This week we celebrated Shavuot.
The holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah (matan Torah).
The holiday celebrating a convert.
The holiday of cholesterol.
It's the holiday of the convert that interests me, particularly in light of Israel's political rabbinate and its current "push people away" philosophy.
Who was the first convert? Ruth? Hardly. Try Abraham, nee' Abram.
Still, Abraham's conversion and Ruth's were similar; both were based on the convert's declaration of accepting G-d as G-d. Abraham's conversion was a bit more painful. (Interestingly, in neither case is a mikveh or other pool mentioned. ) The Torah (biktav) is silent about Sara - did she accept haShem as haShem or did she just "go along" with her husband. Abraham's sons and male slaves were circumcised, but I failed to read tht they said, as we did under Har Sinai, we will do and listen (learn).
Were these valid conversions or, excluding Abraham, were they forced conversions, a situation we have suffered too often in our peoplehood?
Now we come to Ruth.
"Where you will go I will go; your god will be my god." That sounds, to my suspicious mind, as if Ruth is accepting Naomi's god in order to stay with her mother-in-law.
Despite the fact that Torah (biktav) clearly states that Jews will have no association with Moabites - yes, I know the rabbis conveniently ignore Hebrew grammar and exclude Moabiote, female Moabites - Naomi's two sons married Moabite women (and did that contribute to their death at a relatively young age?). To be fair, the two women were related to Abraham having descended from Lot and one of his daughters.
Torah (ba'al pei, a/k/a Talmud) and Ram"bam tell us that if a person comes and says "I want to be a Jew, to be one of you" the person is to be discouraged three times.
If the person proves hardheaded enough and still insists on joining the people Israel, then that person is to be taught some of the major and some of the minor laws and then be welcomed - via brit and mikveh - "into the fold."
No one until relatively recently in Jewish history ever suggested that a prospective convert had to know ALL the mitzvot and certainly no one ever expected a prospective convert to perform all the mitzvoth - that is an impossibility; even the kohen gadol was unable to accomplish that feat.
But the haridim - religious extremists - have control of the Israeli rabbinute and they are insisting that prospective converts be just like them. "Modern" orthodoxy is too liberal. Never mind the prospective convert's willingness to go forth and learn; never mind Torah (ba'al pei), never mind Ram"bam; it's "our way or the highway."
Torah (biktav) tells us that once a person has converted - the words "according to halakah" are not mentioned in connection with this act -the person is considered as if born a Jew. We are forbidden to broach the subject with the person for fear of embarrassing the convert.
How many "orthodox" Jews do you know - I know very many - who fail to follow all the mitzvot they COULD follow; positive and negative commandments. How many "orthodox" Jews do you know who are guilty of l'shon ha'ra or rehelut (gossip)?
Incidentally, how is an "orthodox Jew" defined? By the synagogue he or she attends? By the congregation to which he or she pays membership (not always the same thing as attendance). I don't know of ANY "orthodox" congregation where at least some of the members drive to "shul" on Shabat.
If the Israeli political rabbinute can strip a convert of her Jewishness - and that of her children as well - because she found she was unable to keep all the mitzvoth, why doesn't it strip all the "orthodox" Jews who violate Shabat or talk about their neighbors of their Jewishness. Why, because it (the rabbinute) cannot; these people were born Jewish - an "accident of birth" if you will . Yet a convert - like a naturalized citizen - remains at risk of being deported - deJudenized, cast out. This despite the Torah's admonition that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew REGARDLESS of how the Jewish status was acquired.
The haridim, following the lead of R. Moses Schreiber (Moshe Sofer, a/k/a Chatam Sofer), believe that "anything new (after his time) is forbidden by the Torah." He was railing against the nascent Reform movement
If that is the case, then today's political rabbi's need to revisit the Torah and become true Torah Jews - Jews who follow the Torah's lessons.
This tirade is limited to traditional, sometimes called "orthodox", conversions and the rabbis and lay people who perform them and the rabbis in Israel who disapprove any conversion on terms other than their own, regardless of Torah and luminaries such as Ram"bam.
The political rabbinute sadly is not limited to the Ashkenazim. Sefardi and Mizrahi leadership also has been infected by the desire for power and control.
It seems to me, given the state of Judaism - we are losing the population battle through smaller families and assimilation - that prospective converts would be welcomed in the tradition of the Torah. If non-traditional Judaism is so repulsive to these men, Jewish ayatollahs, then they should make every effort to wean potential converts from those "wrong" paths and bring them to the correct path.
Rather than push away Jews who are less than "orthodox" in practice, they should, like Chabad and many Sefardi rabbis, encourage people to keep striving to add a mitzvah.
For the record, Syrian communities outside of Israel (and maybe inside as well) do NOT accept people for conversion or converts. Even to marry outside the Syrian community (outside of Israel) is strongly discouraged.
But what do I know? I'm not a rabbi and I don't play one on t.v.
Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com
