פירוש על דברים 23:3

לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה׳ ONE BORN IN INCEST OR ADULTERY SHALL NOT COME INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF THE LORD — i.e. he shall not marry an Israelite woman (Yevamot 78b).

MAMZEIR’ (BASTARD). The term signifies a man who is muzar (estranged) from his brothers and his friends, for it is not known whence he comes. This is similar to the verse, And a ‘mamzeir’ shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines,²²³Zechariah 9:6. the verse stating that no one will dwell in Ashdod save a foreigner or a stranger who will chance to pass by, for the pride of the Philistines will have been cut off from it [Ashdod]. Now, if a child is born to a man from his father’s wife, he [the father] will put him far away and not acknowledge him because of his shame and disgrace [resulting] from the evil deed that he committed. His mother also will cast him away by night, like the asufi (any cast-off child whose father and mother are unknown) that is mentioned in the Talmud.²²⁴Kiddushin 69a. Thus the mamzeir is “estranged” in his native city, and so also the offspring of any of the forbidden relations as our Rabbis have said in Yerushalmi Kiddushin:²²⁵Yerushalmi Kiddushin III. 14. “Rabbi Abahu said: What is the meaning of mamzeir? Mum zar (a strange blemish”).

ממזר, “bastard,” according to Nachmanides the term is derived from מוזר, something or somebody strange, not fitting into an accepted mould and therefore excluded, rejected. When a man fathers the child of his father’s wife, he is so ashamed that he will not acknowledge the child, will shun it, ostracise it; he will try to minimize his own shame by not being associated with the product of his unbridled lust. Similarly, the mother of such a child will try and rid herself of it in the dark of the night. The child will wind up being a “foundling.”

לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה', “A bastard must not enter the congregation of the Lord.” He is not allowed to marry a natural born Jewess but is permitted to marry a convert (Maimonides Hilchot Issurey Biah 15,7), seeing the Torah only forbade entry into קהל ה', and a congregation of converts is not considered קהל ה'. A “bastard” is someone born of the type of illegal union which is punishable by the penalty of karet according to Torah law, or people who sired children after having been legally sentenced to death by a Jewish court (the exception is the child born from a union while the mother was menstruous). The term ממזר is a contraction of the words מום זר, “a blemish making him an outsider” (compare Jerusalem Talmud Kidushin 3,12).

He may not marry an Israelite woman. You might ask: Why Rashi does not explain this above by פצוע דכא? The answer is that Rashi’s intent here is not to explain the meaning of “Adonoy’s community,” as it is obvious that “Adonoy’s community” means to not marry an Israelite woman. Rather, Rashi is answering the question: Why is it written that “a base-born may not enter into Adonoy’s community,” as we would already know this from a kal vachomer. If a פצוע דכא who was not created through sin is forbidden to enter the community, how much more a base-born who was created through sin! Therefore he explains, “He may not marry an Israelite woman.” That is, even if he married her we force him to divorce her. But if a פצוע דכא married her he does not have to divorce her. Therefore we cannot learn the base-born from the פצוע דכא with a kal vachomer because the rule is, “suffice it for that learnt from the kal vachomer to be like the source.”

'לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה, “a bastard must not marry a Jewish woman;” seeing that he is a product of a union punishable by extinction of its seed, what point is there in such a male impregnating a Jewish woman with his seed?

The definition of a mamzer from the root זר, alien, is someone whose mother was out of bounds to the male who had impregnated her.