Sanhedrin (99b) Timna sought to convert. She came before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they did not accept her. She went and became a concubine of Eliphaz, son of Esau, and said, referring to herself: It is preferable that she will be a maidservant for this nation, and she will not be a noblewoman for another nation. Ultimately, Amalek, son of Eliphaz, emerged from her, and that tribe afflicted the Jewish people. What is the reason that the Jewish people were punished by suffering at the hand of Amalek? It is due to the fact that they should not have rejected her when she sought to convert.
He was Eisav's grandson. Has that got anything to do with it?
ReplyDeleteShe was rejected either because she was a mamzer or because she was the ancestor of Amalek. That Chazal criticized the Avos for this judgment is the point
DeleteConversion would wash her mamzerus?
DeleteShe can't have been rejected because she was Amalek's mother for two reasons
Delete1) He hadn't been born yet
2) He only becamse Amalek because they rejected her.
Also there wasn't mamzerut the way we understand it today, and nochri can't be mamzer, unless it meant something else back then
DeleteThis is a common darshaning technique I've never liked, where later rules are anachronistically plopped onto earlier generations.
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