Q&A: Conversion and Shavuot
Conversion and Shavuot
Question
Happy holiday,
The main thrust of what you wrote this week on the subject of conversion is acceptable to me.
I am willing to talk about a lenient policy toward converts in the State of Israel in our time, but that is not such a fundamental matter.
You mentioned a case in which someone converting had in advance planned to get married in a place where the Sabbath is desecrated. That may indeed be a problem, but you too would probably agree that failure to observe commandments after the conversion cannot, in actual Jewish law, serve as an indication for annulling a conversion (that is, declaring that it was invalid from the outset!). The great sages of Israel never did this, and this can be proven (I devoted the fifth part of my unforgettable book to this principal issue…). Until rabbis in regional religious courts arose and did this in recent decades, and in my view in a shameful way—not to mention the Sherman tank that became a chariot trampling hundreds of conversions wholesale, with a terrible desecration of God's name, in my opinion.
(It seems to me that the catalyst for all this was Rabbi Goren's ruling in the brother-and-sister case from the early 1970s, in which annulling the conversion was one of the methods used to purify the mamzerim, that is, with a “positive” intention. By the way, that ruling too, and Rabbi Goren's mistakes, with all due respect, are analyzed in my monumental book.)
All this is by way of introduction to the main point, which you only hinted at and did not elaborate on. Namely, there is room for a fundamental clarification as to whether the definition of conversion is joining the Jewish people or joining the Jewish religion (and thereby the Jewish people). We both think that entry into the people is through entry into the religion, since commitment to the commandments is the definition of a Jew/Judaism. Others, led today by Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, hold that conversion is joining the Jewish people. The debate, then, is about the definition of Judaism. On that I invite a conversation at some opportunity.
Without detracting from an immediate response now, as is your way.
Happy holiday, M.
Answer
To the distinguished Rabbi M., may he live long and well.
How pleasant it is for me to see you in our midst (as it says: “It should not be done so in our place”…).
As for what you wrote, that itself was my claim: that one should distinguish between a plan made in advance and failure to observe commandments after the fact. And regarding that too I argued that perhaps one should be lenient, since perhaps he originally planned to be a sinful Jew but still understands his obligation.
I think the claim of those who annul because of failure to observe commandments after conversion (Sherman also annulled because of the wickedness of the judges) is a line of reasoning that is hard to dismiss. Today there is a presumption regarding the convert that from the outset he did not intend to accept the commandments and is doing it for social, economic, and romantic reasons (and as far as I know, it is in fact the case that most converts in the state system do not really observe). Therefore, if he is among those who do not observe commandments, that is grounds to associate him with that presumption—that from the outset he did not intend it. Maimonides, who rejects annulment because of non-observance of commandments, is speaking about a situation in which the presumption was the opposite: someone who converts clearly did so in order to observe commandments (otherwise why would he join the downtrodden and persecuted Jews), but that is not the case in our place and in our time.
My personal view is that this reasoning is not enough to annul a conversion by a valid religious court (unlike Sherman) that decided at the time of the conversion that the convert did intend acceptance of the commandments. But as for the claim itself, I actually do agree with the reasoning.
As for joining the Jewish people—as I said, in my opinion it is hard to attack this from the sources (because all of them can be interpreted to mean that the commandments are a sign of joining the nation and not an essential requirement in the definition of conversion). In my opinion the main problem is conceptual-analytic, because I do not accept that there is such a thing as secular Judaism (as distinct from a secular Jew, of course). See about this in my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%96%D7%94%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%99%D7%94%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%96%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%A0%D7%95-%D7%95%D7%91%D7%9B%D7%9C%D7%9C/