Mamzerim? | Imamother

penguin

Thu, Dec 15 2016, 9:25 pm

I seem to have a heard that after the war a lot of women re-married without knowing 100% that their husband was dead.

There was a famous story of a woman who claimed Rav X allowed her to marry but then the first husband showed up. I think it was Rav Moshe tz"l (though I'm not sure) who asked her very sternly to retell her story several times until she broke down and admitted she had lied about the heter.

The Rov then said "I knew it wasn't true. Rav X was a huge tzaddik with siyata dishmaya. So I knew it could not have happened as you said."

amother

Blush

Thu, Dec 15 2016, 10:30 pm

I know that Rabbanim try not to label people as mamzerim if they don't have to, but if someone is a mamzer and no one knows about it, does it make them less of a mamzer?! Also, I remember learning that when Mashiach comes he will point out yichus- including who are mamzerim. So even if a bes din declares someone is not a mamzer by using some loophole like no witnesses etc, will that change what Mashiach will say and the actual status of the person? probably not

amother

Denim

Thu, Dec 15 2016, 11:44 pm

What is a Mamzer? embarrassed

cnc

Thu, Dec 15 2016, 11:48 pm

amother wrote:

What is a Mamzer? embarrassed

When a married woman has a child with another man , the child resulting from that union is a mamzer.

tichellady

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 12:52 am

cnc wrote:

When a married woman has a child with another man , the child resulting from that union is a mamzer.

Not exactly. A mamzer is a child born to parents who are forbidden to each other as indicated in the list of arayot (except for a woman in niddah). So a child born out of incest or to a married woman who has an affair ( I believe the husband has to be Jewish). A child born to two single people is not a mamzer. The child born to a married man and a single woman is not a mamzer. If a married woman is living With her husband we generally assume all children born to her are his. I believe that if a married woman is raped the child is assumed to be her husbands and not a mamzer. The child of a Cohen and a woman he can't marry is not a mamzer.

Volunteer

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 1:06 am

Sigh. I know I'm always a Johnny-come-lately on these threads. I wasn't even going to comment at all, but I saw somebody complained on the "Don't feed the troll" thread that no one was able to argue convincingly against another with "extreme" views.

So I'll put it here.

I'm not even going to refer to the case that the OP described in the original "possible mamzer" thread, because no one knows enough of the facts. It would be arguing about nothing, really. This is a general statement.

Mishnah Kiddushin recorded a dispute about whether a father and mother are "believed" (ne'eman) if one or both say a child is a mamzer. Rabbi Yehudah says that a father is believed if he says his son is a mamzer, and the Rambam, and those following him, ruled accordingly. His reasoning based on a verse is explained in the gemara below. A father is deemed trustworthy to identify his children for purposes of inheritance, as in the firstborn's double portion. If they didn't, then nobody would have parental rights or obligations, because (back then) you can never prove a child's paternity with complete certainty. It would be ridiculous to doubt the paternity of all children, so we just assume that parents know what they're talking about. Also, the logic behind it here is that chazal assumed that no man would shame himself and his family by admitting to having been involved in a sin so severe as incest or adultery unless he believed it was true.

Definition of terms. We just have to understand what "neeman" means. Neemanut is a legal *presumption*. It means we presume that a person is telling the truth to the best of their knowledge, absent all other evidence. It doesn't mean that a person is definitely speaking the rock-solid truth, no ifs ands or buts, case closed. It's like, how a woman has "neemanut" to say that the food she cooked is kosher. Other people don't need to personally supervise the kitchen to eat there. Absent contrary evidence, we assume the food is kosher, according to her words. What if, unbeknownst to her, the chicken she cooked got recalled because it was mislabelled as kosher? What if, for some reason, she is a liar, and she saves money by buying non-kosher meat and passes it off to her guests as kosher? When there is contrary evidence, or good reason to doubt that the food is kosher, the kashrut becomes questionable. Likewise, in the mamzer case, there might be a motivation to deny paternity (for example, to avoid child support, revenge, etc.). In those cases the neemanut is questionable.

The SA alludes to this consideration when it says that if the man who said a child is a mamzer contradicts himself, and/or there is a reason why he would lie, the child is no longer presumed to be a mamzer.

You know, here's the thing about halacha. It's easy to read things in a book that seem black and white. Indeed, the basic law is that a child conceived from adultery or incest is a mamzer, and is not allowed to marry most Jews. But real life is rarely so straightforward, and real life cases are more complicated that the "textbook" answer. As many women have said here, rabbis find whatever loopholes they can. If that means turning a blind eye to some things, well, that's just they way it is. Being a mamzer is bad enough that rabbis will do pretty much anything to avoid it.

imasoftov

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 7:08 am

Mamzerut does not go away after ten generations. Source (I hope this doesn't make me a troll) Rambam, Hilchot Issurei Biah 15:1.

שנאמר גם דור עשירי כלומר לעולם

[Deuteronomy 23:3] states: "[A mamzer shall not enter God's congregation.] Also the tenth generation ...," I.e., [the prohibition is] everlasting.

http://www.chabad.org/library/.....n.htm

This post expresses no opinion about the actual (or hypothetical) situation from the original thread.

cnc

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 7:52 am

imasoftov wrote:

Mamzerut does not go away after ten generations. Source (I hope this doesn't make me a troll) Rambam, Hilchot Issurei Biah 15:1.

שנאמר גם דור עשירי כלומר לעולם

Interesting. I wonder if all opinions hold this way . There's an old thread here with the same title ( on bottom by similar threads) where this is discussed.

cnc

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 7:56 am

http://dafnotes.blogspot.com/2.....l?m=1

I'm glad to see that I did not make up what I wrote .
Obviously if an actual situation comes up (even though I don't see how someone would know that they're an 11th generation mamzer) a halachic shailah would need to be asked because there certainly are those that say that in the 11th generation the mamzerus is nullified.

Last edited by cnc on Fri, Dec 16 2016, 7:59 am; edited 1 time in total

cnc

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 7:59 am

Yskraya I think what you referenced is in here towards the bottom. An UNCERTAIN mamzer (safuk) can marry.
A mamzer that is not public knowledge can not- so he will die.

Obviously a shailah needs to be asked.

imasoftov

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 8:51 am

cnc wrote:

http://dafnotes.blogspot.com/2007/07/mamzer-will-not-survive-yevamos-78-daf.html?m=1

I'm glad to see that I did not make up what I wrote .
Obviously if an actual situation comes up (even though I don't see how someone would know that they're an 11th generation mamzer) a halachic shailah would need to be asked because there certainly are those that say that in the 11th generation the mamzerus is nullified.

If you qualify that "those who say" are in the gemara, not halachic codes, I have no objection, but one gets halacha from the latter, not the former. The Gra, it seems to me, is explaining the reason for opinion in the Gemara, not ruling like it.

cnc

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 8:55 am

imasoftov wrote:

Firstly , I am curious if it says it somewhere else because we did not learn Gemara in my school and this is the way I was taught when learning this concept.

Secondly, I was honestly starting to think that this is something that I completely made up off the top of my head. I was glad to find confirmation that I didn't. I am in no way saying that this is how we pasken (in fact the source that I brought states that a mamzer wouldn't even live.) I wrote more than once that a shailah needs to be asked.

Volunteer

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 11:12 am

Imasoftov is correct. Mamzerut doesn't expire. But what tends to happen is that the status eventually gets "forgotten" (if the family keeps having children). Secrets get buried. And once the status is forgotten, it no longer affects the family, even if fewer than 10 generations have passed. If mamzerut remained in effect even after it was forgotten, we would all be suspected.

cnc

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 12:39 pm

Volunteer wrote:

"Doesn't expire " and "no longer affects the family "
Isn't that a contradiction?

Volunteer

Fri, Dec 16 2016, 1:41 pm

cnc wrote:

"Doesn't expire " and "no longer affects the family "
Isn't that a contradiction?

Yes. In theory, if a m amzer marries (say, to a mamzeret), their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. Have the status of mamzerut forever. In reality, what often happens is that the knowledge of their status is not passed down, so it becomes forgotten. Secrets get buried. And once the knowledge of who is a mamzer is lost, it is as good as gone.
If that were not the case, everybody would be under suspicion, because who can prove that none of our ancestors were conceived in issur? People are assumed to be "kosher" unless proven otherwise. This is called "Chezkat kashrut. "

imasoftov

Sun, Dec 18 2016, 5:26 am

cnc wrote:

I really am not worried that someone is going to poskin for themselves, because people don't do weddings without a rabbi even though it's theoretically an option.

One of the reasons I look up sources before posting them is to make sure I didn't misremember something, it happens sometimes that I expect the source to say what I remember it saying, but it says something else. And teachers make mistakes, too.

Iymnok

Sun, Dec 18 2016, 9:30 am

Actually, what I "heard" is that by 10 generations the family actually dies out. Don't marry, infertility, etc.

When the Jews returned from Bavel with Ezra, they had kept records of their lineage, mamzeirus is included in the list of the ten types of lineage.