LETTER FROM RABBI MOSHE WEINER

Category: GER/VENDYL JONES

B'Syata D'Shmaya

As Executive Director of the Sheva-Mitzvot outreach organization Ask Noah International, I am supporting the following open letter from Rabbi Moshe Weiner of Jerusalem, whom this organization has been honored to accept as our Overseeing Rav beginning in 2005.

Dr. Michael Schulman
October 19, 2017

An Open Letter Regarding the Teachings of R' DAVID KATZ and
R' CHAIM CLORFENE about “GER” and “GER TOSHAV”

R' David Katz and R' Chaim Clorfene have written and lectured on-line and in other forums. However, certain aspects of their teachings are contrary to accepted halakhah (Torah Law), in practice and understanding, as determined by the traditionally accepted Jewish Torah scholars and sages.

Particularly erroneous are their claims about the status and meaning of the Hebrew term Ger Toshav (a term with clear halakhic definition). I am obligated to point out that R' David Katz has made incorrect and misleading attempts to claim support for his teachings from my work in Hebrew titled Sheva Mitzvot HaShem. In his claims he has included statements that are exactly the opposite of what I actually wrote and intended in that work, and in my work The Divine Code.

Additionally, they have made false claims as to definitions of the Hebrew terms ger and Ger Tzedek, in places in the Written and Oral Torah texts. Their claims constitute a chiddush dat (an invented idea). Ger Tzedek only correctly refers to a person who became a Jew through undergoing the halakhic conversion process. The meaning of the term ger in Torah is always to be correctly understood in the context of how it is used, based on the mesorah (the textual meaning of the Hebrew Bible as transmitted in the Oral Tradition) and the accepted halakhah.

It is my halakhic opinion that there are teachings and writings by R’ David Katz and R' Chaim Clorfene on these matters, directed to Non-Jews, that are misrepresentations of both the obligations and nature of the overall Torah-based Noahide Code, as well as misrepresentations of Torah l'Moshe Mi'Sinai (the Torah received by Moses from G-d at Mount Sinai). This especially applies in regard to their misguided advocacy and attempted justification for some Non-Jews to take on religious observance of certain Jewish ritual mitzvot, for example, restrictions on melacha that are commanded for Jews on Shabbat. I therefore strongly repudiate their creation and advocacy of the so-called "Ger" movement, by which they have seriously misled a number of well-meaning Non-Jews.

Rabbi Moshe Weiner
Moreh Hora’ah
Author of Sheva Mitzvot HaShem v. I-III, The Divine Code, and Seven Gates of Righteous Knowledge
Overseeing Rav for Ask Noah International
October 19, 2017 / 29 Tishrei 5778