Judaism discovered

Photographically reproduced from Hilchot Melachim 9:3

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Orthodox Judaism often boasts of its acceptance of converts from other races and religions as proof of its true humanitarian and equalitarian nature. "A convert is always considered a full-fledged member of the Jewish faith and is granted the same privileges and obligations as any other Jew" (Rabbi Eliyahu Touger). Let's test the veracity of this oft-repeated claim. The body of rabbinic jurisprudence, at the very least severely restricts the rights of the convert to Judaism and continues to regard the convert with suspicion and racial animosity. For example, in a beth din, in the case of the testimony of a convert: "A ger toshav (gentile convert) is not considered a valid witness in a court of law." (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 34:19). "Even a ger toshav is not allowed to bear witness concerning anything that happened prior to his conversion." {Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 35:7). Much of the rationale for accepting converts is utilitarian, based on considerations other than supposed brotherhood or humanitarianism. For example, in time of war, the Judaic soldier may desire to rape a gentile woman. Against the possibility that a learned gentile will penetrate and read the rabbinic texts, a superficial perusal will yield the decoy Talmudic text, i.e. the Gemara instructs regarding a Yefas To'ar (female gentile prisoner of war), "And you shall take her into your house" (Devarim 21:12). In other words, even though she is in his custody, the Judaic soldier may not force her into having sexual intercourse with him: "sh'Lo Yilchatzenah ba^Milchamah" This superficial reading will suffice for most of those gentiles predisposed to take the word of the rabbis at face value and scoff at this writer as "an antisemite who falsifies charges against the noble religion of Judaism." If you are a timid soul seeking alibis for Judaism, you may stop reading here. But since this book is intended as a discovery of Judaism, the more adventurous will wish to continue, because we have only scratched the surface of this issue. In order to ascertain what Orthodox Judaism actually teaches on this subject, one needs to study at least two other component factors: 1. the halachic status of Nokhri (gentile) women in wartime, and 2. the legal loophole Maimonides created in the concept of "sh'Lo Yilchatzenah ba'Milchamah"

Because all gentile women are either suspected or formally convicted of being prostitutes (zonah) in the eyes of the "sages" of Orthodox Judaism, in considering whether or not it is permissible to force a female gentile war captive to perform intercourse with a Judaic soldier, one consideration trumps all others: if she is behaving like a prostitute. Rashi writes in the

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Chumash (Devarim 21:13): "the Nokhri women would dress provocatively in times of war in order to willingly seduce the Jewish soldiers. Because of this, the Torah permits forcing intercourse with a Yefas To'ar who uses such tactics."

One can readily see that the permissibility of rape in such a situation is entirely subjective; predicated on a combat soldier's determination that a gentile woman (Nokhri) is dressing "provocatively," in order to supposedly seduce him. If he determines that is indeed the case, and he deems her clothing "provocative," then he may make her his captive (Yefas To'ar) and rape her, and the high-minded prohibition against rape quoted to the gentiles, "sh'Lo Yilchatzenah ba'Milchamah" of BT tractate Kiddushin 22, is null and void.

The second factor is the case law devoted to a Talmudic soldier forcing sex on a Yefas To'ar without regard to her conduct or appearance. This case involves the right of the soldier to compel a female gentile captive to convert to Judaism and marry her captor; but this is problematic in terms of the immediate sexual gratification of the Judaic soldier, since the conversion process for a gentile involves a thirty day waiting period until conversion is completed, and consequently, before engaging in sex with a female convert. The rabbinic reasoning here is that the soldier's Yetzer ha'Ra (evil inclination) will be satisfied in the knowledge (Pas b'Salo) that he will copulate with the woman in thirty days. Maimonides however, provides the lawyerly loophole necessary to ensure that the soldier will have her immediately. In Hilchos Melachim 8:3, Maimonides rules that "sh'Lo Yilchatzenah ba'Milchamah" only denotes that a Judaic soldier should not have intercourse with the Yefas To'ar during a battle. As soon as he is not engaged in actual combat, it is permissible for the Judaic soldier to take his female captive to a secluded place, away from the warfare, and rape her there.

The permission to allow gentiles to convert to Judaism is derived in part from situations arising from the halacha on forcible conversions for purposes of the sexual use of categories of persons such as the Yefas To'ar, rather than any humanitarian or equalitarian considerations. The convert to Judaism is not like a convert to Christianity, enjoying full rights and privileges of membership in the faith community. Due to his yichus (geneaology) the gentile convert to Judaism continues to be held suspect by the rabbinic

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authorities and this is expressed in terms of limitations on legal testimony and witness credibility, as well as on holding positions of authority. Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim LTMilchamotheihem 1:4:

"We do not appoint a king from among the converts, even after several generations, until at least his mother was a native-born Jewess, as it is written, *You will not set over you a stranger who is not your brother.' This applies not only to the position of king, but also for any position of authority in Israel. (A convert may not serve) as an army commander, nor a leader of fifty, nor a leader of ten, nor even a person appointed to oversee water distribution in the fields. It is superfluous to talk about a judge or a Nasi ("prince"; the head of the Sanhedrin), who may not be other than a native-born Jew, as is written, 'one from among your brethren shall you set as king over you' —all the people whom you give positions of authority shall not be from other than your brethren."

Thus Maimonides also ruled in The Laws of Sanhedrin, chapter 2 halacha 9: "A Beit Din of three (judges), one of them being a convert, is disqualified until his mother is (one born) Jewish." Nevertheless, a convert may judge his fellow convert, as it is explained in BT Yevamot 102 and as Maimonides ruled in chapter 11, halacha 11. Also the Tur and Shulchan Aruch in Choshen Mishpat, paragraph 7, ruled similarly. It is appropriate to mention the words of the Sefer HaChinuch, commandment 509 (in other editions 498) on this subject: "The root of this commandment is well known... one appointed to authority...must be, at the very least, from the seed of Israel."

However, regarding the possibility of appointing a convert to judge over Jews, the Rishonim are in disagreement. In the opinion of Rashi on Tractate

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Yevamot 102a, s.v. ger dan et chaveiro, a convert is allowed to judge a Jew on property matters, but not concerning capital laws (see also on BT Kiddushin 76b, s.v. kol mesimot.) However, in the opinion of the Rif, at the end of chapter 4 of Sanhedrin, the Tosaphot on Yevamot 45b s.v. keivan and in Sanhedrin 36b s.v. chada, the Nimukei Yosef at the beginning of chapter 12 of Yevamot, the Ran on the Rif, end of chapter 4 of Sanhedrin, and the Meiri on Kiddushin, a convert cannot judge a Jew, even on property matters, until his mother is (one born) Jewish. Thus Maimonides also ruled in The Laws of Sanhedrin, chapter 2 halacha 9: "A Beit Din of three (judges), one of them being a convert, is disqualified until his mother is (one born) Jewish."

In times of national reversal or duress for "Klal Israel" (the Judaic people) the life of the convert may be forfeit. Converts are likened to a disease and Klal Israel finds them hard to endure, especially in the "End of Days" when expectations for the arrival of the Moshiach (Messiah) are high: "Proselytes are hard for Israel to endure as a sore" (BT Yebamoth 47b). "Our Rabbis taught: 'Proselytes and those that play with children delay the advent of the Messiah" (BT tractate Niddah 13b [Soncino, 1989]). "Play with children" is a euphemism for pederasty. The convert is likened to a child molester. Both can delay the coming of the Messiah.

Some other considerations concerning converts to Judaism is the teaching that, mystically, some of these "gentiles" contain a "Jewish spark" (BT Shavuos 39a). This in turn is related to Kabbalistic mapping of the pathways of reincarnated souls. The typical retort that "Judaism can't be racist — they accept converts from other races," can be seen for the simplistic slogan it is. Any notion that the gentile convert has anything approaching equal status in Judaism with someone of Judaic descent, is a pipe dream. Thus far we have approached this topic from the vantage of the halacha directly related to it. Let us now approach it indirectly, from the standpoint of the issue of Judaics who return to frum, "observant" (of Talmudic/rabbinic halacha) status within Orthodox Judaism. In the poor treatment and paranoid suspicion attached to "repentant" returning Judaics, or "Baal Teshuva" (a repentant Judaic who has departed from tradition in the past, but has returned to the fold of Talmud allegiance; cf. Maimonides, Hilchot Teshuva 2:4), on racial grounds, we can see the extent to which Judaism's supposed non-racist recruitment and membership criteria are just another public relations hoax. It is instructive to note the extreme apprehension

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which Orthodox Judaics exhibit when considering a Baal Teshuva as a marriage candidate for their son or daughter. In this particular issue we also discover other aspects of Judaism worthy of note, for example that a non-observant Judaic father who frequents prostitutes and engages in other sins of lust but does not cast aspersions on the oral traditions, nevertheless must be respected by his son, while a "heretical" father who casts doubt on the teachings of the rabbis, is to be completely abandoned by his son, even if in every other way, the father is an upright and moral man:

"Even according to the Rambam (Moses Maimonides, who holds that one must honor a father who is a rasha [wicked]), it appears that one must continue to honor his father only if he sins rasha Vtayavohn (out of lust, for prostitutes etc.), but if he commits the transgression of mumar I'hachis (defiance of the rabbis) such as the apikorsim (heretical freethinkers who deny the Oral Law) and minim (Christians and converts to Christianity), it is obvious that it is forbidden to honor him" (Aruch HaShulchan Y.D. 240:39).

Judaism's obligation to punish Judaic heretics and its prohibition against allowing them to live in peace is unknown to the world at large, which almost exclusively associates this heresy-hunting mentality with the Spanish Inquisition and Islam's attitude toward "infidels" and "apostates." The Talmudic heresy-hunt, advocated by Orthodox rabbis historically, is not just a theory without application to real life {yehoreig ve' al yaavor). Where apikorsim can be denied life, limb or freedom, or suffer penury by being denied the means of earning a decent livelihood, these evils are visited upon them.

At this juncture we should distinguish between two categories of Judaic unbelievers: the mumarim and the apikorsim. Mumar is a general category for lumping together various types of non-observant Judaics who may or may not actually be "atheists." For example, a Judaic might refuse to heed the rules governing shatnes (mixing of wool and linen) or the mitzvos of tefillin (wearing of the leather hand and head ornaments). If he does not, however, fundamentally cast doubt on the validity of the Torah SheBeal Peh (Oral Law) itself, as a whole, and is simply a "slacker" in certain areas of observance, he is designated a minor mumar. But to be designated a complete mumar is a horrible fate and for this reason Maimonides asks: "To whom does this apply? Only to the one who has willfully denied the Torah SheBeal Peh and instead followed his own conscience" (Hilchot Mumarim 3:3). Where

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a mumar becomes synonymous with the apikoros he almost completely loses his status as a "Jew" — "If he is a mumar for idolatry, for violating the Sabbath or an apikorus, then he is like a goy and if he slaughters, the animal is rendered a neueila (non-kosher meat). (Hilchot Shechita 4:14).

This leads us into the Talmudic case law concerning a racial Judaic who, through no fault of his own, was born into a family of mumarim but who is seeking to return to frum status as a Talmud-"observant" Judaic. Moses Maimonides: "The children of these ones who have gone astray and their progeny who were misdirected and confused by their ancestors, who were raised among the Karaites and taught their philosophy are all regarded 'as babies who were kidnapped and raised by gentiles' and are considered as if they were compelled against their will, since they were indoctrinated and trained in wayward paths... Hence it is correct to regain them by teshuva and to bring them in with peaceful language until they return to the Law" (Hilchot Mamrim 3:3). Hence, if a married couple who are of Judaic ethnicity flee the cult of Judaism due to their objections to the spurious nature of its Oral Law, their children, who they raise free of the Talmud and the rabbis, have in Judaism the halachic status of tinoke shenishbeu (kidnap victims). Consequently, any removal (including abduction) of these children from their parents by rabbinic forces, is not considered, halachically, as abduction, but rather, as a rescue of the victims of abduction.

Next we take up the rabbinic consideration of the Baal Teshuva according to three racist halachic categories: 1. the psul ^racial blemish); 2. the mamzer (racial bastard) and 3. the category oi yichus (geneaology) which entails the other two. In BT Kiddush 70b we read, "When G-d causes His presence to descend, He rests it only upon the sons of Israel who are in possession of Yichus" One's yichus is determined by the megillas yuchsin (records attesting to geneaological pedigree) that have been maintained, usually by the family. From questions of exalted, defective or non-existent yichus come questions pertaining to suspicion of psul.

Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller (1578-1654),¹¹¹⁰ the Chief Rabbi of Prague, author of the definitive Mishnaic codification Tosafot Yom Tov, states: "Yichus is used in reference to knowledge of one's genealogy and the status of one's own birth." Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin: "Rashi (defines yichus as)

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'Families whose members are completely Jewish,' so as to exclude converts. However, it appears that the term (Yickus) is used to exclude families that are Jewish but have apsul. (Hamek Sheila, Sheilta 41:2).

Therefore, having the acceptable yichus consist in having no racial blemish (psul). In addition to the Judaic stained with a racial blemish, there is the Judaic who is a mamzer (bastard), which can be defined both racially (a mongrel) and religiously (a Judaic child conceived while his mother was niddah, as the Gemara says Jesus that was). A mamzer then would be any child conceived in violation of the thousands of halachos of niddah imposed by the rabbis. A very common form of mamzer in our time is that of a married Judaic women who divorces her Judaic husband, subsequently marrying another Judaic male. In order to divorce her first husband halachically she needed to obtain a get with the permission of the husband. Sometimes the get is refused and as previously mentioned, the woman becomes chained (agunah), unable to contract a valid second marriage in the eyes of the rabbis. If she dares to obtain a divorce in a secular court, any children born of the new, rabbinically illicit marriage, will have the dreaded status of mamzerut. This opens a can of worms that is sheer misery in its complexity and the ethnological stigmas imposed. In the case of a Judaic woman who divorces in a secular court and then remarries, her marriage is not recognized by the Orthodox rabbis. In their eyes she is still married to her first husband. The offspring of her unapproved marriage are considered mamzerut. According to rabbinic law, a mamzer can only marry another mamzer, or someone of even lower status, such as a gentile convert to Judaism; all children produced from the marriage of a mamzer and a mamzer; or of a mamzer and a convert, are mamzerim forever.

With regard to any rabbi who is a historical figure about whom biographical details are known, Orthodox Judaics consider not only his writings and the record of his life, but his all-important genealogy, and that of his progeny. The Rabbi known as "the Bach," Joel Sirkes (ca. 1561-1640), is a famous Talmudic decisor. His eponymous masterwork is a codification of the Arbah Turim of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher, as well as hundreds of responsa. "His (Joel Sirkes') paternal grandfather, Rabbi Moses of Cracow, was referred to with great respect by no less an authority than Solomon Luria himself. Some doubt has been raised, however, as to whether Rabbi Moses was not in reality the father-in-law of Sirkes' father. His father, Rabbi Samuel Jaffe,

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whose opinions are occasionally cited in Sirkes' works, was his teacher in younger years. Possibly Rabbi Samuel died when his son was still young...Rabbi Samuel may have married the sister of Rabbi Mordecai Cohen, thus being related via marriage to the family of Sirkes' wife....His (Joel Sirkes') bride was Baila, daughter of the wealthy Rabbi Abraham Fum of Lwow...Rabbi Abraham's father was Rabbi Naftali Hertz; his grandfather was Rabbi Menahem Mendel, of Krakavitz. Her maternal grandfather was Rabbi Joel Singer of Cracow, father-in-law of Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe of Posen, author of the Lebushim, and step-father of the author ofShearit Joseph.

"Rabbi Joel had two sons of renown. The older, Judah Leib, functioned as Ab Bet Din in Pinczow....One of the two sons, probably Judah Leib, married the niece of a wealthy resident of Prague, Rabbi Hanokh Hammershlag, in 1621. The identity of the wife of the younger son is unknown. Of Sirkes' three daughters, Esther, the eldest, married Rabbi Judah Zelkel Ashkenazi, (the) Dayan Hagadol of Cracow and a respected legal authority and Kabbalist. He endorsed two Kabbalistic works: Sefer Emek Hamelekh¹¹¹¹ and Nahalat Tzevi Massekhet Abot, by Rabbi Tzevi Hirsch ben Simon. Rabbi Ashkenazi served as Dayan in Cracow, contemporary with Rabbi Yom-Tob Lipman Heller and Rabbi Joshua ben Joseph....One of their sons, who studied under Sirkes and later exchanged correspondence with him, was Rabbi Naftali Hertz who became Ab Bet Din of Lemberg in 1649. Rabbi Joel established a particularly close relationship with the husband of his second daughter, Rebecca. This man was Rabbi David Halevi, author of the Turei Zahab, an extensive commentary to Karo's Shulhan Arukh, and a scholar of such proportion and influence as to rank among the greatest produced by Eastern European Jewry....

"...Rabbi David subsequently settled with his wife in Cracow... Later they had two sons, both rabbis, and two daughters, both married to rabbinic scholars. It is believed that Sirkes had a third daughter as well.-.Zunz raises the possibility that there may have been in reality only two daughters and that the widow of Jacob later became the wife of Rabbi David Halevi...Rabbi Jacob died in 1621, and Rabbi David is already mentioned as Sirkes' son-in-law in Responsa BH, no. 78, dated 1614...Sources also make mention of the following as being among Sirkes' relations, probably through marriage: Rabbi

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Abraham ben Benjamin Aaron of Lwow, Rabbi Joseph Katz of Cracow, Rabbi Samuel Ladino, Rabbi Tzevi Hirsch ben Ozer, Rabbi Yom Tob Lipman Heller, Rabbi Aaron Samuel Kaidanower, and Rabbi Gershon Ashkenazi." ¹¹¹²

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Yom Tov: Holy Days and Observances

"On 14 October 1663 (Samuel) Pepys paid a visit to a London synagogue where he marveled at 'the men and boys in their Vayles, and the women behind a lettice out of sight,' the Hebrew service and prayer for the king, and the transportation of the law. In the end, however, he found the service ridiculous: 'But Lord, to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like Brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more; and indeed, I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.' In a 'strange, disturbed' state Pepys left the synagogue; one year later gentiles were prohibited from visiting the synagogue." ^ms

In the Old Testament at Exodus 23: 10-11 we read, "six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still." Leviticus 25: 1-5: "And Yahweh spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto Yahweh. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for Yahweh: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land."

One would expect that if rabbinic Judaism's claim to being an Old Testament religion had any validity, this divinely mandated seventh-year Sabbath would be observed whenever and wherever Judaics owned or managed agricultural production, and particularly so in the Israeli state. Instead, as of this writing (2008) the land sabbath has almost never been observed by Israeli rabbis, in direct defiance of God's Biblical command. The seventh-year sabbath for the land has been consistently overruled by the

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"greater than God" rabbis who issued a nullification of God's Word as it relates to the land sabbath. Their nullification is titled the "Heter Mechirah." It was issued in modern form in 1888 and implemented in Palestine for the shmittah year 1889, by Ashkenazi rahbanim based in Europe, as the tiny Judaic population of Palestine began to grow, commensurate with Zionist agitation for Judaic emigration from Europe. The 1888 Heter Mechirah was initiated by Rabbi Shmuel Zanvil Klepfish (1820-1902), of the rabbinic court of Poland. He was "regarded as one of the outstanding halakhic authorities of his time." ¹¹¹⁴

Also issuing the ruling were Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever (also spelled "Mohilewer," 1824-1898), who was the Chief Rabbi of Bialistock; along with Rabbi Israel Yehoushua Trunk of Kutn, and Rabbis Isaac Elhanan Spektor (the rosh yeshiva of Kovno, also spelled "Yitzchok Elchonon Spector"), and M. Eliasberg. Rabbi Mohilever "was among those who influenced Edmond de Rothschild to extend aid to the first (Zionist) settlements in Eretz Israel, and

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induced him to establish settlement for Jewish farmers coming from Russia...In 1888 he joined I.E. Spektor and M. Eliasberg, and others, who allowed the farmers to work the fields during the shemittah year...Mohilewer joined the World Zionist Organization when it was founded by Herzl...He was chosen as one of the four leaders who were charged with directing the work of the Zionist movement in Russia and as the head of its 'spiritual center'...¹¹¹⁵ His Talmudic legal rulings and responsa were published as Hikrei Halakhah u-She'elot u-Teshuvot (1944).
Rabbi I.E. Spektor was the inspiration for Samson Raphael Hirsch's modern confirmation of the fundamental tenets of Pharisaic Judaism in his book on the relationship between the Talmud and Judaism. "On the question of agricultural labor in Eretz Israel, in a shemittah ('sabbatical') year, he

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favored its permission by the nominal sale of land to a non-Jew, a measure which is employed to the present day." ¹¹¹⁶

The nullification, Heter Mechirah is implemented by means of a farcial symbolic "sale" for the sabbatical year, of land in Palestine to a gentile, who works it on behalf of its Talmudic owner. It also requires that the goyim do all of the heavy farm labor during that year. At the end of the year, the ownership of the land reverts to the Judiac. By this means the land is not rested, as God commanded of His Old Testament-observant people.

The abrogation of the sabbatical year was subsequently approved by the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, the famous Avraham Isaac Kook. All subsequent Israeli Chief Rabbis have continued to uphold the validity of the Heter Mechirah, which signifies that since the nineteenth century in Palestine, and later, after the founding of so-called "Israel," the sabbatical year, as mandated by the Old Testament, has never been observed. Rabbi Ze'ev Weitman, who, in 2007, was appointed by the Chief Rabbi to oversee shmittah-related issues, confessed to the media that, "The (Heter Mechirah) sale is actually a way to get around shmitta (the Biblically-mandated sabbatical year)."