sommers@topaz.ARPA (Liz Sommers) (03/22/85)
As I had a completely secular education and grew up in completely
religiously non-active family - WHAT IS A MAMZER? Please? Most of what I
read in this newsgroup I can understand, but this one is getting to me.
Thanks
--
liz sommers
uucp: ...{harvard, seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!topaz!sommers
arpa: sommers@rutgersteitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz) (03/26/85)
> As I had a completely secular education and grew up in completely > religiously non-active family - WHAT IS A MAMZER? Please? Most of what I > read in this newsgroup I can understand, but this one is getting to me. > The answer is not a simple one. A mamzer is a child born to an illegal wedding. Not all illegal weddings though produce mamzerim ( plural of mamzer ). There are marriages in the Torah which are prohibited, but whose punishment is not death ( eg. if a Cohen [priest] marries a divorced woman, the child is not a mamzer. Likewise, if a man has marital relations with his wife when she is prohibited to him [ during and after menstruation, until she immerses in a mikva [ ritual bath ]). A marriage which is punishable by death ( not only marriage, even just relations with such a woman, eg. a man and his daughter ) produces mamzerim. One of these cases is a woman who is married having relations with another man. The child of this meeting is a mamzer. The Torah only recognizes religious divorce and secular divorce is not valid, and a child produced by a subsequent marriage would be a mamzer. A man is not prohibited from marrying twice. The reason is simple. If a man has two wives, we know definitely who the father is, while a woman with two husbands has a doubt as to who the real father is. Eliyahu Teitz.