Conversion to Judaism – Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• Conversion as a mirror of the dispute over Jewish identity
• Critique of ideological discourse and the division into camps
• The example of the Golan sticker and the claim about “diagonal groups”
• The example of Rabbi Druckman and the inability to state a nuanced position
• An attempt at a systematic description of conversion and the roots of the disputes
• The components of conversion in the Talmud and the halakhic stages
• A religious court and acceptance of the commandments as two additional central components
• “We do not accept him” in Bekhorot and the gap between the ideal case and after the fact
• Rabbi Sherman’s claim about “wicked judges” and its connection to the religious court
• Why a religious court and acceptance of the commandments do not appear in the list in Keritot
• The distinction between a “declarative act” and substantive acceptance of the commandments
• The analogy to the laws of acquisition and an alternative explanation for the absence of “acceptance of the commandments” from the list
• Criticism of using the length of study as a measure of seriousness
• A change in social structure and the claim of a “secular Jew” as a basis for changing conversion
• Formulating the essential claim: acceptance of the commandments as a sign and not a cause
• His conceptual position: there is no such thing as “secular Judaism,” and religious identity cannot be emptied out
• The proposal of “naturalization” instead of national conversion, and the separation of religion and state
• Pragmatic claims about marriage and assimilation and their halakhic status
• Criticism of the view of the rabbinate as an arm of the state and the connection to immigration from the former Soviet Union
• The Sages’ policy of making things difficult for converts and the need to reexamine that in our time
• Toward the question of leniencies and the claim about precedents that are not relevant

Summary

General Overview

The speaker links the issue of conversion to the broader debate over Jewish identity and argues that there is no such thing as a “secular Jewish identity” in any essential sense. Therefore, conversion has become the main arena in which different conceptions of Judaism clash in practical questions. He describes how public discussions about conversion in Israel become “polluted” when they are dragged into ideological camps — Haredim versus Religious Zionists — and calls for a systematic discussion that separates political motivations from halakhic and conceptual questions. Within the halakhic discussion, he places “acceptance of the commandments” at the heart of the current dispute, rejects moral and pragmatic claims as a direct basis for changing Jewish law, and proposes distinguishing between religious conversion and “naturalization” or national belonging that is not conversion.

Conversion as a mirror of the dispute over Jewish identity

The speaker argues that the debate over Jewish identity is expressed most clearly in the area of conversion, because that is where a practical decision has to be made about who enters the Jewish people and under what conditions. He says conversion reflects different conceptions of what is expected of a convert, where the convert is supposed to end up, and what he needs to know about what he is entering. He notes that the issue has become highly charged in recent years because of public and political storms, and says he intends to devote more than one session to it.

Critique of ideological discourse and the division into camps

The speaker brings up the affair involving Rabbi Sherman and the rabbinical court in Ashdod and the Supreme Rabbinical Court, where there was an attempt to invalidate conversions performed by the state conversion system on the grounds that the judges were “wicked” and therefore unfit to judge — which would mean there was no religious court and therefore no conversion. He says the storm split in a predictable way between Religious Zionist rabbis and Haredi rabbis, and that this kind of division “pollutes the discourse,” because people already know in advance where they want to end up and harness the arguments to the conclusion they want. He says he wrote in Makor Rishon a list of “fifteen questions” that are independent of one another for forming a position on conversion, yet in the public discussion only “two groups” appeared — those who answered yes to everything and those who answered no to everything, with no intermediate positions.

The example of the Golan sticker and the claim about “diagonal groups”

He illustrates this with a sticker from the Rabin government period: “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan.” Two independent questions, he says, can produce four different positions, but in public discourse you hear only the two extreme ones. He distinguishes between a moral-political question about public mandate and a substantive question about the agreement itself, and argues that there is no necessary connection between them. He explains that the absence of middle positions stems from an unconscious bias in which people answer all the questions in whatever way will get them to the desired goal, and therefore discourse conducted under an “ideological headline” becomes dishonest and fails to address each issue on its own terms.

The example of Rabbi Druckman and the inability to state a nuanced position

The speaker says he carried out an “unscientific survey” and asked whether rabbis from the Religious Zionist camp genuinely support Rabbi Druckman’s form of conversion, and he was told that most of them do not support it at all and even think it is “absurd.” Still, he says, they stand like a solid wall in his defense because his honor was attacked, yet they are unwilling to say explicitly: “His honor was attacked and that was wrong, but I disagree with his conversion policy.” In a wartime logic, he says, everything becomes black and white. He argues that a position that recognizes complexity, distinguishes between different questions, and only then reaches a conclusion is both more logical and more persuasive.

An attempt at a systematic description of conversion and the roots of the disputes

The speaker says his goal is to describe conversion systematically and not through slogans about “distress” or camp affiliation, and he emphasizes that his arguments are directed equally at both sides. He says there is no need to go into every detail and every source in order to understand the framework of the debate, but it is necessary to understand the components, the concepts, and the distinctions that drive the dispute.

The components of conversion in the Talmud and the halakhic stages

The speaker cites the Talmud in Keritot 9: “Rabbi says: like you, so too your fathers… through circumcision, immersion, and presentation of blood,” and explains that the three components of male conversion are circumcision, immersion, and a sacrifice, while for women there is no circumcision. He emphasizes that these are necessary elements that define the process, and notes that there are disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the status of someone who did not bring the sacrifice. He adds that the Talmud discusses which sacrifice is brought and refers to Keritot 9, though he does not remember the conclusion.

A religious court and acceptance of the commandments as two additional central components

The speaker says that beyond this schematic agreement there are two other fundamental components: that the conversion be done before a religious court, and that there be “acceptance of the commandments.” He explains that without a religious court the convert is not a convert, and presents the court as the representatives of the public who accept the convert on its behalf. Therefore, conversion has to be done during the day, as a judicial session. He mentions technical discussions — such as whether two judges can suffice instead of three, and questions about immersion and testimony — but leaves those outside the present framework.

“We do not accept him” in Bekhorot and the gap between the ideal case and after the fact

The speaker cites the Talmud in Bekhorot 30b: “A gentile who comes to accept the words of Torah except for one matter — we do not accept him,” along with the opinion of Rabbi Yose ben Rabbi Yehuda: “even one minor detail of rabbinic law.” He stresses that the Talmud does not explain what the law is after the fact if they did accept him, and asks whether acceptance of the commandments is indispensable or not. He suggests that in the plain sense, “we do not accept him” means he does not leave the court as a Jew, but leaves the discussion open for later.

Rabbi Sherman’s claim about “wicked judges” and its connection to the religious court

The speaker explains that Rabbi Sherman’s claim rests on the requirement of a religious court: if the judges are wicked, then they are unfit to judge, and therefore there is no religious court and no conversion. He clarifies that this is not merely the claim that the conversion act is “illegitimate,” but rather that the ruling itself is null because of judicial incompetence. He compares this to discussions among later authorities (Acharonim) about “we do not judge on the Sabbath” and whether the ruling of a wicked person is automatically void. He raises logical reservations about the circularity of the claim, but uses the example to emphasize the centrality of the court requirement.

Why a religious court and acceptance of the commandments do not appear in the list in Keritot

The speaker explains that the presence of a religious court is not a “stage” that the convert undergoes, but rather a condition governing how the stages are performed, and therefore it does not appear in the list of circumcision, immersion, and sacrifice. He says acceptance of the commandments is harder to explain — why it does not appear in the list — and mentions one possibility, that some interpreters of Maimonides want to argue that acceptance of the commandments is not indispensable and therefore is not counted as a component. By contrast, he says, the Shulchan Arukh explicitly writes that acceptance of the commandments is indispensable, and even requires that it be done during the day and before three judges. He distinguishes between “informing him of the commandments in order for him to accept them” and “the acceptance of the commandments that is indispensable.”

The distinction between a “declarative act” and substantive acceptance of the commandments

The speaker defines “acceptance of the commandments” in ordinary halakhic discussion as an act within the process in which the convert declares that he accepts the commandments, and regarding that act there are authorities who maintain that after the fact it is not indispensable. But he argues that halakhic speech is not just moving one’s lips; it is an expression of what is inside, and therefore the declaration is supposed to reflect an inner acceptance. He distinguishes between the declarative stage and acceptance of the commandments itself as a substantive stance that accompanies the whole process, and argues that this substantive acceptance is obviously a condition of conversion even if one can debate whether the declaration itself is indispensable.

The analogy to the laws of acquisition and an alternative explanation for the absence of “acceptance of the commandments” from the list

The speaker gives the example that the Shulchan Arukh, in the laws of acquisition, lists the legal acts of acquisition but does not say that one needs “intent to acquire,” even though without that there is no acquisition. Why? Because someone who comes to acquire is already assumed to want it, and Jewish law only instructs him how to carry it out. He argues that the same applies to conversion: acceptance of the commandments is not just another technical detail, but the context that defines what it means to “want to convert,” and therefore there is no need to count it as a separate component in the list of actions. He states his own assumption explicitly: wanting to convert means wanting to join the community that is obligated in the commandments.

Criticism of using the length of study as a measure of seriousness

The speaker notes that nowadays, in the state conversion system, there is a long process of study, exams, and supervision, and people claim that “there has never been a conversion as serious as there is today.” He tells an anecdote about Dov Povarsky in Bnei Brak, who converted a relative who came from Russia with a non-Jewish wife “in three minutes,” and says that people use this as a response to Haredi criticism. He argues that this is beside the point, because the length of study is not what determines anything; what matters is “how serious you are in your intentions.”

A change in social structure and the claim of a “secular Jew” as a basis for changing conversion

The speaker says that in our time there are many Jews by birth who do not observe the commandments, and from that comes the claim that perhaps the requirements for conversion should change. He rejects the argument on the moral level — “why demand more from a convert than from a Jew by birth?” — using examples from citizenship, criminals, and adoption, and argues that one is allowed to set conditions for someone who asks to join the club, even if the club’s existing members do not meet them. He says the more serious claim is a substantive one: today there are people who want to “join the Jewish people” as secular Jews, and therefore it is argued that the laws of conversion should change and should not require acceptance of the commandments.

Formulating the essential claim: acceptance of the commandments as a sign and not a cause

The speaker presents the thesis of those who oppose the requirement: in the past, acceptance of the commandments was only a sign of the desire to join the Jewish nation, because the nation was then defined as obligated in the commandments. If so, today one could choose “other signs” of national belonging and recognize conversion even without acceptance of the commandments. He says some people have written that acceptance of the commandments is “an invention of the nineteenth century,” and he calls that nonsense and a misunderstanding. Still, he agrees that the serious claim is not historical but rather a claim about changed circumstances in our own time. He admits that it is hard to decide from the sources whether acceptance of the commandments is a sign or a cause, because even if the Sages described a ritual of informing the convert of the commandments, that could still be interpreted as a test of motivation rather than as a substantive condition.

His conceptual position: there is no such thing as “secular Judaism,” and religious identity cannot be emptied out

The speaker argues philosophically that there is no such thing as “secular Judaism,” even though there are secular Jews, and that any attempt to empty the concept “Jew” of its religious content leaves it empty. He suggests that ethnic or civic identity does not provide a sharp enough definition, because one can find Jews who do not speak Hebrew and do not live in Israel and are still Jews, while on the other hand there are non-Jews who meet Israeli cultural criteria such as speaking Hebrew and serving in the army. He gives the example of a Druze person who wrote a doctorate on the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg and reads Hebrew literature, in order to show that cultural criteria are not litmus paper for Jewishness. He concludes that the implication is that Judaism must continue to be identified with obligation to the commandments, and wanting to convert must continue to mean wanting to accept the yoke of the commandments.

The proposal of “naturalization” instead of national conversion, and the separation of religion and state

The speaker says he supports a process of national-civic integration for someone who wants to be part of Israeli society, but he opposes calling that conversion and proposes calling it “naturalization.” He compares it to citizenship tests in the United States or France, and emphasizes that someone who passed such a naturalization process is still “not Jewish” and therefore cannot marry as a Jew within a religious framework. He connects the root of the problem to the mixing of citizenship and religion, and argues that the desire for Jewish law to recognize a conversion that is really just naturalization is what creates the crisis. He says he tends toward separation of religion and state in the sense of distinguishing between “Israelis” and “Israeli Jews,” though he does not go deeply into that here.

Pragmatic claims about marriage and assimilation and their halakhic status

The speaker presents the pragmatic argument that one must be lenient in conversion in order to prevent the whole mess of intermarriage and the inability to keep track of who is Jewish and who is not. He says he is willing to discuss that claim on the principled level, but stresses that it is not a halakhic argument but a “motivation,” and therefore it cannot justify giving up acceptance of the commandments, if that is an indispensable condition under Jewish law. He compares this to other problems, such as women refused a get, where the severity of the problem does not change the law but rather obligates one to look for a halakhic avenue within the available possibilities.

Criticism of the view of the rabbinate as an arm of the state and the connection to immigration from the former Soviet Union

The speaker argues that the pressure to be lenient in conversion stems from the view that Jewish law and the rabbinate are supposed to solve problems the state created — for example, by bringing “masses of gentiles from the former Soviet Union.” He mentions Rabbi Peretz, who shouted about the problem, and says that “everyone pelted him with etrogim,” and then those very same people demand that the rabbinate “find something to do” to solve it. He says that such a policy means the state will do whatever it wants and then demand that Jewish law “clean up” the results afterward. In his view that is both a tactical and an essential mistake, especially when it is not halakhically possible in the first place.

The Sages’ policy of making things difficult for converts and the need to reexamine that in our time

The speaker says that in halakhic tradition, the basic policy before conversion is to make things difficult for the convert and try to discourage him in order to test whether he is serious, even though after conversion there are many commandments requiring us to be careful with his honor, such as loving the convert in addition to loving one’s fellow Jew. He describes these difficulties as a kind of filter against the situation described by the phrase, “Converts are as difficult for Israel as a leprous affliction,” meaning when converts are accepted without serious examination of their motives. He argues that although the tradition has generally been stringent, today’s circumstances are different, and therefore the fact that this is how things were done in the past is not enough by itself to decide that this is how they should be done today. A fresh examination is needed of the policy of stringency and leniency.

Toward the question of leniencies and the claim about precedents that are not relevant

The speaker says that even if one accepts the motivation to be lenient, one still has to clarify what is halakhically possible and what exactly “being lenient in conversion” means. He says people bring “a huge number of precedents,” and almost all of them are “irrelevant,” and stresses that the orderly discussion he is constructing is meant to explain why those precedents do not prove what people want them to prove. He closes by saying that he will continue next time with the question of possible leniencies.

I wanted to talk about conversion, which in recent years is something people keep dealing with around Shavuot all the time, but I thought it also connects to the end of the previous topic, so it’s still worth talking about a bit. In the previous topic, when I spoke about freedom and liberty, and in the end I got to questions of Jewish identity, secular Jewish identity, I said that in my opinion that’s a kind of oxymoron — there’s no such thing. And I think the expression of these arguments, or these discussions, mainly comes out in the area of conversion. Everything else — you can argue, yes Jewish, not Jewish, those are arguments. But the question is what you do on the practical level. And here it seems to me that conversion reflects the different conceptions of what Jewish identity is, what you expect from a convert, where he is supposed to arrive, what he is supposed to know about what he’s entering into. And so I’ll say a bit about this issue. I won’t finish it today, so it seems to me that maybe we’ll even make this into a topic of its own — I assume it’ll take me another session or two.

Okay, a short introduction beyond the link to last time. In recent years this topic has been somewhat loaded. It’s loaded with political and ideological arguments and all kinds of public storms — Rabbi Sherman’s ruling, or the regional religious court in Ashdod, and afterward Rabbi Sherman in the Supreme Rabbinical Court of the Chief Rabbinate, who wanted to disqualify or void all the conversions of the state conversion system on the claim that the judges are wicked. Since the judges are wicked, they’re unfit to judge; if they’re unfit to judge, then there is no religious court; if there is no religious court, there is no conversion. So of course that caused a huge uproar, and all kinds of arguments started. And very unsurprisingly, it split between Religious Zionist rabbis and Haredi rabbis. And that somehow sharpened for me a point that comes back every time I see arguments conducted within this framework of ideologies — Religious Zionist, Haredi, and other ideologies as well. It always contaminates the discourse. And it contaminates the discourse because people know in advance where they’re going to end up; they’re not really discussing in order to clarify what is correct. They want to get where they want to get, and now they harness all the horses to that wagon.

So I wrote about this then — at that time I wrote some piece about it, not even really an article, some short piece in Makor Rishon — and there I said that, without thinking too much, in two minutes I could write fifteen independent questions that need to be answered when one wants to formulate a position regarding this conversion issue. There are really more, but that’s what came out just in a quick flow of the pen — or keyboard. And if there are fifteen questions, if there are fifteen independent questions, then I would expect there to be several groups in the population: fifteen independent questions, where on each one you can answer yes or no. Thirty. What? What? Two to the fifteenth. Two to the fifteenth. Right, something like forty thousand groups, and there ought to be forty thousand opinions, okay, thirty-two K. Now, how many opinions were there, how many groups were there? Two. Two. Meaning, there was the group that answered yes to all fifteen questions, and there was the group that answered no to all fifteen questions. Where are all the groups that answered yes to questions one, two, fifteen, thirteen, and fifteen, and no to the rest? Where are all the other combinations? They weren’t there.

Maybe they weren’t independent. They were independent — when you look at them, you see that they are. Okay, if I’m looking for statistical indications, you’re right, but when you look at them on their own terms, they’re independent. And this basically means — and I think we talked about this once — that in many arguments, almost all public arguments actually, when there are various aspects, you won’t find all the middle groups, only the diagonal groups. Meaning, only those who answer all the questions the same way, either all to this side or all to that side. I think we talked about this once — I brought the example of…

Yes, during the Rabin government, regarding the Golan, I saw some sticker on a car when I was riding on a bus; some car passed by, and it said: “Rabin has no mandate to give back the Golan.” So I asked myself: interesting, what is the political outlook of the owner of that car? Does he belong to the right, to the left? And then I answered myself that I have no idea. Meaning, I can’t know. Why? Because that question — whether he does or doesn’t have a mandate to give back the Golan — could be, at least, on the level of political morality. There are more levels. Meaning: you ran on a certain agenda, you promised something specific before the election, and now there are things you see from there that you don’t see from here, you see things differently — which by the way I don’t dismiss at all, I mean that can definitely happen — only the question is what to do in that situation. Do we go back to the public and say, okay, folks, I changed my view, I’d like to hold elections on my new view? Or not? Or do I say: I was elected, and now I’m supposed to make decisions according to my best understanding? In my view there are really two decent sides in both directions. I don’t think there’s a simple answer here. There are two decent sides in both directions. That’s the moral question.

Beyond that, there’s the question on the merits: are you in favor of such an agreement or opposed to such an agreement? Diplomatically, militarily, whatever you want — religiously, everything. Okay? Another question: is there any dependence between the questions? In my opinion, no. What’s the connection? I can support such an agreement but think it’s immoral because he was elected on a different agenda. If he wants a mandate from the public, let him go back to the public. What is he going to do? Let him get a mandate. And of course I can oppose such an agreement but say: he was elected prime minister, he has the right to do — or even the duty to do — what he understands; you can’t keep going back to the public all the time. If he got the mandate, then he makes the decisions. There’s no connection between the questions; they’re independent questions.

So here it’s already a simple combinatorial question: when there are two independent questions, how many groups are there? Four. Right? And there too, of course, there were only two. There were only two. There were those who said that it’s immoral and also forbidden to make that agreement, and there were those who said it’s very moral and also obligatory to make that agreement. There weren’t those who said: it’s immoral but I support the agreement, or: it is moral but I oppose the agreement. Those groups were almost nonexistent. Again, maybe there was someone, but in the public discourse those voices weren’t heard. Why not? Again, because people harness all the questions to the goal they want to reach. Yes, meaning, two questions — they answer all the questions just in order to reach the goal they want to reach.

Again, I don’t think this is always done consciously. Usually it’s not done consciously. It’s not done consciously, but people really are biased: they see those aspects as more significant because they have a certain tendency, they want to go in that direction. And therefore, whenever discourse is conducted under an ideological heading, it gets contaminated. Meaning, it’s done in an intellectually dishonest way. It’s done in a way where people aren’t discussing the questions on their own merits.

And I said that I don’t see why this argument specifically has to be Religious Zionism versus Haredism, or something like that. I did a little survey — of course not a representative one — but I asked people a bit: do rabbis from the Religious Zionist camp really support Rabbi Druckman’s conversion method? And I got answers that most of them do not. I’m talking about rabbis, including liberal rabbis, and most of them do not — and rightly so, because it’s far-fetched. So then why do they all go out there and stand like a fortified wall in his defense? Because his honor was harmed, which is also true. Meaning, his honor was harmed, and that’s not okay. Fine, so say: it’s not okay to harm his honor, but I don’t agree with his conversion policy. Why can’t one say such a message? No, you can’t, because now we’re at war. In wars there is no gray, only black and white. Meaning, there’s no gray in wars.

By the way, I don’t think that’s a way to win wars; it’s also a tactical mistake. Because when you present a position like that, it’s not convincing. People can see that you’re biased. Why can’t you say: friends, this is a complex issue, there are these questions and those questions, here I think yes, here I think no, and bottom line, in my opinion this is what should be done. What’s wrong with such a position? That’s a much more reasonable position, and in my view also one that is much more persuasive. Fine, then maybe you won’t be able to go on crusades and jihad, but overall in my opinion it’s a much more convincing stance.

And that’s the introduction to the topic of conversion. I want to get a bit into this issue of conversion, yes, from the perspective of current arguments, but to try to describe the topic in a more systematic way, and not just explain that there is a great distress and we are Religious Zionists and therefore we have to say this or have to say that. Rather — and I say this, all my claims are directed equally at both sides. Meaning, this can be directed at the Haredim, at the Religious Zionists, it’s fine. I just choose one example each time. Rather, one has to discuss the matters on their own terms. So I’ll try to describe conversion from that perspective as well, and also a bit the roots, at least, of the current arguments, without getting into all the details and all the sources — I don’t think that’s necessary either, by the way — in order to understand what we’re talking about. And I think that then one can also formulate a more balanced position.

Okay. So first of all, some technical preliminaries: the description of conversion, the stages of conversion, the components of the conversion process, appear in the Talmud in tractate Keritot 9a. Rabbi says: “Like you, like your forefathers — just as your forefathers did not enter the covenant except through circumcision, immersion, and offering of blood, so too they shall not enter the covenant except through circumcision, immersion, and offering of blood.” So there are three components in the conversion process of a man, right? Circumcision, immersion, and a sacrifice. “Offering of blood” means a sacrifice. For women there is no circumcision, and that’s it. That’s what the Talmud says; it is brought as Jewish law by all the decisors, yes, this is completely clear.

These stages are not necessarily identical in status. Meaning, circumcision and immersion are of course indispensable; without them there is no conversion. As for the offering of blood, here there are some disputes among the medieval authorities about how far the one who did not bring a sacrifice — what his status is. Is he Jewish but forbidden to marry a Jewish woman? There are various arguments. But for now, at least from the standpoint of the Talmud, there are three stages, three components. These are not recommendations; they are necessary, and they define the… And what sacrifice does he bring? What? Which sacrifice? What? A bird sin-offering or something? What type of sacrifice? I don’t remember; the Talmud itself discusses it there. It discusses whether it’s a burnt offering or peace offering, and derives it — I no longer remember the conclusion there. You can look in Keritot 9a.

This description of the process is of course very schematic. There are other components in the process. There are many details, obviously. But there are at least two additional components that are fundamental, and one has to ask — or this raises the question — why they don’t appear here in the list. One of them is that it has to be done before a religious court, meaning in the presence of a religious court. Without a religious court being part of the process, the convert is not a convert. Meaning, he can do everything he did — he is not a convert. There are discussions whether the court can be two instead of three, whether two who judged have rendered a valid judgment or not, but those are separate discussions. What is clear is that the presence of a religious court is required. Why? What? Why? Because that’s how it is derived; never mind. Is this because it’s a legal proceeding? What is the role of the religious court? No, I think simply that the idea is that the religious court are the representatives of the community who accept the convert in its name. And the religious court are the ones who decide: okay, we accepted you. A judicial decision — it’s legal judgment, it’s not… In a religious court, for example, judgment must take place by day, and conversion too must take place by day, because it is considered like a judicial session of the religious court.

If someone came… What? If they carry it out… Yes, meaning, the presence of the religious court is a condition in conversion. Everything in song. And if it’s before…? What is…? Okay, there are many questions on this matter. What about immersion? Does it need to be done… certainly for a woman. But if there are witnesses? If there are witnesses, as he says — if it’s a matter of witnesses, that they need to know, that’s one thing. If it’s before…? No, no, we’re talking about before a religious court. There are other stages in which two Torah scholars at the immersion inform him of some of the commandments; there they discuss whether those two are representatives of the court or whether they are witnesses. I’m not going into all those details, which need to be clarified in the sources, because I want to give the broad outline.

So one thing, we said, is the presence of a religious court — meaning that this be done before a religious court. And the second thing is acceptance of the commandments. Acceptance of the commandments does not appear here in the Talmud, but it appears elsewhere. For example, the Talmud in tractate Bekhorot 30b: “An idolater who comes to accept the words of Torah except for one matter — he is not accepted.” Meaning, even if he accepted the commandments except for one commandment — I don’t know, this one doesn’t work for me, I don’t want commandment number 512 — he is not accepted. Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Yehudah says: “Even one exacting point from the words of the Sages.” Meaning, even one rabbinic commandment — there too he is not accepted. Initially. What? Initially. He is not accepted. It doesn’t say… And after the fact, if they accepted him? It says nothing. It says nothing.

I’ll get to the question whether this is indispensable or not, but the Talmud doesn’t say. In the Talmud it says: he is not accepted. Simply speaking, he is not accepted — and after all, this is done within the conversion process — so “he is not accepted” doesn’t mean they don’t receive him into the court, but that they do not accept him, meaning he does not leave the court as a Jew. Because we’re talking about something already done within the court. So these are two additional central components that don’t appear in that list in the Talmud in Keritot: that it be done before a religious court, and that acceptance of the commandments is required.

“Before a religious court,” I said, is exactly Rabbi Sherman’s claim — that if they are wicked, then there is no court, and consequently the conversion is void. So it is connected to our matter in that way. And acceptance of the commandments — that is the essence of the argument today. Okay? I’ll get to that in a moment. Why did you say “wicked”? I didn’t understand. Because they do things that, according to Jewish law, are forbidden to do. In the private religious court? No, in the court. No, no, in the court. Their act of conversion is an illegitimate act. So let him say “an illegitimate conversion act”; it’s as though they’re public representatives. Why does he call them wicked? Not… Not because of that; they are wicked. No, because if they aren’t wicked, then even if he thinks it’s illegitimate, once a religious court has ruled, that’s a ruling. He voided the ruling because they are wicked and cannot judge. Someone who rules in that way — the ruling itself turns him into a wicked person, and consequently it voids itself.

It reminds me of the end of tractate Beitzah. There’s a Mishnah there saying that one does not judge on the Sabbath and one does not make acquisitions on the Sabbath, all kinds of rabbinic laws. So there are later authorities there — I don’t remember who — who ask: why do we need that? After all, someone who judges on the Sabbath is wicked, and that disqualifies his judgment, so the judgment is not a judgment. The question is whether that’s really true, or whether he first needs to commit the wicked act and only then become disqualified. But here, in this case, fine — then maybe the first convert really would be a convert, because at that stage they were still qualified judges, but from the second convert onward, it’s no longer conversion. Fine, that’s not the route I meant.

Okay. So that is one aspect, and as I said, acceptance of the commandments is really at the center of the storm, in the eye of the storm. Why don’t those two components appear in the list — the list of circumcision, immersion, and offering of blood? As for the presence of the religious court, I think that’s fairly clear, because that list is saying which stages the convert has to undergo. So the convert has to undergo three stages. The fact that those stages must be done before a religious court is a condition, or a detail in how they are done. There are many other details of Jewish law too. By the way, if there is an infant who has no father and they circumcise him — similarly here, this convert has no father, therefore the circumcision has to be… fine, perhaps. That’s a Talmud in Ketubot, around 11a, I think. In any event, the claim is that the presence of the religious court does not need to appear in the list because it is not another stage the convert undergoes, but a condition of how one performs what he needs to do.

But regarding acceptance of the commandments, that really is a harder question. And therefore, at least in Maimonides’ view, some commentators or decisors want to claim that it is not indispensable. Acceptance of the commandments does not prevent the conversion from taking effect, and therefore it does not appear in the list. So it is not a necessary condition in conversion: ideally one does it, but if not, the convert is still a convert. But there is a Talmudic passage that seems not to say that — even if he accepts one commandment… So they say that’s the ideal case, they say that’s the ideal case: “he is not accepted,” as we saw before. The wording there — where was it, there where it said they do not accept him — what was the Talmud’s language there? “An idolater who comes to accept the words of Torah except for one matter — he is not accepted.” Yes, but it doesn’t say that he has to state that he accepts. I’ll get in just a moment to that distinction between saying and what he actually thinks. Yes, I’m getting there.

So in principle, in Maimonides there are disputes about this — what happens with acceptance of the commandments. And if we say it is not indispensable, then that can also explain why it doesn’t appear in the list. The Shulchan Arukh writes explicitly that it is indispensable. It says in Yoreh De’ah 268: “All matters of the convert — whether informing him of the commandments in order to accept them, whether circumcision, whether immersion — must be in the presence of three fit to judge and by day.” You see? “Informing him of the commandments in order to accept them,” circumcision and immersion — from his standpoint that is one of the stages. Informing him of what? “Informing him of the commandments in order to accept them.” Where is it written? It doesn’t say here the distinction mentioned earlier — in a moment. “They must be before three fit to judge and by day. However, this is specifically ideal; but after the fact, if he was circumcised or immersed only before two and at night” — because judgment needs to be done by day — “this does not prevent it, and he is a convert and permitted to a Jewish woman, except for acceptance of the commandments, which is indispensable if it is not by day and before three.” Here it already says “acceptance” and not “informing.” “Acceptance of the commandments, which is indispensable if it is not by day and before three.”

So here that already goes quite far. Meaning, his claim is not only that acceptance of the commandments is indispensable, but that acceptance of the commandments has to be done by day and before three. Meaning, if you accepted the commandments before two witnesses and they testify and say you accepted the commandments — that doesn’t help, you are not a convert; it is indispensable. Meaning, if that does not exist, you are not a convert. So the Shulchan Arukh — I said that in Maimonides there are some disputes about it — but here there really is a different interpretation, which is actually quite natural: why acceptance of the commandments does not appear. And that of course brings me to the distinctions that came up here: what exactly is acceptance of the commandments?

In the usual halakhic contexts, “acceptance of the commandments” means an act in the conversion process in which you declare that you accept the commandments upon yourself. And that is one of the stages of conversion; that’s why I asked why it also doesn’t appear in the list, in the list of stages. Regarding that act, there really are decisors who say it is not indispensable. Meaning, even if you didn’t declare and say the words “I accept upon myself obligation to the commandments” or “obligation to Jewish law,” after the fact your conversion takes effect. There is acceptance of commandments there too, there are a number of stages in that matter, so perhaps that is not indispensable. Where does it appear? It doesn’t appear.

Acceptance of the commandments presupposes some act that says… We talked about this one time — “for seventy years I wanted to do it, I still don’t do it” — I spoke about this once. Meaning, that is not called acceptance of the commandments. Acceptance of the commandments means doing these things because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them. “Acceptance of the commandments” in the Ahad Ha’am sense is not acceptance of the commandments. Ahad Ha’am, who performs the commandments because of national value, cultural value, or something like that — even moral value — that is not acceptance of the commandments. In the Scroll of Esther it says: “They fulfilled and accepted.” Fulfilled or accepted? No, not perform, not fulfill — only accept. Yes, fine, maybe there’s a difference: “The Jews fulfilled and accepted upon themselves.” That’s Jews, not converts. I simply think one can learn from that: “and many of the peoples of the land became Jews” — that’s the conversion in Esther. “Fulfilled and accepted” is speaking about the Jews. I know, but maybe one can learn from it that accepting is enough, and fulfilling isn’t necessary. Fine, I’ll get to that later too. I’m not sure from that verse, but there is the direction of “we shall do and we shall hear.”

Yes, yes — obviously actual practice is an essential part of the matter, but I’ll get to that. In any event, what lies behind this language is that speech is not just moving one’s lips. Speech is lip movement that expresses something inside me. Meaning, the role of speech is to tell people what I think. So when Jewish law requires speech, it always of course also requires from me some inner content that the speech expresses. When I want to make an acquisition, I say to a person: I want to buy, do you want to sell? We speak to each other. Why do we need to speak? We need to speak in order to clarify to the other person what I really want. Fundamentally, in an acquisition all that is needed is only the desire to buy; speaking is merely a means to tell the other person what I want, otherwise he can’t know. Even with a vow, where verbal articulation is really a condition, even there Rabbeinu Tam has the position that one can vow in thought. One can vow in thought without speech. Maybe the thought has to be in the form of speech — meaning to think verbally, not merely think the things themselves — but it’s clear that speech in any case is some sort of articulation or exposure of things that are within me.

So here too, if in the conversion process the convert is required to accept the commandments — meaning, an act of declaration, “I accept the commandments upon myself” — then clearly this is not about lip movement and saying the words. What it’s about is acceptance of the commandments. When you say it, you express it with your lips; that is, you say with your lips what is happening in your heart. The question is whether the acceptance of the commandments that takes place in the heart — that acceptance in the essential sense, not the declaration of acceptance of the commandments, which is not a stage in the conversion process — it is not a stage in the conversion process; it accompanies the entire conversion process. The declaration is one of the stages in the conversion process. About that, one can discuss whether it is indispensable or not. But acceptance of the commandments itself — what the declaration expresses — there it seems to me simply obvious that this is indispensable.

More than that it is indispensable: I asked earlier why it doesn’t appear in the list of components of the conversion process. About this point, it seems to me one can bring an example again from acquisitions, what I brought before. If you look in the Shulchan Arukh, I think you won’t find in the laws of acquisitions that one needs intent to acquire, even though certainly that is indispensable. Meaning, without intent to acquire, you didn’t acquire. If one falls onto a found object — there are passages in Bava Metzia and many places — if you don’t intend to acquire, you didn’t acquire. To acquire, two things are needed: you need to perform a valid act of acquisition, and you need to intend to acquire. But in the Shulchan Arukh what appears are the acts. For each type of property and situation, it tells you what you need to do for the acquisition to take effect. It doesn’t say that you need to want to acquire or intend to acquire. Why not? Because it doesn’t need to say it. Someone who doesn’t want to acquire isn’t here. Meaning, someone who wants to acquire goes to the Shulchan Arukh and looks at how to implement it — how to carry it out. The Shulchan Arukh says: do such-and-such, and then you have acquired. If you don’t want to acquire, that’s perfectly fine; there is also no law saying you must want to acquire. Meaning, if you don’t want to acquire, then don’t — no problem. It is permitted not to want to acquire. It just means you won’t be here if you don’t want to acquire, right? The person who opened the Shulchan Arukh looking for the laws of acquisitions is someone who wants to acquire and is looking for how to do it. The Shulchan Arukh writes how to do it; it does not write what the precondition is for the person opening that section of the Shulchan Arukh. The person who opened it knows himself that he opened it; he doesn’t need the Shulchan Arukh for that.

So too in the context of conversion, it seems to me that the most natural explanation for why acceptance of the commandments does not appear here is דווקא because of how fundamental it is, not because it isn’t required. Rather because it is the condition for everything; it is the context of the whole matter. Meaning, if you don’t want to accept the commandments, then you are not a convert; you do not want to convert. Meaning, someone who wants to accept the commandments, someone who wants to convert — there are laws of conversion for how to do that, how to express it, exactly like the laws of acquisition. But if someone doesn’t want to, that’s perfectly fine. He is allowed not to want to; he will remain a non-Jew and everything is fine. I can’t write in the Shulchan Arukh that there is a law requiring him to accept the commandments in the sense of what he wants — not in the sense of the declaration during the conversion process. That defines the context.

But you assumed that the blood is inherent, as though it has some sort of immanence. Meaning, he’s honest, not one thing in his mouth and another in his heart. No, no, not important. I’m not talking right now about the diagnostic question of how I know what’s in his heart. I’m talking about the question: Elijah the Prophet would come and tell me what is in his heart. I want to know what has to be there for the conversion to be valid. The question of how I actually know what is in his heart — for that, the declaration is intended. And even when there is a declaration, as you say, maybe he is declaring falsely and doesn’t really mean it. Fine, there are discussions about “things in the heart are not legally binding matters,” and there are already rules for dealing with that. I’m talking about the foundation before that, even before the diagnostics: what am I looking for? Do I need to look for acceptance of the commandments inside him, and then we’ll see how we establish it — how we know it. Okay?

And in acquisitions, the Shulchan Arukh doesn’t talk about this, and there are sources for why intention is required there, whereas in conversion he does the opposite. In conversion it doesn’t appear in the Talmudic source, and he adds it. No — acceptance of the commandments? The Shulchan Arukh mentions it in conversion too. The Shulchan Arukh talks about acceptance of the commandments in the sense of the act in the conversion process. He does not speak of acceptance of the commandments in the inner, spiritual sense — that I actually come to the view that I want to be obligated to Jewish law. He speaks about the practical expression of that. And that is exactly the point; it is exactly the same thing as in the laws of acquisitions, I think. It seems to me that’s the simpler explanation for why this does not appear.

Of course, this is not a logically necessary consequence, because I assumed something here in the subtext. I assumed here some identity between wanting to convert and wanting to accept the commandments. Meaning, my assumption — and maybe it wasn’t obvious here — the question is whether really wanting to convert means wanting to be obligated in the yoke of the commandments. That is an assumption I made here; let’s put it on the table. And my claim is that this thing itself — the desire to convert means the desire to join the community of those obligated in the commandments. That is the meaning of the phrase “wanting to convert.” And maybe its expression reveals what he is thinking. Maybe the matter of expression has another requirement, that it be an undertaking. Maybe the fact that he is now saying it is a kind of commitment. Even if we say it reveals what he thinks, still, now he has said it. That’s a conceptual Talmudic analysis. The same analysis is done in the laws of acquisitions too. Meaning, the question is whether the act of acquisition expresses final resolve or creates final resolve. It doesn’t matter to me, because even if the act is very important in the continuation and in the context, and perhaps it has practical halakhic consequences, for my discussion it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, even if it creates the final resolve, practically, in order for him to convert there has to be final resolve. Whether he comes with it, or whether it is created as a result of the conversion process, is another matter.

Also in the context — we’ll get to this later — also in the context of the studies the convert goes through. Today it’s quite a long process in the state conversion system. They always say that there has never been a conversion process as serious as today. Despite all the criticism — they sit and study and they are checked and tested and all sorts of things, and there is accompaniment and so on — there never used to be such a thing. They always say — this criticism is very well known, it’s always mentioned — the rosh yeshiva of Ponevezh, Rabbi Dov Povarsky, the father of Rabbi Berel Povarsky — at a certain stage, his brother came from Russia after being there a long time. When the Iron Curtain opened, he came with a non-Jewish wife. He arrived, and they converted him in Bnei Brak in three minutes. More or less, they converted him right away. So people always say: you come complaining about the state conversion system, where they study for a year or I don’t know how long, and are examined and checked and so on — those people from Bnei Brak who criticize us did this in three minutes. And I told him that’s an irrelevant argument. It’s irrelevant because the length of the study proves nothing. What matters is how serious you are in your intentions. I’ll get to that later.

In any event, this alternative explanation for why acceptance of the commandments does not appear in the list of conversion components obviously assumes an assumption that matters to me beyond the explanation of the Talmud. That assumption basically says that acceptance of the commandments is the essence of conversion. Meaning, wanting to convert means wanting to accept the commandments. And therefore there is no need to write it, just as there is no need to write intent to acquire. Okay?

Like Rabbi Kook and the Land of Israel. What? Like Rabbi Kook and the Land of Israel. Why? Because it’s the opposite, no? It’s so all-encompassing that you don’t even have to say it. Ah, okay — there I disagree. No, there are really outrageous mistakes of later authorities there, by the way. Because they bring that in connection with “general commandments,” the fourth root of Maimonides. If I mentioned this once, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Maimonides’ fourth root. In the fourth root, Maimonides brings general commandments like “You shall keep all My commandments.” He says that a commandment like “You shall keep all My commandments” is a duplicate commandment; we are already commanded in the commandments, so why count this commandment too? He did not say “general commandments” in the sense that they are so fundamental that therefore they are not counted. There is no such thing in the fourth root, and important later authorities bring it, and I don’t understand it.

After all, if he brings — say, in Temple times he had to bring a sacrifice. Now I also assume that the thinking that this sacrifice is for the conversion also needs to be built into the laws of sacrifice, not the laws of conversion. Right, the laws of sacrifice. Right, but again — today, for example, there is no sacrifice, so from the laws of sacrifice you won’t be able to prove it. And even there, if it is from the laws of sacrifice, then of course the question arises what you call conversion. Meaning, the question whether conversion is acceptance of the commandments can still remain open, because if you say, for example, that conversion means joining the Jewish nation, as some claim, then there too I bring the sacrifice in order to join the Jewish nation. Meaning, whatever content you put into the intention to convert will enter there as well. So it seems to me that this is the simpler explanation for why it doesn’t appear.

What really happens — why doesn’t it appear between the two possibilities? The desire to join the Jewish nation, according to your approach, or the desire to keep the commandments — in both cases does that explain why it doesn’t appear? No, because acceptance of the commandments is still needed even according to the one who says one needs to join the Jewish nation, because he claims that then… I’ll get to that in a moment. No, but why doesn’t it appear? Why doesn’t it…? No — on the contrary, according to his view it is indeed a difficulty why it doesn’t appear, because acceptance into the nation itself need not appear, but the fact that this has to be expressed through the intention to accept the commandments — that is already a halakhic detail; that should appear. According to my view it is not an indication; it is the essence of conversion. It is not an indication that you want to join. That’s why I ask why it doesn’t appear. I think… fine, okay, he’ll say that really because that is not what it is, maybe exactly.

The point is that what is happening in our time — and this is what arouses the arguments — is that, as everyone understands, the Jewish nation has changed, or the worldviews or ideologies of the Jewish people are no longer as they were when this Jewish law was formulated in the Talmud, or among the medieval and later authorities, up until the last two hundred years. And what happens today is that there are many Jews who are Jews by birth who do not keep the commandments, are not committed to the commandments. So the question arises whether it is not also correct to change the demands placed on a convert. Meaning, you are demanding of a convert things that a perfectly respectable Jew does not fulfill. Now here one has to notice, again, two levels.

One level is the moral level. The moral level says: listen, you don’t demand this from a proper Jew, from a Jew by birth you don’t demand this, so what do you want from this convert, who after all grew up as a non-Jew? He has to be more Jewish than a Jew? Meaning, he has to be Jewish like any other proper Jew, so how can you demand from him things that you don’t demand from the native-born Jew? In my opinion that is not a valid argument. You do demand it, but he doesn’t fulfill it, so what difference does it make? What? You do demand it. Yes, so from the convert too you’ll demand it and he won’t fulfill it. And that’s okay? No, he won’t be accepted. But he’ll remain Jewish. No — the convert, the convert. You’re talking about a Jew. So I’m saying the same thing with a convert as with a Jew: you demand it from the convert as well, and he doesn’t fulfill it — is that fine? You accept him like the Jew. So I’m saying the moral argument, in my opinion, is not an argument.

Think of a country to which some accomplished criminal comes and wants citizenship. Lansky, yes, wants citizenship. The question is whether they grant it or not. I assume most countries would not accept such a person as a citizen, right? There are enough criminals in the country. Yes, we have enough of our own. Now on the other hand, nobody would think of revoking the citizenship of those criminals of ours because they are criminals. They can be criminals on exactly the same level, it doesn’t matter. It is obvious that there is a difference between the demands you make of someone who comes to be admitted to the club and what you demand of someone who is already a member of the club.

If you want to adopt a child, then there are people who would say: look, this child is too complicated, I can’t adopt him, he’s too complex, with too many problems, I can’t. Someone very righteous might do that too, but it is a legitimate claim. But obviously nobody would say: my child has lots of problems, so let’s throw him out of the house. Right? It doesn’t work that way. Why? And that is very sensible, and in my opinion there is no moral injustice in it at all. It’s correct. Meaning, we have certain circles of relation. Someone who already belongs to us has to do something much more drastic — or fail to do something much more drastic — in order to lose his identity. But in order to join, I demand of him requirements that he has to commit to those requirements. Of course, that is assuming that those requirements are really necessary. What you said earlier: that I in fact also expect a secular Jew to keep the commandments. The fact that he doesn’t do so is, in my opinion, a problem, but it is not a problem serious enough for him to lose his Judaism. But why should I take such a thing into myself from a convert?

By the way, there are views among the medieval authorities that somehow disappeared. In the period of the later authorities, an apostate really ceases entirely to be Jewish. He needs conversion, and his betrothal is not valid — meaning, one who converts to another religion becomes a non-Jew. No, that’s not for him, that’s for us. But one can also reach a state where one loses one’s Jewish identity, not only add Jewish identity; one can also lose it. But fine, that somehow was not accepted as Jewish law. Meaning, today the accepted ruling is not like those opinions. And an apostate is not a secular person; it is someone who accepted another religion. Yes, because what would you do with a secular person? He would lose his Jewish identity, and then what would he be?

So the moral claim, in my opinion, is not really a claim. But there is another claim — not so much with individuals. I’m saying the example doesn’t really reflect it, because we’re talking about isolated individuals at the margins. But here, when most of the people are secular — if most of the people are criminals, will you be a criminal? I won’t. What, the trouble I already have isn’t enough, I need more? Why, if most of the people are criminals, then the majority will decide? The majority will decide — friends, if the majority decides today, they’ll also decide about conversion whatever they want. I — if you ask me, ask me what my opinion is — my opinion is that I would not accept him. If they won’t accept my opinion, then they won’t, but my opinion is that I would not accept him. What the Talmud says: “Because this one has eaten garlic, should that one go on and eat garlic too?” Meaning, the fact that we have troubles does not mean that we should add more troubles for ourselves.

The harder, or more substantive claim in this context is not the moral claim but the essential claim. The essential claim says that today it is no longer correct to define Judaism through acceptance of the commandments. Which is really what I said earlier — it was my subtext. When I determined that the desire to convert means the desire to accept the commandments, I was assuming something there. I assumed that Judaism means commandments, commitment to the commandments. And today, those who make the claim will say, that is not true. Meaning, today there is in fact a more liberal definition — or a broader one, let’s call it that — of the concept “Jew.” Many Jews do not keep the commandments, and nobody doubts their Judaism. And since that is so, not because of the moral question but because of the essential question — meaning, now suppose someone comes and genuinely wants to join the Jewish people, but he wants to be a secular Jew. There is a large sector within the Jewish people that is like that, so you can’t say that he doesn’t want to join the Jewish people. If so, it could be that today the laws of conversion are supposed to change. Today, in fact, one should accept him even without acceptance of the commandments. That is a substantive claim, not a moral claim, and the question really is what status that claim has.

That is basically the only claim that I think is really a serious claim, meaning one that could justify waiving acceptance of the commandments in the conversion process. There were people who wrote about conversion, even books and such things, and declared that acceptance of the commandments is an invention of the nineteenth century or something. I got a fever when I read that, so I wrote some article about it and began by saying that it was nonsense, and they were terribly insulted and demanded apologies, and I did not apologize. In any event, it is simply a total lack of understanding. People write a book on a subject but do not understand what they are talking about.

What is the meaning of joining the Jewish people? Basically he has to — wait, I’ll get to that in a second. This connects to our previous discussion. That’s exactly the issue: from time immemorial, the convert became Jewish through acceptance of the commandments. Maybe today there will be some change here? Okay, so I’m saying: that is really the claim. Today, the serious claim that can be raised against acceptance of the commandments is not that there never was a need for acceptance of the commandments. That’s nonsense; obviously there was. The claim is that today it should change. Why? Because in the past the definition of a Jew went through commitment to the commandments. Today, as a matter of fact, that is not true. Maybe you can regret that, but that is the fact. And because of that, if a person comes and wants to join in that way, that too counts as a sincere desire to join, even if he does not accept the commandments. That is basically the claim.

What lies behind this, in practice — I’ll formulate it a bit more systematically — what lies behind it is basically the following claim: even in the past, one did not need acceptance of the commandments. Why does Jewish law require acceptance of the commandments? Because acceptance of the commandments was an expression of the fact that you wanted to join the Jewish nation. It’s just that then, the Jewish nation meant keeping the commandments. Again, not that everyone was righteous and everyone kept all the commandments, but the definition — what is required, what is a Jew? A Jew is someone obligated in the commandments. So there is a criminal Jew and such-and-such a Jew, but a Jew is one who is obligated in the commandments. That was the definition. And once that is so, when you look for signs — how do you know that he really wants to join the Jewish nation? We said: acceptance of the commandments. If he wants that, then fine. If so, obviously acceptance of the commandment is a sign and not a cause. Meaning, it is only a sign that he really wants to join the nation.

Where is the practical difference? The practical difference is what happens when there is a form of Judaism that does not require this sign. A person wants to join the Jewish nation without accepting the commandments, and today that can certainly seem possible. After all, even in the past, acceptance of the commandments was only a sign of the desire to join. So today, choose other signs. In a moment I’ll comment on that. Choose other signs, and if you are convinced that I want to join the Jewish nation, then in principle I am a valid convert. Why cling to acceptance of the commandments when it is no longer a relevant sign? Is that nationalism? Is that Reform? What? The Reform movement, for example. It doesn’t matter — even secular Jews, whatever. People who don’t see the commandments as defining Judaism. And that returns us to the question of secular Jewish identity that we discussed in the previous topic. That’s why I said there is a connection between the questions.

Now, that claim is hard to deal with. Hard — I don’t agree with it, but it’s hard to deal with. Meaning, it is a serious claim. It is a serious claim because when you examine, say, reasoning, you can say there can be reasoning one way or another. “Our nation is only a nation through its Torahs,” as Saadia Gaon says — that it’s only commandments. Okay, that’s some statement of Saadia Gaon, but I don’t think one can build a whole country on that. And from sources it is very hard to prove. From the sources it says that acceptance of the commandments is needed, and there are rules and criteria, but you can never know whether it is a sign or a cause. Meaning, how can one prove whether this thing is a sign or a cause? And in my opinion, the main argument I see against that approach, with which I disagree, is a philosophical, conceptual argument. It is not a halakhic argument, not from sources or this or that halakhic reasoning.

As you asked, or as people here asked earlier, I don’t think there is such a thing as secular Judaism. There are secular Jews, of course there are, many of them. But there is no secular Judaism. What is secular Judaism? In what sense are you Jewish? You can define secular Jewish identity as some sort of ethnic identity, of course. Just as there is the identity of any other people, there are identities not necessarily connected to religious commitment, and one can define a Jewish ethnic identity without any connection to Jewish law or Torah or faith or things like that. You speak Hebrew, serve in the army, fulfill your civic duties, are connected to — I don’t know — this public called the Jewish people or whatever it may be. Some sort of blue-ID-card definition. Some ethnic sort of question.

But none of those definitions is really… it’s some package, none of whose details can be seen as an unequivocal litmus paper. No one would challenge the Judaism of someone who is not in the State of Israel and does not obey its laws, does not serve in the army of course, does not speak Hebrew, does not read Amos Oz, and does not study Torah either, if you want. Nobody would challenge the Judaism of such a person, someone who lives abroad. And on the other hand, there are many people like that who are not Jews and yet meet those criteria. Non-Jews who speak excellent Hebrew — I know a Druze man who wrote a doctorate on the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg. He was from the village of Rameh, on the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg. Indeed, indeed, that poet of Lehi. Sort of… He was the brother of the ambassador to Denmark, something like that. So he speaks excellent Hebrew, he reads Hebrew literature, he is part of Israeli society. I’m not sure about him, but his brother was a high-ranking army officer; that’s how I knew him. It could even be that he studies Torah. Yes? He could be studying Torah. And the source is secret among the Druze, so you can’t know.

In any event, the point is that all these definitions are some kind of… there is some sort of ethnic vagueness here. Now one can say, fine, on the philosophical level, if I’m looking analytically for a definition such that whoever satisfies it is Jewish and whoever doesn’t isn’t — I don’t think one can define such a definition. On the other hand, we’re not children. Meaning, there is some sort of definition; we can understand it more or less from the whole picture, like in medical diagnosis or even psychiatric diagnosis. Often when you want to diagnose someone, there are ten symptoms, and whoever has six or seven of them has the syndrome in question, the relevant one. Meaning, from the whole package you can get an impression, even though none of the symptoms is itself one or zero. Meaning, it is not a decisive litmus paper.

Still, as I said, and this of course belongs to worldview — which is why I say I don’t know how to bring proofs for it, I don’t think one can bring proofs for it — emptying the concept “Jew” of its religious content leaves it completely empty. Meaning, fine, one can manufacture an Israeli nation, one can manufacture some nation or other — I don’t know what nonsense — and call it Jewish as well, but those are just names. It isn’t really the Jew I’m talking about on the previous level.

And the implication of this is not only that I do think one should continue to identify Judaism with the commandments and the desire to convert with the desire to accept the yoke of the commandments, but that if we return to our own time — and I keep going back and forth like this — if we return to our own time, then the claim is that even someone who recommends national conversion in that sense — and there were such proposals — I, by the way, am entirely in favor of it. Entirely in favor — just don’t call it conversion. Call it naturalization, like they call it in the United States or in France or anywhere else. You’ll take a test on American history and some English, yes. And can you marry a Jew or not? No — if you are not… no, you are not Jewish. Right. And that’s the claim: I think there definitely is room for that proposal, except that the proposal should be called naturalization and not conversion.

Meaning, if you want to be an Israeli citizen, part of Israeli society and all that, no problem at all. There are many parts of Israeli society that are a kind of Jews in the ethnic sense, not in the religious sense. In the ethnic sense they grow up in Jewish society, they speak Hebrew, they’re fine — but still, in the halakhic definition they are not Jews. Someone who wants to be that, I think one can certainly allow him to, and one can define some process of ethnic conversion or naturalization or whatever you want to call it. But I don’t think that is what should be done on the religious side. Meaning, again, the claim is not a halakhic claim; it is a meta-halakhic claim. I am saying that even if I accept — and I do accept — this factual plane of Judaism as family, not Judaism as worldview, Judaism as family — then if you want, it’s like wanting to join a family. So the family will define who belongs to the family and who does not belong to the family.

There are thousands like this who came from the Soviet Union… Right, and that’s exactly so. And once you arrive in the country and sit here for X amount of time and send… you don’t need some stamp. That process is a process of naturalization, not conversion. Today they call it that. Absolutely. I think that in the process of naturalization there would also be room to include historical exams, tests about this and that, in order to see that the person is one of us — but that has nothing to do with conversion. Those are two different things.

But what about the pragmatic claim? People who serve in the army and are willing to give their lives — so you’re saying there is something more significant there, some kind of acceptance, acceptance like a Jew? There has to be some magic… There are many people who are not Jewish at all — say, immigrants from Russia who did not convert — but they serve in the army like anyone else, they give their lives like anyone else. So does that mean that from your standpoint they are Jews? They don’t want to convert. They hold the position of separation of religion and state. Yes, right, right. Meaning, in general I rather support this matter of separating religion and state. But how can you create two peoples? I don’t know if it’s two peoples, but religion and nationhood or citizenship — yes. Like everywhere else. In the United States too, there are Americans and there are American Jews, so in Israel too there are Israelis and there are Jewish Israelis. What is that? Fine, anyway, I’m saying this is another subject; I don’t want to get into it. I’m only saying that yes, this really is a certain reflection of that view which says that we…

A large part of the root of the evil, in my view, in this context, is the mixing of the two planes. Meaning, religion and the state — or citizenship and the Jewish religion. Since we are so insistent on not separating them, but rather defining one on the basis of the other, that’s why all these problems arise. And then people want Jewish law to recognize a conversion that is actually naturalization; it is not conversion. And conceptually that is incorrect. You can tell me that tactically it’s very nice, but tactics are not a halakhic consideration — at least not in the essential sense. And they study, they study this whole thing… Studying changes nothing. They can become professors of commandments. It changes nothing. The question is what they are, how they see their role in the world, not what they study. No — what I’m saying is, if there is a serious convert, then that is perfectly fine. I’m not claiming that one should not accept converts. I’m only saying that one needs to accept them as they were accepted in the past as well.

But there is also a pragmatic side — the pragmatic point that there are masses of directions that now will marry people, and what will the situation be? Okay, so now I’m getting to pragmatics; that’s the next stage. What? Many people make that argument, I just don’t think it’s an argument. I’ll tell you why — that’s the later religious side.

What really happens today — if I return and do this in my own order — basically, today the structure of the Jewish people has changed. And because of that there are claims saying that the form of conversion also ought to change. It should take that into account and change — again, not on the moral plane, on the substantive plane. What does it mean to be Jewish now? What does it mean to join the Jewish people? Now, in addition to that, all the pragmatic arguments arise. The pragmatic arguments that say that basically one has to be lenient, because otherwise there will be all kinds of problems with marriage, and people won’t know whom they can marry, and they’ll marry non-Jews, and you won’t be able to track anymore who is a non-Jew and who is a Jew, and we’ll create a complete mess here.

I am willing to accept that claim on the principled level — it needs discussion; I’m not sure it’s all that correct — but I’m willing to accept it on the principled level. But one thing has to be understood, and for me this is the important point: this is not a halakhic argument. That claim is a motivation, not an argument. Meaning, there is a difference between saying to me: look, it is very important to find ways to be lenient in conversion because of such-and-such reasons — fine, that gives me good motivation. Now we have to look for the ways. But that by itself cannot serve as halakhic justification for saying that we can waive acceptance of the commandments in conversion. Because if you think and have reached the halakhic conclusion that acceptance of conversion — acceptance of the commandments — is indispensable, meaning without it you are not a convert, then how does that help me? There are lots of problems I want to solve, but I have no halakhic way to do it.

I also want to solve the problem of women chained to a marriage because they have not received a get, but what can I do — without a get she is still a married woman. Is that not a problem? It is a problem. And it is a problem that is also a very strong motivation, and Jewish law recognizes that too as a very strong motivation. Fine. But it doesn’t exempt the judge from having to find a route by which to undo it. Therefore I say that the question of motivation needs to come at the last stage. Meaning, only after I examine what is indispensable and what is not indispensable, and what the degrees of freedom are, what possibilities there are — from among the existing possibilities there is definitely room for the claim: let’s choose the more lenient possibility because I have such-and-such motivations. That’s one thing.

Second, even regarding the motivations themselves, I’m not sure I agree. Beyond the fact that this is only a motivation and not a halakhic argument, even on the level of motivation I’m not sure I agree, because what is happening here is a process that is part of the same mixing I talked about before: a process in which people basically see Jewish law as some instrument in the hands of the state to solve its own problems. Right? Meaning, the Jewish Agency brought masses of non-Jews from the former Soviet Union — brought masses of non-Jews from the former Soviet Union — and now we have a problem. We have a problem? Fine, so the Rabbinate has to be lenient and convert them, and so on and so forth.

When Rabbi Peretz shouted about this — yes, he’s the local authority here — when he shouted about this, everyone pelted him with etrogim. Right? And afterward they tell him: but you have to be lenient in conversion; after all, we have a problem here. He shouted that there is a problem. He said: gentlemen, what is going on here? They said it’s “seed of Israel”; “seed of Israel” is a more sensitive problem. Here we’re talking about people who are not from the seed of Israel. Fine? So the point is — just a second — there is a conception here that says that Jewish law, headed of course by the Chief Rabbinate, which is charged with this matter, is basically supposed to be an arm of the state in order to solve its problems. And if leniency is needed, then figure out what to do — you have to solve our problem for us.

And then what happens is a policy that is problematic for me as a religious person, because in the end they will take us infinitely far. Meaning, they do whatever they want, and afterward I have to solve the problems. “Let the cow come and clean up the filth of her calf” — what is that expression in the midrash? Meaning, they do whatever they want, and then I have to arrange Jewish law in such a way that it solves the problem. That is not correct tactically, it is not correct substantively, and certainly not where it is halakhically impossible. So I’m saying: even on the level of motivation, I’m not sure I agree with the motivation to be lenient, even if there is room for leniency.

And beyond that, even if I accept the motivation, now we still need to discuss: okay, is there a way to implement it or not? And on that matter, I just want to say — and we’re almost at the end — that in the halakhic tradition, the basic policy is a policy that makes conversion quite difficult. First of all, one should know that. Meaning, there is a difference between after he has become a convert and before he has become a convert. After he has become a convert, there are many commandments and prohibitions about how to relate to him, that one may not harm him, and one has obligations toward him far beyond those toward any other Jew. There are commandments — we once talked about this — there is a commandment to love the convert in addition to the commandment to love a fellow Jew. Meaning, there is a double commandment regarding him. But that is after he has converted.

Before he has converted, there is actually a certain motivation to make it hard for him and say: leave it, the Jews are pressed, pushed aside, and worn down at this time; what do you need this trouble for? Leave it alone. They try to discourage him, they try to persuade him not to come, they place obstacles in his path, all sorts of things of that kind. The tendency is basically — I don’t know whether “to deter converts” is the right formulation; I’m not sure that’s exactly right, though that’s usually how it is presented — but rather to clarify very carefully whether he is serious. Okay? Because this is really just a filter to see whether he is serious. Meaning, someone who is serious — I don’t think there is any issue not to accept him if he is serious. These difficulties that are piled up in his path are there in order to clarify. Because otherwise, “converts are as difficult for Israel as a scab,” as the Talmud said — those converts whom people accept without having seriously examined their motivations.

Because it seems to me that in the past too they did this, and the precedents… I’ll still get to that. Many people bring precedents. I think that… relevant, but we’ll get to that too. So basically the basic policy is to make conversion difficult, and therefore the ordinary halakhic conception, when you ask standard decisors, is that their assumption is: they don’t understand what people want. What does that mean? This is the halakhic tradition — that one has to make it difficult for converts and not waive things, and see whether it is serious or not serious.

On the other hand, here the question of motivation really does arise. Meaning, in the end we now have masses of people who are not Jews. That will create many problems, for them and for us. And in that sense there really is room to hesitate whether to continue this halakhic tradition, or at least — let’s put it this way — one can argue about the motivation, as I said earlier, but one thing is clear: the halakhic tradition by itself is not enough to say that today too it has to be this way. This requires renewed examination. One can agree, one can disagree, but the fact that it was once so is not enough, simply because the circumstances then were different. The circumstances today are different, and therefore there is room to examine the approach, the context — how do we accept converts, do we make it easier, do we make it harder? Meaning, not necessarily in light of the tradition that existed in the past, but really to see how this should work today.

And that brings me to the question of the possible leniencies. Assuming that we accept the motivation — about which, again, I have mixed things to say — still the question is what can be done, what does it mean to be lenient in conversion. So here too people bring lots of precedents. I think almost all of them — maybe even all of them — are irrelevant. And in order to clarify this matter, why they are not relevant, exactly for that reason the orderly discussion I’m doing matters, because I want to explain why these things are not relevant. Well, I…