Kiddushin 71: A Deeper Consideration of Mamzer Status

It is noted that people can buy their way out of the status of mamzer.  If mamzerim have enough money, other Jews are willing to marry them.  That is because people tend to look aside when they see a wealthier person walk by.  And mamzerim who are wealthy assimilate into the larger Jewish community.  The result?  Over time, people don't know the lineage of their neighbours.  In today's daf, rabbis in Israel argue with rabbis from Babylon about which know the lineage of their communities.  

We learn that Sages did not wish to reveal who might be a mamzer if that person was wealthy, powerful, and assimilated into the community.  Perhaps they would share that information once every seven years.

This is then compared with the secret transmission of G-d's twelve letter name, and then G-d's forty-two letter name.  Priests would whisper these names to others while the his priestly brothers sung their sweet melodies.  They would transmit these names to people who were discreet, humble, in the middle of their lives, does not get angry, does not get drunk, and does not insist on his own rights but yields to others.  This would ensure that such a person would not repeat G-d's name in anger or drunkenness, but would guard it carefully.

The arguments about lineage sound similar to today's arguments about the rights of immigrants.  For example, both rabbis in Israel and Babylonia say that there is an assumed presumptive status of unflawed lineage for people of that place.  In Babylonia, people use a specific Arabic accent.  Anyone with that accent is understood to have come from that place where their lineage is assumed to be unflawed. However, we are told that "these days", people are unscrupulous and would put on a Babylonian Aramaic accent in order to hide their flawed lineage.

The rabbis provide us with colourful examples of families not joining through marriage due to these fears about flawed lineage. Rabbi Ze'eira was willing to carry Rabbi Yochanan on his shoulders over a puddle but was not willing to marry Rabbi Yochanan's daughter!  And one way that rabbis might determine who is of unflawed lineage is watching two people argue.  The first person to be silent is the one of unflawed lineage.  So the status of mamzer is not only associated with mistakes of the parents, but with poor interpersonal behaviour.

Similarly, the rabbis discuss certain places from which flawed lineage should be assumed. Our daf ends with a conversation about specific towns and small cities in and around Babylonia where people speak different dialects and perhaps have different customs.  The Gemara mentions where these places are located in relation to each other and in relation to certain rivers and bodies of water.

Talk about stigma!  But the seriousness of a transgression when it comes to marriageable status is very significant in the times of the Talmud.  Now, for example, we discuss inter-marriage as an issue. We are concerned about the dilution of Judaism.  But in ancient times, such a marriage would result in karet, a punishment that could mean death, death at the hand of heaven, or excommunication - 'cutting off' from the larger Jewish community.

What happens if we follow these laws regarding marriage and 'flaws'?  Those who choose to marry outside of these laws - which has obviously been part of our very long history - are distanced from the rest o the community. Their children are distanced even more from their community.  By the time these children have their own children, it is likely that they know nothing about their Jewish heritage. Is this 'cutting off' really helping us to strengthen those remaining in the Jewish community?  Or does it simply recreate a more insular community?  Is the solution to Jewish continuity the maintenance of these halachot?  Or more leniency with our prohibitions?  Or something else that we're all missing?