Yevamos 45b: The final halacha is: if a non-Jew or a slave fathered a child with a Jewish woman, the child is kosher, whether the woman was single or married.
יבמות מה ע”ב והלכתא: עובד כוכבים ועבד הבא על בת ישראל ־ הולד כשר, בין בפנויה בין באשת איש.
Cindy was a student at Boston University who became closer to her Jewish roots under the influence of the Bostoner Rebbe and Rebbetzin. She frequently attended the Chassidic Center, often came to help the Rebbetzin with household chores, and did chesed for mothers in the community. With time, Cindy became engaged to a boy named David she had met at the Chassidic center, and all agreed that theirs was a perfect match. Both were newly religious and thoroughly committed to their Judaism and to each other.
One evening, she called the Rebbe and sobbed, “Rebbe, I’m in trouble. I’m supposed to get married at the end of the month, and I just learned that I’m… that I’m a mamzer!”
“Cindy,” the Rebbe said gently, “I don’t know why you suspect that you might not be a legitimate Bas Yisroel, but mamzerus is a somewhat esoteric and very technical halachic term and is often misinterpreted. Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk about it.”
The Rebbetzin escorted Cindy into the study and placed a box of Kleenex at her side. Cindy made quick work of the tissues even before she commenced her tale of woe. Her sobbing plunged them all into a state of deep despair. The saga was but four hours old, yet its ramifications would affect and conceivably ruin a lifetime.
Earlier that afternoon at her university, a noted Torah scholar had lectured on the sanctity of marriage. In the course of his talk, he had explained that the term mamzer does not necessarily apply to a child born out of wedlock, a common misconception, but to one born of a woman who has remarried without receiving a get from her previous husband. “Even before the lecture was over,” Cindy related, “I rushed out to call home. I confronted my mother and insisted that she tell me if her first husband had given her a get. As you know, Rebbe, my mother is not at all religious, and I doubt that she’d ever bothered with a get. She wouldn’t answer my question and when I pressed her, she became very flustered. ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked. ‘Because it affects me in the most serious way,’ I said. I begged her to be honest with me because my future depended upon her answer. But she reacted with a tirade against religious observance. “You chose this absurd way of life, this cult of yours. Now your belief will bury you!”
Although the Rebbe had had to deal with terrible devastating situations like this in the past, experience didn’t make it any easier. The plight of this sweet young girl, a neshamala who had practically grown up in his home, was like a knife in his heart. The Rebbetzin was dabbing at her eyes, and the Rebbe too was on the verge of tears. He entreated the Ribono Shel Olam to spare Cindy from the tragic fate of being a mamzer. He prayed for an eitzah, anything that might confirm her legitimacy.
After questioning Cindy for several minutes, the Rebbe thought it might be more productive if he were to speak to Cindy’s father, Mr. George Fried, instead. “Are you still in contact with your father?” he asked. “No, Rebbe, no one knows where he is. He has simply vanished. Last year I wanted to send him a birthday card, so I called my grandparents, but even they –“
“Grandparents?” the Rebbe cried excitedly. “Your paternal grandparents, they’re alive? Where do they live?” “In Dallas,” Cindy replied, startled by the Rebbe’s keen interest in this detail. The Rebbe dialed the number and an elderly Mr. Fried answered.
The Rebbe identified himself, explaining that he was calling about a very important matter. Cindy’s grandfather responded to all of the Rebbe’s questions but made no significant contribution. Then the Rebbe asked, “Did your son have a bar mitzvah?” Instead of replying right away with a simple yes or no, Mr. Fried covered the mouthpiece and a muffled conversation between him and presumably his wife took place. Finally, the grandmother got on the line and told the Rebbe that George had been confirmed at the local temple when he was thirteen. She passed the phone back to her husband.
Something indefinable prompted the Rebbe to ask the next question. “Was that the same temple where he had his bris, that is, his circumcision?” Silence followed and then some awkward hemming and hawing. The Rebbe asked Cindy if she would please step out of the study so that he might continue the conversation in private. He explained to the Frieds that while under normal circumstances he would never pry into someone’s personal life, these were not normal circumstances. “Cindy’s future is at stake,” the Rebbe declared, and paused for the words to sink in. Only when he was certain that they grasped the gravity of the situation did he proceed to detail his relationship with their granddaughter. “I am a rabbi, he said, a Chassidic rebbe, in fact, if that means anything to you. Will you accept my word that what you tell me I will never reveal to a living soul?”
“Yes, Rabbi,” they said apprehensively. In a somber voice, the Rebbe asked them if, in fact, their son was adopted. They hesitated for a while and the Rebbe implored them to be frank with him. After what seemed an eternity, Mrs. Fried confessed that they had adopted their son at the age of fifteen months. No one, she said, including George himself, was aware of this. She told the Rebbe that although they had wanted to adopt a Jewish baby, they had been unable to get one and had to accept a child whose natural mother was gentile. (The Rebbe later received independent confirmation of this.) The Frieds had never formally converted him to Judaism.
“Boruch Hashem,” the Rebbe sighed and resumed breathing. He could not remember ever being so happy to learn that a Jew was not a Jew. Since George Fried was not Jewish, Cindy was not a mamzer. Mamzeirus applies only to the offspring of a forbidden union between Jews. Cindy could marry David.
Source: The Bostoner, by Hanoch Teller, p. 150
Read and Remember 