When
Torah reads the following, it comes with an implied caveat: provided that it's in keeping with
Torah:
8 “If a matter arises which is too
hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one
judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of
controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which
the LORD your God chooses. 9 And you
shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those
days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of
judgment. 10 You shall do according to
the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses.
And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. 11 According to the sentence of the law in
which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you
shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the
left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. 12 Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed
the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge,
that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel.
The following is a far cry from Torah:
AND WHATEVER [WOMAN] WHO CANNOT CONTRACT KIDDUSHIN etc. How do we
know [it of] a Canaanitish bondmaid?
27 — Said R. Huna, Scripture saith, Abide ye here with [‘im]
the ass
28 — it is a people [‘am] like unto an ass.29 We have thus found that kiddushin with her is
invalid:
Talmud - Mas. Kiddushin 68b
how do we know that the issue takes her status? — Because Scripture saith, the wife and her children
shall be her master's.
1 How do we know [it of a freeborn] Gentile woman? — Scripture saith, neither
shalt thou make marriages with them.
2 How do we know that her issue bears her status? — R.
Johanan said on the authority of R. Simeon b. Yohai, Because Scripture saith, For he will turn away
thy son from following me:
3 thy son by4 an Israelite woman is called thy son, but thy son by a
heathen is not called thy son.
5 Rabina said: This proves that thy daughter's son by a heathen is called
thy son.
6 Shall we say that Rabina holds that if a heathen or a [non-Jewish] slave cohabits with a
Jewess the issue is mamzer?
7 — [No.] Granted that he is not [regarded as] fit,8 he is not mamzer
either, but merely stigmatised as unfit.
9
Now, that [verse] refers to the seven nations!
10 whence do we know it of other nations? —
Scripture saith, ‘For he will turn away [thy son],’ which includes all who may turn [him] away. That
is well according to R. Simeon, who interprets the reason of Scripture.
11 But on the view of the
Rabbis,
12 what is the reason?13 — Scripture saith, and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her
husband, [etc.],
14 whence it follows that before that kiddushin with her is invalid.
We have thus found that kiddushin with her is not recognised. How do we know that her child is
as herself? — Scripture saith, If there be to a man [two wives] . . . and they bare to him [children]:
15
where we read ‘if there be’,
16 we also read: ‘and they bare to him’;17 but where we do not read: ‘If
there be’, we do not read: ‘and they bare to him’. If so, is not a [heathen] bondmaid likewise? —
Yes, it is even thus. Then what is the purpose of ‘the wife and her children shall be her master's’? —
For what was taught:
Talmud - Mas. Kiddushin 69a
If he says to his bondmaid, ‘Behold, thou art free, but thy child [yet to be born] shall be a slave,’ the
‘child is as herself: this is the view of R. Jose the Galilean; the Sages maintain: His words are valid,
1
for it is said: ‘the wife and her children shall be her master's’. How does this teach it?
2 — Said Raba:
This refers to R. Jose the Galilean's [ruling].
3
MISHNAH. R. TARFON SAID: MAMZERIM
4 CAN BE PURIFIED.5 HOW? IF A MAMZER
MARRIES
6 A BONDMAID, HER SON IS A SLAVE;7 IF HE IS FREED, IT IS FOUND THAT
THE SON IS A FREE MAN.
8 R. ELIEZER SAID: BEHOLD, HE IS A SLAVE, A MAMZER.9
Firstly, ishah came from ish, Chavah from 'Adam, not vice versa. Secondly, ha'av shel ha'ishah gives and the prospective chatan takes ha'ishah; which is clear in D'varim 7:1-5, which reads in part, "Nor shall you make marriages with
them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for
your son." For a lack of a better term; the men do the giving and taking here.
Thirdly, women cannot give or receive yDNA (pitrochondrial, or paternal, Y-Chromosome DNA); and the mispacha v'bnei are defined by harosh l'mispacha v'bnei-- ha'av! So, even genetics and traditional, innate roles prove that the dads-- not the moms, not the "rabbis"-- primarily define whether or not a child is Jewish.
This isn't to say that Matrilineal Jews aren't Jews or Jewish, but that Patrilineal Jewishness was the first and is the primary descent through which Jews trace their Jewishness. Matrilineal Jews, however, have been around since haben shel HaDanit who fought with a fellow Yisra'eli was born.