Commento su Deuteronomio 23:4

לא יבא עמוני AN AMONITE [OR MOABITE] SHALL NOT COME [INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF THE LORD] — i.e. he shall not marry an Israelite woman (Yevamot 77b).

לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל השם, "Neither an Ammonite nor a Moabite may become members of the Jewish people, etc." The reason which the Torah gives for denying the male members of these tribes the right to convert to Judaism, i.e. that they did not come forward with bread and water to assist the Israelites when the latter came out of Egypt is hard to understand. Does not the Torah itself testify in Deut. 2,29: "as did the members of the tribe of Esau and the Moabites?" The reference is to both of these nations having sold provisions to the Israelites at the time. Rashi explains the apparent contradiction as 1) the verse in 2,29 referring to the Israelites' offer to buy food in return for money (2,28). 2) What is written here refers to the fact that they hired Bileam to curse the Jewish people and to lead it into sin at the end of the 40 years trek through the desert whereas what is written earlier refers to what transpired in the first year of the Israelites' wanderings. Perhaps the word על דבר is meant to alert us that what they did with Bileam would have sufficed to exclude them forever as members of the Jewish people. The word קדמו means they should have come forward on their own account offering bread and water as gifts. This would have been only small recompense for all which our forefather Abraham had done for them. Instead of repaying good with good they had repaid good with evil. The plain meaning of the words לא קדמו אתכם is that they did nothing for your benefit.

He may not marry an Israelite woman. You might ask: Rashi already said this before on the verse, “A base-born may not enter into Adonoy’s community”! The answer is that since Ammonite and Moavite males are forbidden to enter the community, but females are permitted to enter the community, Rashi has to explain that a male may not marry an Israelite woman, but [an Ammonite and Moavite] woman may marry an Israelite man. This too is why the verse had to write, regarding an Ammonite and Moavite, that they may not enter the community of Adonoy.

VV. 4 —7. לא יבא עמוני ומואבי וגו׳. Jebamot 76 b wird als Halacha gelehrt: עמוני ומואבי אסורים ואסורן אסור עולם אבל נקיבותיהם מותרות מיד, von Ammon und Moab sind die Männlichen selbst nach ihrem Übertritt zum Judentum in allen Folgegeschlechtern für den jüdischen Ehekreis אסור, die weiblichen sind jedoch sofort nach ihrem Übertritt zum Judentum für den jüdischen Ehekreis gestattet; das Verbot trifft nur den Ammoniter und den Moabiter, nicht aber die Ammoniterin und Moabiterin, עמוני ולא עמונית מואבי ולא מואבית. Motiviert wird die Halacha mit Hinweis auf die im Gesetze gegebene Motivierung des Verbotes: על דבר אשר לא קדמו אתכם בלחם ובמים, weil sie die internationale Menschlichkeit nicht geübt, an ihr Gebiet vorüberziehende von langer Wüstenwanderung ermattete Menschen mit Speise und Trank zu laben, דרכו של איש לקדם ולא דרכה של אשה לקדם, die öffentliche Ausübung solcher internationalen Humanität aber zunächst von den Männern abhängt. Die Frauen trifft der Vorwurf nicht. Nicht zu übersehen dürfte auch der Wechsel des Numerus sein. Der Vorwurf der unterlassenen Labung wird im Plural ausgesprochen, ׳לא קדמו וגו; es ist dies ja eine internationale Menschenpflicht, die von jedem einzelnen ihre Erfüllung erwartet. Der Versuch, Israel durch Fluchen zu vernichten, war aber von der nationalen Spitze, dem Könige von Moab, versucht worden und spricht sich darin nicht sowohl die völkerfeindliche Gesinnung der einzelnen Nationalen, als die der Nation im Ganzen aus: Dieser Fluchversuch steht daher in der Einheit שכר עליך וגו׳.

'לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה, “male members of the Ammonite or Moabite peoples must not marry Jewish women. This rule has been written here as the results of these marriages are similarly negative.

These verses may also be understood in light of what we have learned in Yevamot 76 where the Talmud searches for a reason why female members of the Moabite and Ammonite people are allowed to convert to Judaism. Rabbi Yochanan is quoted as saying that the daughter of a male Ammonite who converted may marry a priest. The Mishnah there already stated that the prohibition for Moabites and Ammonites to convert applies only to the males as the Torah speaks of עמוני and not of עמונית. It is not the way of the women to go out. Women are supposed to be in their homes. This is why they were not guilty of not coming forward with bread and water. This interpretation is based on the interpretation by Avner, Saul's general. In fact Amasa was very adamant about this halachah threatening to stab to death anyone who refused to accept it. [there was an attempt to use these verses to declare David as a bastard on the basis of his being descended from Ruth the Moabite. Ed.] According to the Talmud (at least one opinion) the tradition to permit a female member of these tribes to convert was approved at the time of the prophet Samuel already; otherwise how could Samuel have crowned David king if his great-grandmother Ruth had not even been Jewish? The argument between the teachers of the Mishnah Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon did not concern the validity of Ruth's conversion, but on which scriptural verse such a validity was based i.e. on the word עמוני being restrictive and excluding the females, or on the reason provided for by the Torah a for the non-admission of the male Moabites seeing only the males normally come out of their houses to welcome strangers, not females. Tossaphot on the following folio, commencing with the words: כתנאי, comment as follows: "if you were to argue that according to Rabbi Yehudah there is a difficulty where the Torah writes that a מצרי i.e. only a male Egyptian must not be rejected for conversion for up to three generations, the answer is that in the case of the עמוני and the מואבי the Torah could have written the shorter version עמון,מואב instead of the longer version עמוני,מואבי so that I have reason to believe that if the Torah employed more lettters than necessary it was in order to exclude the females. In the case of the Egyptians, however, this argument does not apply as the word מצרים instead would have been longer than מצרי not shorter as in the case of עמון.

Diese internationale Härte, Schroffheit und Unmenschlichkeit ist es auch, die Moab noch von den späteren Propheten vorgeworfen wird. Im Anblick der über Moab hereinbrechenden Katastrophe wird Jesaias 15 u. 16 darauf hingewiesen, wie alle Nachbarbevölkerungen über Moab zu schreien hatten, כי הקיפה הזעקה את גבול מואב, wie in der Ferne man nur von Moabs Hochmut und Stolz und blindem Wüten, גאותו וגאונו ועברתו hörte, so dass (daselbst) als einziges das Verhängnis noch vielleicht abwendendes Sühnemittel die Bekehrung zur Milde und die Betätigung derselben gegen unglückliche Flüchtlinge Moab auf der Mittagshöhe seines Glückes angeraten wird. "Schaffe Rat", ruft ihm Jesaias zu, "übe Überlegung, mache, als wär׳s schon Nacht deinen Schatten im hellen Mittag, birg Verwiesene, verrate keinen Flüchtling, lass meine Verwiesenen bei dir eine Stätte finden, Moab, sei ihnen Schutz vor dem Räuber; denn Erpressung hört auf, Raub geht zu Ende, es schwindet der Gewaltstritt von der Erde, und in Milde wird ein Thron errichtet usw."

I do not find the words of Tossaphot convincing at all. We do not find instances where the Torah writes something at the beginning of a paragraph prejudging a halachah to be discussed later; this would be especially inadmissible if it would lead to our misunderstanding the Torah's halachic intention. According to Tossaphot we would have to "guess" at why different yardsticks apply to the use of the word מצרי than apply to such words as עמוני or מואבי. Furthermore, even assuming that the Torah did have to write the word מצרי in order for us to know that there is a halachic distinction between the conversions of male and female Egyptians respectively, it could be argued that the Torah had to change the manner in which it described the nationalities mentioned earlier in order to fall in line with the word מצרי. However, if the word מצרי itself is already a change from the normal word מצרים which the Torah should have employed if it wanted to apply the same rule to male and female Egyptians then the whole thing cannot be explained other than that the Torah preferred to use as short a version of the word as was compatible with what the Torah wanted to say.

Wenn nach der Halacha an diesem Mangel internationalen Humanitätsgefühls, an diesem partikularen Nationalhochmut die moabitischen Frauen keinen Anteil hatten, so ist dies solchen Männern zur Seite doppelt hoch anzurechnen, und wohl dürfte in der Brust jener menschlich edeln Moabiterin Ruth, der großen Mutter des Davidischen Geschlechtes, die Flamme einer solchen alle Völkerscheiden überbrückenden Menschenliebe hell geleuchtet und einigen Anteil an dem Geist gehabt haben, der in den Harfentönen ihres Enkels den einstigen Morgen einer um Gott vereinten Völkergesamtheit singt und der Herold dieser Morgenröte inmitten der Menschheit geworden ist — מאי רות אר׳׳י שזכתה ויצא ממנה דוד שריוהו להב׳׳ה בשירות ותשבחות (Berachot 7 b).

However, to get to the crux of the problem; why did Avner use both arguments? First he relied on the Torah writing מואבי as excluding female Moabites, just as did Rabbi Yehudah a millenium later. Immediately afterwards the Talmud quotes Avner retorting to Doeg that the reason the conversion rules do not apply to female Moabites is that females do not go out and offer food and drink to another people. This latter argument was that of Rabbi Shimon, not that of Rabbi Yehudah. We must assume that Avner did not withdraw his first argument but buttressed it by additional proof from our verse here. Logic supports this theory for if Avner had retracted from his original argument that the word מואבי was restrictive, why would he have used it altogether knowing it could be refuted from the word מצרי a few verses later? True, if we accepted the answer Tossaphot have given it is conceivable that one could have construed Avner as changing his mind, although we raised objections to Tossaphot's answer. The fact is, however, that Avner made it clear by the manner he dealt with the objection based on the word מצרי that he did not share Tossaphot's opinion.

I believe that Avner shared the same approach as did Rabbi Yochanan who arrived at the halachah on the basis of both verses combined, i.e. the restrictive meaning of מואבי as well as the Torah citing the fact that these people failed to offer bread and water to the Israelites when the latter needed it. He needed this as the exegesis based on the latter verse alone could have been neutralised by the word מצרי. We would simply have assumed that even though women do not go out to offer bread and water to another people, the fact that the men failed to do so would disqualify the entire nation not merely their males. Besides, the Moabite and Ammonite women have at least 50% genes of their fathers who are disqualified as potential Jews, so why make special allowances for them, unless we had more cogent proof from the Torah such as the restrictive word מואבי instead of מואב. Under normal circumstances the genes of the father determine what nation one belongs to as per Numbers 1,2 "according to their fathers' families." Unless we had additional reason to do so, the word מואבי by itself would not have been sufficient proof to change the halachah from the norm. Only both indications combined could accomplish this exegesis as being ironclad.

This then is why Avner offered both verses as proof that Moabite and Ammonite women may convert to Judaism. Seeing that this argument appears to have been settled 1000 years before that of Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon, we must try and understand what Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon argued about. I believe that Rabbi Yehudah felt that the word מואבי is sufficient to prove the point that Moabite women may convert. As to the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו, etc, this neither adds nor detracts from his case, according to Rabbi Yehudah. I will explain later why this is so. The reason that although the Torah also wrote מצרי and אדומי, which at first glance suggests that this legislation also applies only to the males of these nations whereas we do not make such a distinction, is simple. In their case there is no reason to make a distinction as neither their males not their females had been called upon to provide the Israelites with bread or water. Seeing the Torah had used this as a criterion for denying the male Ammonites and Moabites the right to convert, there is no reason to treat Egyptian males and females as different from one another when it comes to accepting them as converts. This is precisely the reason the Torah did not have to bother to write the longer word מצרים in order to make its point. Rabbi Yehudah did not agree with Rabbi Shimon that one had to worry either about the comments of Avner or those of Doeg.

As to the reason why the Talmud interpreted the verse כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה, "that the true distinction of a king's daughter (a chaste woman) is the fact that her activities are confined to her house (Psalms 45,14)," the implications of this verse apply only to chaste women. The Moabite women who had already engaged in luring the Israelites into being both sexually and religiously disloyal to their G'd, could certainly not claim to be better than their male counterparts by reason of the verse in Psalms. The Torah could therefore have expected them to be at least equally forthcoming when it came to offer bread and water to the Israelites. Since neither they nor their males had done this, this constituted an a priori case for denying them the right to convert. On the other hand, one may argue that what these women did when they lured the Israelites into sexual promiscuity at Shittim did not reflect negatively on their character. 1) They were forced to do so by their respective husbands. 2) The fact that it is not normal for women to go out and offer food and drink to other nations is a natural trait of women. The fact that these Moabite women [not the Ammonites anyway. Ed.] did not act in character in one single instance, is no reason to deprive them of the status of normal women. As a result of all these considerations, the message from the word מואבי instead of מואב is inconclusive.

Rabbi Shimon holds that the message we derive from the verse in Psalms 45,14 is quite conclusive, i.e. it relieves the women from the obligation to offer food and water outside their homes. Moreover, he holds דרשינן טעמי דקרא, that when the Torah bothers to write a reason such a comment may be used exegeticaly to establish a halachah. When the Talmud refers to the dispute between teachers of the Mishnah it does mean that Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Shimon disagree on something more than the applicability of the verse in Psalms 45,14 to the women mentioned in our verse.

As a result of what we have explained so far you may find that there are actually three distinct approaches to the subject in the Talmud as to why women of the tribes of Moab and Ammon may convert. 1) The opinion of Rabbi Yochanan who uses both the word מואבי and the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו jointly. 2) Rabbi Yehudah who relies exclusively on the word מואבי as distinct from מואב. 3) Rabbi Shimon who relies principally on the words על דבר אשר לא קדמו.

According to Rabbi Shimon then Rabbi Yochanan's reliance on the words על דבר makes sense. The question why we need the words על דבר at all remains open only according to the approach of Rabbi Yehudah. It may be answered in accordance with what we wrote previously.

After having taken another long look at the whole subject, I have come to the conclusion that one cannot fault the Moabite women for not offering bread or water as they could not have done so without first obtaining their husbands' consent. The conduct of their husbands towards the Israelites made it plain that even if these women had asked for permission to offer such supplies to the Israelites, their husbands would never have consented. The argument offered in the Talmud by Doeg therefore must be viewed as the argument of an heretic. We find something analogous when the prophet Achiyah Hashiloni was confronted with what he considered a spurious question by the wife of King Jerobam and he described it as being an heretic's question (compare Midrash Shemuel 22 on Kings I 14,6).