Halakhah do Powtórzonego Prawa 5:27

In point of fact, Rabbi Sternbuch's assertion that our ancestors did not have the status of "newly born children" at Mount Sinai is a matter of some dispute. Rabbi Sternbuch's position echoes that of Maharal of Prague, Gur Aryeh, Parashat Va-Yigash (Genesis 46:8), cited by the author of Shev Shem'atata in section 9 of his introduction to that work. Maharal of Prague is of the opinion that, unlike subsequent proselytes, the recipients of the Torah at Mount Sinai did not acquire status as "newly born children" and, accordingly, they were forbidden to marry close relatives. However, Maharal offers a rationale entirely different from that advanced by Rabbi Sternbuch in explaining why those who became Jews at Mount Sinai were not deemed to be "newly born children." Acceptance of the commandments at Sinai is described by the Gemara, Shabbat 88a, as having been coerced. Status as "newly born children," asserts Maharal, is acquired only when acceptance of commandments is voluntary. Nevertheless, R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk, Meshekh Hokhmah, Parashat Va-Etḥanan (Deuteronomy 5:27), espouses an opposing view in declaring that previously existing consanguineous relationships were not terminated at Sinai as evidenced by the fact that all participants were directed, "Return to your tents" (Deuteronomy 5:27), i.e., they were granted permission to resume conjugal relations prohibited in the preparatory period before receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Indeed, Meshekh Hokhmah points to that directive as the biblical source of the talmudic dictum "A proselyte who converts is comparable to a newly born child."³⁵See R. Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, Teḥumin, V, 255, note 5.