation Egyptian additions to the
Jewish nation as contrasted with the third generation. Hence, geirus is most
certainly min haTorah (the Hebrew term for the Aramaic "d'Oraitha.")
What does not appear in the Torah is the mitzvah of conversion itself -- and for
a simple reason: there is no such mitzvah. Nowhere are we commanded -- neither
in the Written nor the Oral Torah -- that we are to accept geirim. There is no
b'racha "asher kid'shanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'kabeil es hageir" ["Who
sanctified us through His commandments and commanded that we accept a convert"].
The manner in which conversion is accomplished is a mitzva -- and we do indeed
say a bracha of "lamul es hageir" ["(who commanded us) to circumcise the
convert"], but there is no mitzva to perform conversion in the first place.
EMT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chana Luntz <Chana@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 03:17 PM
Subject: Is Geirus deOraisa?
Martin Stern wrote (MJ 65#79) that he found that Yisrael Medad's source
("Conversion to Judaism in Tannaitic Halakhah" by Lawrence H. Schiffman) to
be:
> not ... doing much more than discussing the earliest date we can find IN THE
> LITERATURE for the rules of conversion
And Yisrael Medad wrote (MJ 65#80):
> Well, that was my query.
That certainly did not (and still I confess does not) seem to me to be his
query. Let us go back to basics - so basic that I think I am going to quote
Wikipedia on the subject of the "Oral Torah":
"According to Rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Torah or Oral Law (Hebrew: Torah
she-be-'al peh) are those purported laws, statutes, and legal interpretations
that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, the Written Torah (Torah
she-bi-khtav, Written Law), but nonetheless are regarded by Orthodox Jews as
prescriptive and given at the same time. This holistic Jewish code of conduct
encompasses a wide swathe of rituals, worship practices, God-man and
interpersonal relationships, from dietary laws to Sabbath and festival
observance to marital relations, agricultural practices, and civil claims and
damages.
"According to Rabbinic Jewish tradition, the Oral Torah was passed down orally
in an unbroken chain from generation to generation until its contents were
finally committed to writing following the destruction of the Second Temple in
70 CE, when Jewish civilization was faced with an existential threat, by virtue
of the dispersion of the Jewish people."
Rabbinic Judaism is another word for Orthodox Judaism - and as Wikipedia clearly
states - fundamental to Orthodox Judaism is a belief that there is a very large
number of "laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were
not recorded in the Five Books of Moses" but which are "nonetheless are regarded
by Orthodox Jews as prescriptive and given at the same time".
The laws of Geirus are considered to be part of the Oral Torah for Orthodox
Jews. Because in Orthodox belief the Oral Torah was given at the same time as
the written Torah just not written down, and is just as binding - details of the
earliest period in which such laws were in fact written down are of little
relevance to the halacha, and play no part in determining whether something is
considered d'oraisa [from the Torah] or d'rabbanan [from the Rabbis]. You
brought the source material as leading one to query whether or not Geirus is
d'oraisa or d'rabbanan - because the first time it was shown by this academic to
be written down was much later than the written Torah.
But to an Orthodox Jew, that is irrelevant, all of the Oral Torah was, by
definition, only written down much later than the written Torah, because it was
meant to be transmitted orally, and it was only written down when our people
suffered multiple tragedies that risked the whole tradition being forgotten were
it not written down.
An academic paper which merely listed the first time this particular piece of
Oral Torah was written down would not raise any queries of the nature that you
are raising. It would not mean that any part of the Oral Law ceases to be
considered d'oraisa and not d'rabbanan. Whether the author of the piece
considered his academic work to be undermining the principle of the Oral Torah
or not (and he might well not, academics have to get published after all to
continue to earn a livelihood), what you have correctly understood is that the
academic framework in which he is writing understands the way you do - that is,
there is no Oral Torah, Orthodoxy is false, and hence we are determining when
these beliefs which the Rabbis and Orthodox Judaism consider to be Oral Torah
first emerged historically amongst the Jewish people.
> The creation of Heaven and earth, Hevel's murder and any number of relatively
> other minor episodes are recorded but not how to join the Jewish People seems
> to me interesting.
As Wikipedia again correctly points out "This holistic Jewish code of conduct
encompasses a wide swathe of rituals, worship practices, God-man and
interpersonal relationships, from dietary laws to Sabbath and festival
observance to marital relations, agricultural practices, and civil claims and
damages". Geirus is only a tiny, tiny part of the whole Oral Torah, and you can
ask exactly that question about every last bit of it.
If you are a believer, then you ask the question as to why so much was left out
of the written Torah. Not just this tiny bit, but the whole lot. Various
people end up with answers that posit something like - those areas of halacha
where complexity is inherent, and ongoing flexibility is needed, needed to be in
the Oral Torah so that they did not become fossilised and could deal with the
multiplicity of real life complex situations. Those parts of halacha or
history that are really quite simple and straightforward to apply could be
detailed in the Written Torah.
But that is from the point of view of a believer. A non-believer will say that
because there is no written evidence of the Oral Torah, it historically did not
exist, and therefore all aspects of the Oral Torah can be abandoned or deemed
rabbinic. But this is no more true for Geirus than it is for all the other wide
swathes of halacha referred to by Wikipedia and which come under the rubric of
the Oral Torah. Geirus is just a tiny drop in the ocean of what is being
challenged here. The academics will (and do) challenge all of it.
I wrote (although I don't remember capitalising) [You did not write this, it was
Martin's summarising of what you had written -MOD]:
> academic discussions have NO RELEVANCE to halachic process,
And Yisrael Medad responded:
> I would disagree. Just like a Posek goes to a doctor, an electrician or any
> other professional to learn about some matter, an academic can be very
> relevant.
A doctor, electrician or other professional does not try and tell the Posek
whether or not the Oral Torah is valid or invalid, or what is or is not Oral
Torah, i.e. they all acknowledge that they work in different domains. The
academic is, to the extent that he is positing that the first time something is
written down is evidence that this is the first time it exists, is directly
intruding on the Posek's domain. From the Posek's perspective, it is closer
to the relationship between a doctor and a practitioner of quack medicine.
Sometimes such practitioners find something of interest to professional doctors,
but it needs to be put through the rigorous tests of scientific medicine to be
considered within the medical framework. A Posek works within the halacha and
whatever an academic says has to be put through the mill of halachic norms and
unless and until it is, it cannot be considered halacha within the boundaries of
Orthodoxy. And most of what is published will never pass those tests. As a
work of a historian, documenting when certain Oral Torah matters were first
written down, that might be interesting, but that does not make any difference
to the practice of halacha.
Regards
Chana
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chana Luntz <Chana@...>
Date: Sun, Sep 4,2022 at 03:17 PM
Subject: Is Geirus deOraisa?
Martin Stern writes (MJ 65#80):
> David Tzohar wrote (MJ 65#79):
>
>> ...
>> The gemarra concludes that gerei tzedek were not accepted during the monarchy
>> of David and Solomon, the reason being that subjects were converting to enjoy
>> the perks of Jewish citizenship. The same was true for the "mityahadim" at
>> the end of the Purim story.
>>
>> This poses some difficult questions:
>> ...
>> 3 - Does this mean that we shouldn't accept converts in present day Israel?
>>
>> Food for thought.
>
> It would appear from the gemarra's conclusion that gerei tzedek should not be
> accepted in present day Israel.
I am a bit puzzled at his statement (and that of David Tzohar).
The two gemaras I am aware of regarding not accepting gerei tzedek at the time
of David and Solomon (Yevamot 24b and Avodah Zara 3b) both give two situations
where they say that geirei tzedek have not or will not be accepted, the first
being the times of David and Solomon and the second being the days of the
Messiah [yemot haMashiach]. I know that there are some (generally regarded as
renegade) Chabadniks who say that we have an existing Messiah, but I wouldn't
have called that mainstream belief. So I am struggling to understand how can
you say that it is the gemora's "conclusion" that gerei tzedek should not be
accepted in present day Israel unless you are also saying that we are today
within the yemot HaMashiach (which has huge halachic implications)?
> So how can 'liberal minded' organisations that also claim to be true to the
> Torah argue that one should be more lenient there? If anything one should be
> stricter.
What you seem to be saying, I think, is that we are so close to yemot HaMashiach
that we should be adopting the stringencies of yemot HaMashiach ahead of time.
On the other hand, I believe the liberal minded organisations you mention would
rather say that today's conditions are in no way comparable to yemot HaHashiach;
we don't even have a King or Sanhedrin like they did in the times of David and
Shlomo to rule that now is a time we should abandon and overrule the Shulchan
Aruch (which includes Hilchot Gerim). Rather, they would argue, the laws of
geirus have become laden with acharonic stringencies not found in the Shulchan
Aruch, and we should be going back to the essential Shulchan Aruch to deal with
very difficult and unfortunate problems we have which are directly related to
the Moshiach not yet having come and hence so many people not recognising the
glory of HaShem and the truth of the Torah.
Regards
Chana
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 65 Issue 81
