Ep1379 Deeper Dive - Shimshon’s Wives: Converts or Gentiles?

0:00So I want to stop and take a few minutes today and it shouldn't be too lengthy of a share, but I just want to deal with the question, the issue that I brought up at the beginning of the peric, which is understanding the status of Shimshan's wives. Here we have him marrying a pushty girl. We'll see that there's a Zainah in Aza that he's with and then eventually he's with Delilah. How are we to understand the status of these women? These seem to be pushty women. Did they convert? Did they not convert? We don't see anything in the Psookim referencing any sort of conversion. So how are we to understand, but at the end of the day Shimshan being a sadik would not make sense for him to marry a gaiishah woman. The share was started as a schussi linishma si cheskel schragab and avaram juda, chosbius chusferinilinishama, fumaishabandaniyama, akhama-lazabenshumshinarye, as well as a schussfer fuhrshlaim of khandaibem minarachul ankhana-leabashandarachul, and a schussferol of those in Ertsisrael. So the main mephersh that deals with this on the page is the reddach. And it's the reddach back in parakeet gimo, posseqdallid, with amalachas giving instructions to Shimshan's mother of how she is to conduct herself during the pregnancy.

1:01And he tells her not to consume any wine while she's pregnant with Shimshan. So the reddach asks there if we're talking about an individual who is so unique on such a holy level that already minabatani has kedu shoom. How could it be that he goes in his metamiyamself by marrying gaiishah women from the plush-dew women? So answers the reddach. Of course, Shimshan was magayar any woman that he lived with, whether it's this woman here from Timnos, whether it's the woman that he's with in Azo, or whether it's Daliila. Of course, he was magayar of them. Of course, they accepted upon himself all of the mitzahs of the tyra. Chalila to say that the shayfid of Klai Israel who goes and saves them is someone who married into the plush-dew literally marrying a woman who did not convert. To be either like Satsrathinbom, which is such a chhamra veer in the tyra, that the tyra says ki yasir has been chhamaya kharai, that it's going to come to Litaqfeera marrying a gaiishah woman. Chalila to say that a shayfid in Klai Israel did some sort of thing. And the reddach brings a raya, says we don't find anywhere that Shimshan was punished, just

2:03for the marriage to a plush-dew girl. And we don't find that this was found to be bad in the eyes of Hashem. In fact, everywhere he turns, he's Matsliya Hashem helps him miraculously. We even find in the puss-duk and we learned a few days ago, Kimya Hashem, he, that the whole marriage to the ben-aiz plush-dew was really all orchestrated of min Hashemaya. It was really Hashem's raksan again, and we talked about that it should be a pretext, he should have an excuse to start up with the plush-dew, living amongst them without any potential repercussions coming back on Klai Israel in that way, they would be saved but in more secretive, underhanded way. So says the reddach, clearly Shimshan had to be a migaya. I says the reddach, we do find that he was punished with his eyes being blinded. That's not because inherently he married a plush-dew girl says the reddach. But it's rather because there was some ulterior motives that crept in. Really he was marrying a le-sh-sh-sh-sh-maya. Really he was marrying her as a pretext to start up with the plush-dew.

3:04But the puss-duk does tell us that some semblance of ta'evah, some semblance of what he calls the nefesh-abehemias, the teva of a person, the animalistic nature that's in a person, crept in and obviously we're talking about it saddhik, which assham judges ke khut-asarit means on a very, very minute level. But there was some aspect of this polluted amakhshava that crept in. And that is hinted at in the puss-duk with a puss-duk says that Shimshan says in puss-duk gimul, aisakakli ki hi yashrabeinai. She appears proper in my eyes, which is a reference to her beauty that something in her beauty attracted him. And yes, his initial intent to marry her was with proper kavana le-sh-sh-sh-mayaim to have a tainat to start up with the plush-dew. So once his taiva crept in, it not only was bad in and of itself, but it polluted and corrupted the entire marriage. So that the entire marriage now is a tainat against Shimshan. How are you going a marrying a plush-dew girl?

4:07You're going a marrying her even though you have a slight, slight machshava that's improper, that's a shaloil-ish-sh-mayaim. But that goes and pollutes the entire myse. And so the entire myse comes out as inappropriate. But says the reddak, if he had not had that machshava, the marriage itself was a proper marriage. And of course, Shimshan was magayaer the girl. However, we're not out of the woods yet, because that now leads to its own problem. If we're saying now that the woman was magayaer in order to marry Shimshan, so now you have a woman being magayaer for a motivation other than to be part of Klai Yusraul. And we do not accept such a gai-ress. We don't accept a gai-ress who's converting for any reason other than a love to join the Jewish people. If someone comes forward and they want to convert in order to marry someone, we do not accept such a gai-ress. And in the case of this woman, it seems like the sole motivation for the conversion is that she wants this opportunity to marry Shimshan. So he explains, this is revgarsian wise explains, that Shimshan wanted to eliminate this possibility,

5:11that she wanted to marry Shimshan. So he avoids specifically to Pusik tells us, he avoids speaking to her, he tells his parents to make all the arrangements. He left open a very strong possibility that her gai-ress, her conversion was taken for sincere reasons to talk to join Klai Yusraul, because there's a tremendous sacrifice involved in a push the girl marrying Yid during a time when the Yidda and I being persecuted by the push them. And that showed that her conversion was only a means of getting away from the void desire of the push them in order to join Klai Yusraul in order to serve as Shimshan. Did orchestrated it in a way that it was not apparent and it was not obvious to her that she would be converting in order to marry Shimshan. There was open the possibility that maybe the marriage would not take place or that it wouldn't be as prestigious as it seemed in her mind. And in that way, Shimshan would sort of weed out, is she really doing it for the right reasons,

6:14even though yes, ultimately I'm going to marry this girl. But even with this explanation, the Rambaam writes that the Kha'rami-mi'in Shimshan's time did not consider this to be a valid conversion. They considered it to be a gear for ulterior motives and therefore they hid completely any reference to the gai-ress. And that's why we don't find any reference in the Psykin, although and I didn't mention this at the time. But there is clearly a reference in the Psykin that Shimshan was marrying a fully converted Jewish girl. Because the Lashana Shimshan uses to tell his parents to take her is Ke'ruh. Those who learned Ke'ruh, Ke'ruh is Ali Akakhli, those who learned mislechtes Kedushin right away in the beginning will remember that the way we learn the Kenyan by Kedushin is Ke'ruh, Ke'ruh, mislecht, that we learn the certain types of Kenyan that are valid for Kedushin. Now the only time it's appropriate to use a Lashana of Ke'ruh or Ke'ruh is when you have a Kedushin that is effective. Kedushin with a Gai-shawoman, excuse me, is not effective even if you sell a Gai-shawoman

7:19a ring and you tell a rea-makradesh-as-lih, it's not Typhes. It has to be, if he's saying Ke'ruh, Ke'ruh, Ke'ruh has to be that the Kedushin is going to be Khal, has to mean that she was a converted Jewish girl. But the Rambam says that's why he was hidden because they did not approve of it. And the Rambam writes that of course it should not enter your mind that Shimshayin or Shlama Amalach who were great great Sadikim to Khas Fashalim think that they married Gai-shawoman who did not convert. The problem says the Rambam is the following. That the al-Akhir is that when someone wants to convert we have to check. We have to do a Bidika and see, do an inspection and see, does this person expect to get some sort of monetary compensation or position or is he doing it sincerely? And in the case of a man we check, is there a Jewish woman that he's trying to marry? And in the case of a woman we check, if there's a Jewish man that she's trying to marry. If we don't find any ulterior motive, excuse me, so then we let the person know. These are the various responsibilities that come along with the conversion.

8:23There's difficulties and ensure that this person has a firm commitment that he's going to keep all the midst of us. And if the person, and we try to change their mind, if the person accepts it and doesn't give up, we see that they keep coming back because they love it, then we accept them. And the raya that they bring is from Rus that Nami tries to convince Rus to go back, but eventually when Rus persists Nami stops talking and eventually allows her to join her. And I don't really want to get into the difference between Shlimshin and Shlimah. That's its own story. Why was different about the days of Shlimah, Mellach, after all, we know that during the days of David and the days of Shlimah, we didn't really accept Gairim and the days of David because they were converting out of Yira and the days of Shlimah because they were converting because of the prestige and the elevated stature that Klyasr al-Held. So that was motivating people to convert. But so then how do we understand Shlimah taking his wives? Let's put that on the side. However, I do want to just end off with a question that the Raysha-Khamadil's with, which is, what's the problem?

9:23At the end of the day, if someone wants to convert and they will need to keep all the mitzvahs, so who cares? So if they're converting for some ulterior motive, they want to marry this person or they want to gain in their stature or their position. But if we can ascertain somehow that that person is going to keep the mitzvahs, so then why are we opposed? Why doesn't matter why someone wants to become Jewish as long as they'll follow all of the mitzvahs? So the Raysha-Khamad explains that in order to have a Gertz said that there is a certain spark of Kedusha that pushes that person, that Gentile individual to want to convert, despite the difficulties involved, because you have to learn the mitzvahs and be trained yourself to keep them. Remember, you're coming from a time and place where you haven't been keeping mitzvahs till now. It's not like us who are brought up and are able to slowly learn over time the various mitzvahs. And if we look at X point in time, he's going to convert, and suddenly 613 mitzvahs and we know it's a lot more than that are suddenly dropping on his lap. So if a person insists on becoming Jewish at a time when it's not the end thing when

10:27Klyasrull is on the bottom, so we understand you know what's driving him, you know what's pushing him to accept it even though it's a tremendous responsibility and risk, it's this spark of Kedusha and therefore we accept it. But if a person has ulterior motives, we don't know that he has the spark in him. And it is a good possibility that when push comes to shove and the pressure is on him, he will not be able to keep up with the discipline that's required for someone to keep all the mitzvahs. As we know, you go on vacation, suddenly there's no kosher food around. Suddenly there are not Jewish people around and it becomes very difficult at times to keep up the religion. Now if you're born into it and you don't eat tray fun or regular basis and you never did, so it's a lot easier to just turn your back on it. But if you're someone who did it at one point in your life and now you're starving and maybe it's going to be hours, maybe even days before you have an opportunity to eat a normal meal, it becomes very difficult to resist that urge and to not give in at one time and therefore is a very strong possibility that because he didn't convert or we don't know

11:32that he converted for the right reasons, he may very well revert to his old habits. And indeed that's what we find happen with Shimshen's wife and with Shlima's wife, she in fact went back and not only are they corrupting themselves but now they're corrupting other people, they're bringing down other members of Klyso with them so they become not just an issue for themselves, they become a nixious, stumbling black for the rest of Klyso and that's why we act so severely and turn our backs on people who want to convert if we are not 100% certain that they are doing it for the right reasons.