Conversion in the Rabbinate
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I wanted to ask you a question about conversion.
I have a friend in the army whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Gentile. He recently joined the Nativ course (a course that prepares Gentile soldiers for conversion) and from there he continued to the advanced stages of the course and successfully completed them. He made an appointment at the Rabbinate's court for conversion this coming April.
I heard in recorded lessons from a certain rabbi that there is concern about the rabbinate's courts for conversion matters, that because they remove converts who do not intend to observe Torah and mitzvot, they are presumed to be a court invalid for conversion, so that even if a gentile comes before them intending to convert for the sake of God, and they convert him, the conversion is invalid (and all this without the court and the gentile being aware that the conversion is invalid).
My question is, is this indeed the case in terms of halakhah? And if so, is it better to send the friend who wants to convert to the Haredi Eda Beit Din?
Also, I assume that there have been a lot of invalid conversions in recent years, that no one is aware of the fact that they are invalid. Are the descendants of people whose conversions are invalid also considered gentiles? Or can it be argued that they are considered Jews by majority annulment (just as the descendants of an assimilated Jew are considered gentiles by majority annulment).
And another question, should a person be concerned about the invalid conversion of one of his mothers? After all, it is not improbable that one of the mothers 100 generations ago was a convert who may have had an invalid conversion.
Best regards,
Let me start by saying that I share the opinion that the conversions that are made in the conversion system are problematic. I wrote a rather controversial article about this in Akademo. On the other hand, and despite all this, the claim that everyone should be disqualified en masse and sweepingly, as well as the claim that the dayanim are evil, is complete nonsense.
The judges in the conversion system are all presumed to be kosher, and even if I don't agree with them, that's their opinion and I disagree with it. If you want to invalidate a conversion, you have to prove that the specific convert in question had no intention of receiving commandments when he converted (which is almost impossible, of course). When a kosher person sits in court and converts, it is not possible to invalidate the conversion in a blanket manner and without a specific examination. Anyone who says otherwise is himself completely evil (according to Chazal and the poskim. He is making an unjustified accusation against thousands of kosher Jews). Therefore, any conversion that is made by such a person, in my opinion, is not a conversion.
In fact, there is no obstacle to converting through the conversion system, and as long as the young man intends to take the commandments seriously, he will be a strictly kosher Jew. Incidentally, in a personal sense, he does not lose anything either, since he will not accept an ultra-Orthodox match anyway (if he even wants to), so the risk of losing matches because he converted through the state conversion system is also meaningless. I will not elaborate here on how ultra-Orthodox courts operate.
There is no need to fear conversions by anyone who is considered Jewish, and "a family that assimilates is assimilated."
By the way, the chance that there was such a mother is not enough. In order for you to become a gentile because of her, you need the lineage from her to you to be solely maternal (daughter after daughter). The chance of that is zero (and it must be multiplied by the chance of an invalid conversion). Remove your worries from your heart. If it's hard to be a Jew, it's no less hard to be a gentile. 🙂
All the best,
Michi
A recording is attached (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJAdMjYRm7IOFJhRERUZXRLYjF6bVVNZjRXTmJGV0VNblNv (Five minutes) from a class by a certain Rabbi in which he talks about conversion. He bases his remarks on the opinions of great rabbis.
I wanted to know whether you think there is any truth to the things presented in the recording, or is this harshness that is not in line with the law?
As for what he said about invalid dayanim invalidating conversion, it's simple. You don't need to quote anyone, and you don't need to be a great generation for this. It's a simple rule that every child knows. If there is no law, there is no conversion (I converted between myself - he is not a resident).
Regarding his statements about unserious courts, here the whole question is of course who he is referring to. If it's just three people who are not qualified to judge, then maybe that's true. But if he means the courts of the Rabbinate or the conversion system (and it seems clear that he means them), then he is indeed a top-notch scoundrel, exactly as I wrote to you.
His evidence is also completely false. A slaughterer who we find three times with a damaged knife or three times with worms, does indeed lose his validity. Because this proves that his examination is worthless. But courts that have converted and found a non-Jew three times who subsequently does not observe the mitzvot do not lose their validity. And the reason for this is very simple (and you really don't have to be a genius to understand this): The fact that the non-Jew does not observe the mitzvot afterwards does not mean that he did not prepare seriously when converting, and that is the only thing that matters. Therefore, it is not like a knife that if we find it unkosher is a sign that its examination was not good to begin with. After all, the condition of the knife does not change over time. But a Jew is a person, and as Moshe Dayan said, only donkeys do not change their minds.
Just because people finish the Shas and know it all, doesn't mean they have reasonable judgment, and that they speak responsibly and seriously. Often these are people who lack straight halakhic judgment, and certainly when things concern politics and power struggles, such as regarding conversion.
By the way, I've heard hair-raising stories about Rabbi Karelitz's court and the Badatz about conversions that are worthless. I'm not sure you can believe that, and I haven't checked. But I came to show you that there are stories about everyone. It depends on who you ask.
By the way, the same goes for kosher qualifications.
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