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Forum -> Judaism -> Halachic Questions and Discussions

Mamzer in Halacha

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Motek

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 11:52 am

zun: in a halachic discussion we need sources. Making people feel good is wonderful, but not quite the point here.

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The levush of the neshama is affected by other things as well- whether the father was Jewish, whether the parents had the proper kavanos during conception etc. It is not a different kind of handicap at all.

your first sentence is true
your second sentence is not

the halachos make that rather obvious!

mp - I responded in an earlier post, saying the issue is not one of judging. Then you say I dance around the issue. I think I made myself quite clear.

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What does having a spiritual handicap mean to you ?

sounds like a topic a teacher will give for writing a composition or essay 8)

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Does it place "you" on a higher madreiga than "them" ?

let's say there's going to be a race
one person racing is an Olympic sprinter
the other person racing is lame
is the Olympic sprinter at an advantage?
duh

when someone is born with spiritual advantages or disadvantages, it means just that

what a person does with it is another story (like the Tortoise and the Hare fable)

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I want to know whether you think that those people without a spiritual handicap are closer to Hashem

depends what kind
Jews have a spiritual advantage over gentiles and they sure are closer to Hashem

within the category of Jews though, it's up to the person whether they bring themselves closer to G-d, or chas v'shalom, the opposite, but no matter what they do, they always remain G-d's chosen ones

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Can you say with any level of certainty that because you have matza to eat on pesach and the chosid in Siberia didn't, therefore you were closer to Hashem than he was ?

aha, but you reworded what I wrote and changed the meaning! I've pointed this out to you before, that you misquote and then have questions on the misquote!

what I said was, the Chasid in Siberia did not fulfill that mitzva

what you said was, the person who ate matza is closer to Hashem

Quote:

I began this whole line of posting when it seemed that people's comments about mamzerim were disproportionately condescending.

mp - do you have a problem with quotes from Chazal and Shulchan Aruch that do not reflect favorably on the spiritually disadvantaged?

excellent point Hadassa about the Jews who wanted to bring the korbon Pesach

Last edited by Motek on Thu, Apr 28 2005, 6:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

hadasa

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 12:12 pm

mp wrote:

But is it also about how you view him ?

No, I don't think it should be.

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Does it place "you" on a higher madreiga than "them" ?

Absolutely not.

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I want to know whether you think that those people without a spiritual handicap are closer to Hashem and therefore better than those who do have a spiritual handicap or not ?

No, I don't think so.

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Can you say with any level of certainty that because you have matza to eat on pesach and the chosid in Siberia didn't, therefore you were closer to Hashem than he was ?

I can say with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that he was on a much higher level than I!

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I think that no one here on earth is qualified to judge how close someone else is to G-d.

I agree 100%

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No one should see himself higher and think of someone else's spiritual status as comparable to the physical disadvantages of a deformed baby or a child born to crack addicts.

Am I "better" than the child born to crack addicts? When a person CH"V born deformed is successful in life, it is much more impressive than when a healthy person acoomplishes the same thing.
I think the point is similar. Since the actions of the parents do have an effect on the Levushim of the Neshamah, it may be harder for a person with flawed Levushim to reach a specific spiritual level. Which makes it all the more impressive when he does reach it. (Just like the BT's Mitzvos (generally speaking) are done with much more Mesirus nefesh than the FFB's, and Bemakom sheBaalei Tshevah omdim vechu').

In any case, we have ABSOLUTELY NO WAY of knowing what spiritual level the other person is standing at, and therefore NO RIGHT to look down at anyone!!

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 2:05 pm

Hadasa- Your answers and approach is one that I can appreciate. You make it clear that although no one is allowed to judge another, some people start with more difficulties than others.

Motek- your stand on this is not so clear. You write that this is not about judging people, but then you write :

Quote:

let's say there's going to be a race
one person racing is an Olympic sprinter
the other person racing is lame
is the Olympic sprinter at an advantage?
duh

Although hadasa's post leaves room for the one who starts behind to catch up and win, your post seems to assume that the lame one will surely lose. Will a lame racer EVER catch up to an Olympic sprinter ? I don't think so.

Also Motek, you write :

Quote:

depends what kind
Jews have a spiritual advantage over gentiles and they sure are closer to Hashem

In light of that statement, please explain how you understand the following gemara :

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When one of the children of Noah engages in the study of the Seven Universal Laws, he is able to attain a spiritual level higher than the Cohen Gadol who alone has the sanctity to enter the Kodesh Kedoshim in the Beis Hamikdash ( Baba Kamma 38a)

Motek

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 2:25 pm

Quote:

your post seems to assume that the lame one will surely lose.

but the Tortoise won!

in the normal scheme of things, when Akiva the shepherd was such an ignoramus that he said he wished he could kick the sages, he hated them so, it would have made no sense to think that he would become THE RABBI AKIVA, one of the greatest sages of all time

so the choice is ours

as far as your quote from the Gemara: check a Gemara and you'll see that the quote is:

“Even a gentile who studies Torah is like a High Priest.”

would you like to have a separate discussion about gentiles?

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 3:15 pm

as far as your quote from the Gemara: check a Gemara and you'll see that the quote is:

“Even a gentile who studies Torah is like a High Priest.”

The quote that I cited I found in a sefer, The Path of The Righteous Gentile, and I would be surprised to find out that they so completely and totally misquoted the gemara. Please give the source for the above quote.

Motek

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 4:14 pm

I took a Gemara and looked it up. It's 15 lines from the bottom.

if you find your quote, please tell me which line it's on

ForeverYoung
Guest

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 4:49 pm

Motek, you answered my question, thanks. Smile

(in the following quotes, the BOLD is mine)

Quote:

Your hebrew name is as son of your mother who is the daughter of her father and when called to the Torah as the son of your maternal grandfather for short.

I heard it's Ben or Bas Avraham (avinu)

mp

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I am trying to clarify the halacha and also trying to separate what our attitude should be towards mamzerim.

these are 2 separate issues.
Halacha is very clear - mamzerim have restrictions on marriage. As far as I know, they're equal w/ us in the rest of the laws.

However, our attitude should be exactly the same as to the rest of the wish people, regardless of their spiritual level or parentage:
VEAHAVTA LEREACHA KAMOCHA!!!

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I understood it to mean that we are not supposed to judge who is holier and who is better in G-d's eyes.

No, it is not our place to judge, it is H's business

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Women do not get the spiritual benefit of putting on tefilin or davening with a minyon. Men do not get the spiritual benefit of raising children

This sounds like the feministic thread, where we discussed that men & women are profoundly different and cannot be compared.

And thanks to SARAHD & HADASA for an exellent posts Smile

about who is more spiritual
Before we diside who is better, let us keep in mind that this world is managed by H' - the G-d, omnipotent, all powerful, all seing G-d who knows everything, even the most sacred ans well hidden sicrets of our souls (even those we're not aware of).

When the soul is NOT in human body, it cannot diminish, but it cannot become better/ higher either. In order to achieve bigger greatness, the souls go on a spiritually enhancing jorney, called LIFE. We can look at it as a line, as a race. However, H' determains at which point of the racing track each individual soul begins, what & how many obstacles are in the way & how much time it has to 'run'.

When Neshama is so to say 'evaluated' by H', He takes into the account ALL the variables & judges accordingly.
And sinse He is the ONE who knows everything, I trust Him to make a proper desision in every case.

And lastly, mp, a personal request to you:
please, stop taking all mashalim, analogies & parallels literally
if you take everything litrally, you can analize things into oblivition.
thank you[/b]

Last edited by ForeverYoung on Thu, Sep 22 2005, 6:25 am; edited 1 time in total

zuncompany

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 4:55 pm

only what has been poskined to my family. I don't have sources. Sorry... about the name FY- that was poskined and to others I know.

Sara

ForeverYoung
Guest

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 5:03 pm

my husband said that Mashiah will figure it out Smile

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 7:39 pm

Motek :
http://www.noachide.net/Talmud.....a.htm

Your quote is correct. Still my question stands. How are Jews all that much closer to G-d if a nonJew can approximate the level of the kohen gadol, even according to one opinion ?

Motek

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 7:59 pm

Quote:

would you like to have a separate discussion about gentiles?

if so, please start a new thread

ForeverYoung
Guest

Sun, Jan 16 2005, 8:28 pm

I think the word LIKE is the key.
He cannot become one.

Masterfully polished piece of glass may look like a diamond but will never become one.

Mon, Jan 17 2005, 11:06 am

Motek, it seems that our quotes are actually the same and Rashi explains that "learning Torah" for the nonJew means learning sheva mitzvos bnei noach. Also, for a nice discussion of levels and Jew vs nonJew and who is closer to G-d, see the article posted in the intellectual thread by Yehudis. The author makes a nice distinction between our faulty human perception ( we are better than everyone else) and the world the way it really is from G-d's point of view( no one has more value than anyone else).

hadasa

Mon, Jan 17 2005, 11:37 am

ForeverYoung wrote:

I think the word LIKE is the key.
He cannot become one.

Masterfully polished piece of glass may look like a diamond but will never become one.

He can't become a Cohen Gadol, but he can become a Jew, if he really wants to!

Motek

Thu, May 19 2005, 6:08 pm

re the conversation earlier in this thread about a man whose mother is Jewish and father is not Jewish - in parshas Emor, Rashi 24:10 on the words "ben isha Yisraelis v'hu ben ish Mitzri" (the son of a Jewish woman and an Egyptian man) - he wanted to pitch his tent with the tribe of Dan who kicked him out because the tribe goes according to the father and his father wasn't from Dan, he was Egyptian!

I wonder how this Jew was listed in the census taken in the desert, as plonis ben

of "no shevet"?

Somebody learned that I asked said, "I don’t know what a child with a non-Jewish father is named (at an aliya). It is obviously an important question in the case of writing a Get because a wrong Get is posul and she remains an Eishes-Ish (married woman), whereas a Kesuba is “just” a legal document so it’s not so bad if something is not perfect (except perhaps for mystical stuff)."

amother

Thu, May 19 2005, 8:02 pm

Ben Avraham

FY

amother

Thu, May 19 2005, 8:12 pm

Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov & their wifes do not belong to any of the tribes either.

I'm sure all the converts wouldn't mind camping out with them

Twisted Evil

As well as those whose fathers are not Jewish if their mothers' tribes won't take them.

A rather hoshuv (important) company, I'd say

Twisted Evil

proudmom

Tue, May 31 2005, 12:07 pm

Quote:

It is not H" who punishes the child, but the sinning pair.

I didnt read the entire thread, but a mamzer is only alowed to marry a mamzer. A mamzer can not be called up to the torah. That is a punishment for the child not teh parents.

chavamom

Tue, May 31 2005, 2:21 pm

I don't know about an aliyah, but when my friend who had a non-Jewish father got married, the kesuba was written as Plonit bas Miriam (her mother). And yes, these were all frum people. Her family became frum at some point when she was a teenager.

Motek

Wed, Jun 01 2005, 5:58 pm

I asked a talmid chacham who in turn asked a rav, and here are the answers:

a mamzer can get an aliya

re my previous post concerning a Jewish man with a non-Jewish father, the answer as far as gittin is that it's no simple matter about how to write it, but the bottom line, with a get, a man with a non-Jewish father has his name written as ploni ben his Jewish mother. (source: This is based on the Noda Bi’Yehuda in Dagul Mervavah.)

as far as an aliya for a Jewish man with a non-Jewish father the Taz (major halachic source) says that he can be called up as ploni son of his mother's father's name (I.e. his maternal grandfather) so as not to embarrass him and for an aliya (unlike a get) it's not critical that it be perfectly accurate, but not all agree because it could create a problem later on in a get because people will remember that he was called up as "ben a man's name" (I.e. his grandfather)" and for the get it needs to be written as ploni son of his mother

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