Children of a Jewish Mother and a Non-Jewish Father

Shalom and blessings

First, I will write about the spiritual implications of this matter.

The prohibition of relations with a non-Jew is very severe. Before anything else, it is proper to know that although the bodies of the people of Israel are, in terms of the body itself, very similar to the body of someone who is not Jewish, the clear truth is that in the bodies of the people of Israel Hashem extended a supernal light called the soul, whose root is beneath the Throne of Glory. This soul is a part of Hashem from Above, and it is higher than the root of emanation called an angel. By contrast, in the bodies of the non-Jews Hashem did not extend that same supernal light, since they refused to receive the holy Torah, which is united in the root of the soul of Israel. Therefore, they did not merit this supernal extension of the Jewish soul, and the root that animates and dwells within the nations of the world is a lower radiance from seventy higher forces, which are many, many levels below the stature of the souls of Israel.

The beginning of the radiance from the roots mentioned above is drawn already into the semen that is discharged in the body at the time of relations. When the Jewish seed is joined to it, the higher root of the Jewish soul is united with it, namely Jewish life; and with the seed of the non-Jew, the lower roots from which it itself stems are united, namely non-Jewish life. Therefore, one who mingles the seed of a foreign man in the body of a kosher Jewish woman cannot be fathomed or described as to the magnitude of the blemish he causes, for he draws a part of Hashem from Above into a place of impurity according to its level. In the holy books this is compared to someone who takes the king's head and immerses it in the toilet of a filthy bathroom, forgive the comparison, but that is truly so.

There is, and cannot be, a soul connection between a Jew and a non-Jew. The spiritual differences in the source of the spirit that animates them are immense beyond all measure, and if one were to say that the distance between them is like a billion light-years, even then one would have minimized the true distance between them. There is, and will be, no situation in which a Jew can give up his Judaism and become like a non-Jew. The prophet Ezekiel already foretold this, in chapter 20, in these sacred words: "And that which rises in your mind shall not be, when you say, We will be like the nations, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone: as I live, says Hashem Elokim, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with poured-out fury I will be king over you."

If, Heaven forbid, there is no separation, our Sages of blessed memory said that the non-Jew is attached to her like a dog, meaning that the shell of the non-Jew does not separate from the soul of Israel even after severe rectifications, and even after she suffers in Gehinnom the soul is not purified from the shell, because the impurity continues to dwell upon the sinner. Therefore she can never emerge from the punishment. Punishment purifies the soul in order to reach Gan Eden, and punishments cause the diminution of the shell and the cleansing of the soul from the shells, until purity is reached - something that cannot happen to one who sinned with a non-Jew and did not do teshuvah.

More severe still is when a Jewish woman has sons and daughters who are kosher, yet when they live with a non-Jewish father they are pushed away from the Torah of Hashem and follow the beliefs of the non-Jews, and all of this is charged to the mother's account, because she tied her fate to a non-Jew.

As for your question: such a child is indeed a Jewish child in every respect, but the damage to the child's identity is severe when he hears from his father that he is a non-Jew and from his mother that he is a Jew.

With success,

Benyamin Shmueli