Q&A: The Campaign Against Assimilation
The Campaign Against Assimilation
Question
Hello Rabbi, I wanted to know whether my view is correct: that the campaign against assimilation is problematic, because as a result of it, those who are at risk of assimilation will marry a menstruant woman, which is a more severe prohibition. After all, the rule that a gentile woman is considered like a menstruant is a rabbinic decree, as explained at length in the Talmudic passage in Avodah Zarah 36b, and I will not go into it here. (And from the words of Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh, who wrote, “Do not let this prohibition be light in your eyes, for his son is not considered his offspring”—that is not proof of a unique stringency, but rather an intensification of the force of the prohibition itself.) I raised this point before some of the main activists preaching against assimilation abroad, and they were surprised and asked for the opinion of a clearly recognized Torah authority. I would be happy to hear the Rabbi’s answer.
Thank you very much
Answer
I don’t know which campaign you mean. In any case, when someone is about to commit a transgression, it is proper to try to prevent it. If there is concern that he will commit some other transgression, that is not our responsibility—certainly if preventing the current transgression is not what causes the other one. Should we refrain from trying to prevent Sabbath desecration because we are worried that if he stays home he may eat pork or worship idols? At most, you should also run a campaign against the prohibition of relations with a menstruant woman.
Discussion on Answer
I already answered all this. Completely absurd.
Maybe we should also kill him, since if he stays alive he will certainly commit transgressions for which one is liable to death, and from which one must even give up one’s life to be saved.
And similarly, why desecrate the Sabbath to save him if he is not going to keep future Sabbaths?
The rule is that you deal with what is in front of you. The future is not in your hands, and you are not charged with worrying about it—certainly not where doing so would involve transgressions right now (such as refraining from saving someone from a transgression, or killing him).
I also don’t understand why you wouldn’t run a campaign in favor of assimilation. Anyone who would be persuaded by it is certainly not observant of Torah and commandments, and then the chances are that he would marry a woman with whom he would have relations while she is a menstruant woman.
It should be noted that I agree with the questioner, but there are other opinions as well
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-jewish-prostitute-versus-jewish.html?m=1
If so-and-so consults me about two exes he has, one Jewish and one not, and it is clear to me that the Jewish one will not go to the mikveh, what am I supposed to answer him (without hiding my motives from him)?
P.S. It would be good to fix the title of the question.
Aharon, don’t answer anything. No one is supposed to be an adviser on how to minimize transgressions. You should say that both are forbidden, and that’s it.
But the Rabbi answered that other questioner about someone who has relations with a married woman, where there is a Talmudic passage saying that if he sees his urge overpowering him, he should wear black clothes, etc.—and there the Rabbi emphasized that this is only damage control. The Rabbi didn’t just say, “It’s forbidden, period,” but rather brought that damage-control advice to that questioner’s attention.
I brought the Talmudic passage to his attention. I didn’t advise him on minimizing transgressions. If someone asks me which transgression is more severe, there is no problem answering. That is halakhic information.
So why did the Rabbi write, “You should say that both are forbidden, and that’s it”? Aharon can reveal halakhic information to him, and there is no problem answering which transgression is more severe. That person in the story about the married woman didn’t come to “ask a rabbi” and consult him only in order to enrich his halakhic knowledge, did he?! So when does it become advice?
When he comes and asks whether transgression A is more severe than B, that is information. When he asks me to think for him about a less severe way out, that is not.
Yes, Rabbi. But here it is almost inevitable that he will marry at some point, and if it is to a Jewish woman—which is the only alternative—then it is almost inevitable that she will be a menstruant woman. (Because a person who belongs to a risk group for assimilation is not at a spiritual level that would cause an observant Jewish woman to marry him.) And if it really is none of our business to get involved in his sins and actions, then we also should not prevent him from marrying a gentile woman, since it is not our obligation to worry about that.