{"id":51439,"date":"2019-03-17T17:34:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-17T15:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=51439"},"modified":"2022-10-09T14:11:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:11:10","slug":"the-incoherence-of-exclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-incoherence-of-exclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incoherence Of Exclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[462,712,627],"acf":{"old_id":"51439","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":51365,"related_cahpter":"176","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"What should ethnic boundaries mean to us today?","content":"

This chapter contains a set of prohibitions I find deeply troubling: the ban on Moabites and Ammonites from \u201centering the community of God\u201d \u2013 that is, from converting and freely marrying into the Jewish people. The prohibition is justified as a response to their ill-treatment of the Jewish people, but at the end of the day, I struggle to understand how the Torah could write people off solely on the basis of ethnicity. <\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Mishnah<\/span> in <\/span>Masechet Yadayim <\/span><\/em>4:4<\/span> tells a story of a time when this law was challenged: <\/span><\/p>\n

On that day, Judah the Ammonite convert came and stood before them in the Beit Midrash and said, \u201cWhat am I to enter the congregation?\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabban Gamliel said to him, \u201cYou are prohibited.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, \u201cYou are permitted.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabban Gamliel said to Rabbi Yehoshua, \u201cBut the Torah says: \u2018An Ammonite and a Moabite cannot enter the community of Hashem even to the tenth generation.\u2019<\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, \u201cAre the Ammonite and the Moabites in their lands? \u00a0Sennecharib the King of Assyria has already scrambled the peoples, as it says: \u2018I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the mighty number of their inhabitants.\u2019\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabban Gamliel said to him, \u201cBut the Torah says: \u2018And afterwards I will return the captivity of Ammon,\u2019 and they have already returned.\u201d <\/span>
\n<\/span>Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, \u201cThe Torah says: \u2018And I will return the captivity of Israel,\u2019 and they have not returned.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>They immediately permitted him to enter the community. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This narrative could be read as overturning the prohibition on Ammonites purely on technical grounds, and not engaging with the moral question of discrimination. However, I think the Mishnah here is actually doing something much deeper than that. <\/span><\/p>\n

This Mishnah<\/span> challenges the coherence of any ideology that views ethnicity as fixed, static, and unchanging. Ethnicity simply doesn\u2019t work that way; the winds of history and empire and migration make it simply impossible to assert that one ethnicity can be banned for all time. \u00a0The Torah\u2019s prohibition can\u2019t be enacted, not just because it would be cruel, but because it would be incoherent.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gemara<\/span> Tractate Berachot<\/span> 28a<\/span> records that the day that Judah the Ammonite Convert was permitted to enter the community was a day where the walls of the <\/span>Beit Midrash <\/span><\/i>were expanded to include hundreds of people who were previously excluded, leading to a massive outpouring of Torah and insight. <\/span><\/p>\n

I hope we can all come to see the wisdom of striving for greater inclusion in our communities, and to reap the benefit of the wisdom and Torah that it generates. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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