This week’s parsha is full of interesting material, for it contains no fewer than 74 mitzvot. That is more than any other parashah, and a whopping 12% of all of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah (though Maimonides counted only 72. Whatever). We had to narrow down our discussion to just one of these, and so, at random, we chose the commandment about the mamzer.
Who is a MaMzer?
A mamzer is a child born of a certain union that is forbidden in the Torah. Examples would be a child born from an adulterous relationship (where the woman is married to another person) or an incestuous one. A mamzer is not a child born out of wedlock, and who was once known as a bastard. In this week’s parsha The Torah prohibits a mamzer from entering into marriage with an ordinary Jew:
דברים כג, ג
לֹא־יָבֹ֥א מַמְזֵ֖ר בִּקְהַ֣ל יְהֹוָ֑ה גַּ֚ם דּ֣וֹר עֲשִׂירִ֔י לֹא־יָ֥בֹא ל֖וֹ בִּקְהַ֥ל יְהֹוָֽה׃
The mamzer shall be admitted into the congregation of God; no descendant of such, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of God
According to Rabbi Abahu in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Kiddushin 3:12) the word mamzer comes from the Hebrew מום זר - mum zar - “a strange defect.” It is on the basis of this etymology that many have tried to find defects in the anatomy or the personality of a mamzer. This week on Talmudology on the Parsha we will examine rabbinic attitudes towards the mamzer.
The Mamzer is infertile, and more likely to die early
According to the famous medieval scholar Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (c. 1269 - c. 1343), who was also known as the Ba’al Haturim, a mamzer is infertile:
בעל הטורים דברים כג, ג
לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה' סמך ממזר לפצוע דכה שממזר אינו מוליד כפצוע דכא
The verse about the mamzer is written close to the verse about the person with crushed genitalia to teach that just like that person, a mamzer cannot reproduce.
In a variation on this theme, the medieval Sefer Hasidim wrote that a mamzer can indeed reproduce, but his or her children will be infertile:
מכאן יש לומר למוליד ממזר לא מבעיא דלא קיים מצות פריה ורביה אלא שמעכב את המשיח דקאמר ממזר לא חי אותו ממזר שמוליד לא יוליד בנים דלא חיי כטרפה
Both of these assertions are at odds with the Torah itself, in which the verse stated that no descendants of the mamzer were to be admitted into the congregation, which surely implies that a mamzer can indeed reproduce. And while I know of no clinical study looking at the fertility of the children of prohibited unions, there is, prima facie, no reason whatsoever to believe that children born, say, of an adulterous relationship, are infertile.
Of course, this is not true of children born of incestuous unions. In these cases, there is indeed a higher likelihood of all manner of genetic problems, of which infertility may be one expression. A paper published in 1979 titled A Study of Chidren of Incestuous Matings noted that in a group of 161 children from incestuous matings, prenatal, neonatal and infant mortality was higher than among half-siblings who were offspring of unrelated parents, and this group also had a higher rate of congenital malformations. Thus, the observation of Rav Huna in the Talmud Yerushalmi (קידושין ד, א) that “a mamzer does not live for more than thirty days” (אֵין מַמְזֵר חַיי יוֹתֵר מִשְּׁלֹשִׁים יוֹם) might actually have some factual basis, at least for a subset of mamzerim.
Congenital malformations and other abnormalities. From E. Seemanova. A study of children of incestuous matings. Human Heredity 1971: 21: 108-128.
On the Characteristics of a Mamzer
Some rabbis believed that the mamzer was endowed with certain talents, while others wrote that he (or she) was physically different to other people. According Abba Shaul in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Kiddushin 4:11), “most mamzerim are intelligent - רוֹב מַמְזֵירִין פִּקְחִין. (Abba Shaul may also have been behind the famous aphorism that “the best physicians should go to hell”, and we have dealt with that elsewhere.) Still, Abba Shaul’s sweeping statement was not seen as a compliment. Here is the standard commentary on the Yerushalmi, called Korban Ha’edah. It was written by the German rabbi David ben Naphtali Frankel (~1704-1762):
רוב ממזרים פקחי. שדומין לאביהן שהם בעלי ערמה לפתות הנשים ולהסתיר מעשיהם מבני האדם ונ"מ להזהר מהם
Most mamzerim are intelligent: Because they are like their fathers, who are crafty in their ability to seduce women and hide their actions from others. It is important to be aware of this characteristic, so that we can beware of them.
The other standard commentary on the Yerushalmi, Moshe Margolies’ Pnei Moshe, makes exactly the same point:
רוב ממזרים פקחין. שהן דומין לאביהן בעלי ערמה ומתנכלים בתחבולות לפתות הנשים ולהסתיר מעשיהם מבני אדם
So a better translation of the original Yerushalmi, according to these two commentaries, would be: “Most mamzerim are crafty, and therefore they should not be trusted.” It was this belief that led the authors of the early medieval Hebrew work Toldot Yeshu - “A History of Jesus,” to claim that Jesus was himself a mamzer, because he had acted in a brazen manner in front of the Sanhedrin.
A similar observation is made in the minor tractate Kallah:
עז פנים רבי אליעזר אומר ממזר רבי יהושע אומר בן הנדה רבי עקיבא אומר ממזר ובן הנדה
The bold-faced, Rabbi Eliezer said, is the mamzer; the son of a niddah, said Rabbi Joshua; Rabbi Akivah said: Both a mamzer and the son of a niddah.
Given the long tradition of ascribing personality characteristics to the mamzer, it is not surprising that some went one step further and claimed that the mamzer has certain specific physical characteristics. Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Abraham Hacohen, of Smyrna (~1650-1729) was a mystic who produced over thirty books. Like many of his time, Rabbi Elijah was a strong believer in palm reading, the belief that lines on the palm reflect the personality and future fate of a person. He also believed in a version of phrenology, in which bumps on the skull indicate a person’s intelligence and other qualities. In his work Midrash Talpiot, which was a collection of rabbinic sayings mixed with his own observations, Rabbi Elijah wrote that “the shape of the ear will reflect if there is any degree of mamzerut” - “באזן ניכר מי שיש בו צד ממזרות.” Alas, the rabbi did not give any more details, fearing that they might be misused.
Elijah Hacohen. Midrash Talpiot, Lemberg 1875, 30.
The mamzer cannot enter Jerusalem
Avot de’Rabbi Natan is companion text to the Mishnaic Pirkei Avot, and is usually printed along with the minor tractates of the Talmud. It was composed sometime in the era of the Gaonim, between 650-900 CE. In its eighth chapter we read the following:
אבות דרנבי נתן יב, ח
וכן מי שעובר עבירה והוליד ממזר אומרים לו ריקה חבלת בעצמך חבלת בו [שאותו ממזר היה רוצה ללמוד תורה עם אותן התלמידים] שהיו יושבין ושונין בירושלים והיה הממזר הולך עמהן עד שהגיע לאשדוד עומד שם ואומר אוי לי אילו לא הייתי ממזר כבר הייתי יושב ושונה בין התלמידים שלמדתי עד עכשיו ולפי שאני ממזר איני יושב ושונה בין התלמידים לפי שאין ממזר נכנס לירושלים כל עיקר שנאמר (זכריה ט) וישב ממזר באשדוד (והכרתי גאון פלשתים
So, too, with someone whose sexual transgression produces a mamzer. They say to him: Empty one! You have ruined yourself and you have ruined him as well! [For this mamzer would have wanted to study Torah with the rest of the students] who sit and study in Jerusalem. But this mamzer would go with them only up to Ashdod, and then would stop there and say: Woe is me! If I were not a mamzer, I would have gone to sit and study among the students whom I have been studying with until now. But because I am a mamzer, I cannot sit and study among these students. For a mamzer cannot enter Jerusalem at all, as it says (Zechariah 9:6), “The mamzer will stay in Ashdod, (and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.”
Mi Sheberach for a Mamzer
In one of his volumes of responsa, Rabbi Chezkiah Fivel Plaut (1818-1894) was asked whether it was permissible to call a mamzer up to the Torah. Rabbi Plaut, who was a student of the Chatam Sofer, concluded that it is indeed permitted, but did not know if it was permitted to say the general prayer for the well-being of the person called to the Torah, known as the Mi Sheberach (מי שברך). “I am uncertain whether to say the Mi Shebarch, because the focus of this blessing is on his children, and God forbid that there would be more mamzerim among the Jewish people.”
Chezkiah Feival Plaut. Likutei Chaver ben Chaim. Munkach 1883. 104b.
Tattooing the Forehead of a mamzer with a warning
Rabbi Yishmael Hacohen (1723-1811), came from a distinguished rabbinic family and took over the mantle of leadership in the Italian city of Modena from his older brother who died in 1781. In 1881 he was asked by Rabbi Avraham Yona of Venice whether it was permitted to tattoo the forehead of a mamzer with the word “mamzer,” which would serve as a warning sign not to allow this person to marry into the Jewish community. The halakhic concerns revolve around the question of tattooing, and not, as we might think today, as to whether this was a reasonable thing to do.
Rabbi Yona was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea, but Rabbi Yishmael was, at least initially, not sure. But at the end of his lengthy responsa he concluded that it was indeed permitted, since although tattooing was forbidden, if it was performed by a Gentile it was allowed in this case, for it prevented “a greater transgression.” This opinion is cited in דרכי תשובה יורה דעה קפ, סק’א.
It is permitted to tattoo the forehead of a mamzer. From Yishmael ben Avraham Hacohen. Zera Emet. Vol 3, 140b.
Modern Efforts to Ignore Mamzerut
There are certain caterogical rulings in the Torah that the rabbis did their best to ignore. The Torah demand “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:23–27), but the rabbis ignored this and interpreted the verse as requiring monetary compensation (Bava Kamma 83b–84a). The Torah demanded that loans be forgiven every seven years during the shmitta year (Deuteronomy 15:1–6), but the rabbis found this law to be unworkable. So Hillel Hazaken created the prozbul which protected the investment of the lenders. Despite the severity of the prohibition of mamzer, and not withstanding some of the later rabbinic statements that we have seen, talmudic and contemporary rabbis were often very sympathetic to the plight of the mamzer, and went to extreme legal lengths to remove the label. So for example in tractate Yevamot (80b) Rava ruled that a child born twelve months after a married woman’s husband left her and travelled abroad was not a mamzer. Perhaps, he argued, the pregnancy had just been unusually long.
יבמות פ, ב
אֶלָּא הָא דַּעֲבַד רָבָא תּוֹסְפָאָה עוֹבָדָא בְּאִשָּׁה שֶׁהָלַךְ בַּעְלָהּ לִמְדִינַת הַיָּם וְאִישְׁתַּהִי עַד תְּרֵיסַר יַרְחֵי שַׁתָּא וְאַכְשְׁרֵיהּ כְּמַאן כְּרַבִּי דְּאָמַר מִשְׁתַּהֵא
With regard to the action taken by Rava Tosfa’a concerning a woman whose husband went overseas and her baby was delayed in her womb for the twelve months of the year following her husband’s departure, and Rava Tosfa’a rendered the child fit, arguing that the husband is presumed to be the father and the child is not a mamzer…
Perhaps the best example recent example of this effort comes from the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920-2013) who was the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973-1983. He was asked about the case of a young woman who believed that she was a mamzeret. Her mother had been married by a haredi rabbi to a man who subsequently left her, converted to Christianity, married another woman, and refused to give his first a Jewish divorce. This wife later obtained a civil (but not a Jewish) divorce, remarried civilly and had the daughter. This daughter was indisputably the result the union of a woman who is married (under Jewish law) and a man who was not her husband, that making her children mamzerim.
But Rabbi Yosef found a way to demonstrate that the daughter was not technically a mamzeret, although he never explicitly stated any discomfort with the notion of mamzer. In his work Yabiah Omer (volume 7, Even Ha’ezer 6) he refused to allow any testimony from the mother, since she was an interested party. He also refused to allow any testimony from the haredi rabbi who performed the marriage, since he was but a single witness, and two witnesses are required to establish proof in Jewish law. He continued along this vein until he concluded that there was enough uncertainty in the case to remove the label of mamzerut from the daughter, and allow her to marry into the Jewish people.
שו׳ת יביע אומר, חלק ז, אה׳ע סימן ו
The rabbinic attitude towards mamzerut demonstrates that there really has never been a single rabbinic attitude towards the problem. Some made the life of the mamzer extraordinarily difficult, and even suggested that the mamzer had physical or character flaws. One even suggested that the mamzer be tattooed as a warning to others. But others went to great efforts to remove the need to categorize any person as a mamzer. Let’s end with a reminder that in classic Jewish teaching, the mamzer can rise to great religious heights, regardless of the actions of his or her parents.
משנה הוריות ג, ח
מַמְזֵר תַּלְמִיד חָכָם קוֹדֵם לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל עַם הָאָרֶץ
But if there were a mamzer who is a Torah scholar and a High Priest who is an ignoramus, a mamzer who is a Torah scholar is rescued before a High Priest who is an ignoramus, as Torah wisdom surpasses all else.
