In the last Mishnah, we mentioned the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, who says that a daughter of a male convert retains some of the conversion from her father and therefore is not allowed to marry a Kohen (priest). We’ll have differences of opinion about that. The Mishnah says that if a Yisrael (regular Jew) marries a female convert, their daughter is allowed to marry a Kohen. She does not have the status of a convert. That’s the more obvious case. But if a male convert marries a Kohen, his daughter is allowed to marry a Kohen as well. That differs from the opinion we had, which is Rabbi Yehuda’s. Rabbi Yehuda, like we said, says the daughter of a male convert is not allowed to marry a Kohen. Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov says, yes, they are. But he differs where he would say that if a male convert marries a female convert and then they have a daughter, their daughter is not allowed to marry a Kohen.
According to Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov, the status of conversion continues to the next generation if both parents were converts, married each other, and then had children. Then their children are converts as well. But once one of the parents is a regular Yisrael (regular Jew) and not a convert, then the children lose their status as gerim and are allowed to marry a Kohen. Echad gerim, ve'echad avadim meshuchrarim, talking about converts and freed slaves. Afilu ad asara dorot, ad shetehe imo miYisrael, says Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov. He continues: If you have a convert, or a freed slave who’s like a convert, even up to ten generations—which we say is just a very long time since they converted, or since they were freed—if they keep on marrying each other, convert marrying convert, convert marrying convert, in many, many generations, even though their great-great-great-grandparents were the original converts, if their lineage continues to marry only converts, then we say they continue to be converts, and the females are not allowed to marry Kohanim, unless the mother or a father marries a regular Jew. Once they marry a regular Jew, they clean their line going forward: the status of conversion is not passed on, and then they would be allowed to marry even Kohanim. That’s the way Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov understands it.
Rabbi Yose says no. Even if a male convert marries a female convert, their daughter is allowed to marry a Kohen; she does not retain the status of a convert. According to this most lenient opinion of Rabbi Yose, the status of convert is never passed on to the children, and therefore the children are allowed to marry Kohanim.