I asked this in the comments section of a previous post: Hopefully I can get some answers.
If Jewishness passes from mother to child, because we may not know who is the actual dad, then why does tribal lineage, especially priesthood (kohaniim, leviim) pass down from father to son?
How do we know who is the dad?
What if the son is really the child of the gardner or milkman or neighbor or other?
If Jewishness passes down from the mother because we may not know who is the dad, how could we possibly expect that the tribal lineage passed down truthfully?
2 comments:
You're right, the system isn't foolproof. It relies on human honesty, just like every other legal system.
Inheritance in Torah law is father to son (and to daughter in the absence of a son). Thus the child with an unknown father inherits nobody and exists without tribal affiliation.
As for today, you're also right. Most authorities hold that a person claiming to be a kohen or levi might be one but that there's a good chance that he isn't. That's why in Israel where such claims have practical meaning, kohanim can't make any such claims.
Is it just like every other legal system? I hear often that a god created this system and not man.
As for foolproof, if lineage passed down through the mother, like Jewishness, that would be virtually foolproof.
So unless whoever designed the legal system had something against women, some pathological or cultural view of women as property, there is no other reason why lineage shouldn't also have passed matriarchaly.
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