[Avodah] R' Angel & Geirus Redux

[chana at kolsassoon.org.uk]

RDE writes:

>If I understand you properly, R' Berkovitz argues that whenever the 
>Torah laws become difficult to keep they should be simply abrogated 
>because of ais la'asos. According to this if we are prepared to have 
>Israel populated by "make believe" Jews for the sake of "Jewish 
unity" 
>we should also do away with the problem of aguna and mamzerim by 
saying 
>these halachos are no longer of concern because it interferes with 
>Jewish unity. Shabbos is also a problem. Hilchos nidda and kashrus 
are  
>also divisive laws. 

I think you are being a little unfair here.  You yourself have brought 
that there are two sides to the question vis a vis accepting gerim, and 
in particular brought what could be considered to be "public policy" 
reasons against taking the lenient view - including the bad experiences 
of poskim with products of such geirus (Rav Moshe et al).

It would seem entirely possible, within that framework, to see the 
situation in Israel as different from that in galus.  Advancing an eis 
l'asos argument to prefer one side of this machlokus over another would 
seem to be fundamentally different to advancing an eis l'asos argument 
where you are talking about overturning a d'orisa.

That, I confess, also seems to me to be one of the flaws of moving 
from R' Uzziel to R' Angel.  R'Uzziel was the Chief Rabbi of Israel, 
and was talking in the Israeli context.  R' Angel is not.  To the 
extent that issues of how well and often the geirus appears to "take" 
are important, the result may well be different in the different 
contexts.  That has been, I assume, one of the reasons that Betei Din 
in Israel are at least claimed to sometimes to attach to the conversion 
the stricture that the convert not leave Israel (I do not know the 
truth of the claims, but that claim is I gather made about at least one 
of the prominent cases here in the UK - prominent because the London 
Beis Din is alleged not to accept the conversion).  On another note, I 
have somewhat wondered about that claim.  What is the halachic status 
of it - is it a form of tnai?  And can you do a tnai on a conversion of 
this nature?  Or is it something the papers have made up?

>Daniel Eidensohn

Regards

Chana




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