We learned previously that a non-Jew sharing a courtyard with Jews cannot participate in the eruv nor can he renounce his domain (ביטול רשות), thus preventing the Jews from unifying the courtyard to permitting carrying from their houses to the courtyard and vice versa. The only solution to this problem was renting the non-Jew’s domain from him. You can imagine how uncomfortable this conversation between a Jew and non-Jew would be. The rabbis want to discourage a Jew from living in close quarters with non-Jews “(the issue was) lest the Jew learn from the gentile’s ways” (TB Eruvin 62a, Sefaria.org translation).
Saturday’s daf TB Eruvin 69 clarifies the status of Sadducees and apostates, Jews who reject either/or both the written and oral Torah. Rabbi Meir holds their Sadducee are both similar and dissimilar to a Jew when it comes to eruvin. He is similar to a Jew because he has the ability to renounce his domain (ביטול רשות). Because he rejects the oral Torah which includes the rabbinic statues of an eruv, he is dissimilar to his fellow Jew. Jews cannot depend upon him because he can reclaim his domain and negate the eruv if the Jews haven’t seized control of the courtyard by placing their possessions in it. Rabbi Yehuda holds the position that Sadducees are comparable to non-Jews when it comes to eruvin. A Jew needs to rent the Sadducee’s domain from him. You can imagine that Rabbi Yehuda was concerned that a Sadducee would be even a greater influential threat upon the rabbinic Jew because he was also a Jew.
According to the rabbis, an apostate (מוּמָר) is only one who becomes an idolater. “One who is suspected of transgressing one matter is not suspected of transgressing the entire Torah, unless he is an apostate with regard to idolatry. As long as he has not worshipped idols, his transgression of a single prohibition does not put him under suspicion of transgressing the rest of the Torah.” (Sefaria.org translation). Just like the Sadducee, an apostate who desecrates the Sabbath in public forfeits his ability to join in an eruv or renounce his domain.
Today we define somebody an apostate when he voluntarily and willingly joins another religion. The Israeli Law of Return guarantees immediate citizenship to any Jew who wishes to make Aliyah. In 1962, in the affair of Rufeisen (Brother Daniel), the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled (by majority opinion, versus one dissenting opinion) that a Jewish Catholic monk may not make Aliyah under the Law of Return after conversion to Christianity. Brother Daniel was a Holocaust survivor who was born and raised as a Jew, but the Supreme Court ruled that he was not entitled to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, since he had converted to Catholicism of his own free will. The argument of the majority judges was that after his conversion to Christianity he is a member of a non-Jewish religion, and is not allowed to immigrate to Israel as a Jew.
I once used this argument when I was a rabbi in Springfield, Massachusetts. The community day school Heritage Academy avoided the issue of who is a Jew and was able to enroll in the school. As long as a rabbi in the community sponsored the child, the school would enroll him or her. Once the school’s secular principal sent a couple to me for sponsorship because he did not want to be the arbitrator of the case. The couple described themselves as Jews for Jesus and wanted to enroll their child in Heritage Academy. I told them politely that once Jews are for Jesus and worship him, they leave the Jewish people and religion and become Christians for Jesus. Consequently, they were not eligible to send their child to Heritage Academy.
By the way you should know that the majority of members of the Jews for Jesus movement are born Christians and this movement is underwritten by Christians for the purpose of converting us Jews to Christianity.
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