[Avodah] geirim

[Michael Makovi]

> Someone wrote:
>  > Indeed - ALL gerim are not going to be able to keep
>  > all the mitzvot at first - like a bar mitzvah.

Someone = Mikha'el Makovi

>  R"SBA asked
>
> > What exactly is the mitzva of bar mitzva?

>  There is no "mitzva of bar mitzva". My understanding of the first comment was simply to
> say that a bar mitzvah is like a ger, in the sense that he is suddenly obligated to do all the
> mitzvos, and that is an unreasonable burden.

>  But I think the comparison is an unfair one, because the father of the bar mitzvah (or, if
> there is no father, then beis din, IIRC) is obligated to teach him *all* the mitzvos which he
> will have to do. Thus, the halachik system is set up in such a way as to insure that the boy
> is NOT suddenly thrust into a situation that he is not prepared for.

I didn't mean that he is suddenly thrust into the situation with NO
preparation; a bar mitzvah has 13 years of preparation, and a ger
should have preparation too. But a 13 year old boy is not going to be
as as knowledgeable and punctilious as a 25 year old or a 40 year old.
Now, honestly, who here considers a 13 year old mature enough to be
considered an "adult"; aside from his relative ignorance, a 13 year
old is simply not the most mature person in the world. It is
indubitable that he will slip. But all the same, he's chayav. And kol
vachomer with the ger - he has preparation, but certainly not 13
years, and moreover, he has to forget some of the gentile shtiut he
learned, whereas the bar mitzvah was raised starting with a clean
slate.

This is why the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that the bar mitzvah and the
ger are a paradigm for us all, for how G-d does not expect perfection.
These two will, without a doubt, sin, and yet G-d makes them chayav -
so too with us all. If this is so, G-d must find it acceptable. (Or we
could go with the Christian Bible and say the exact opposite: G-d must
find it INacceptable; we will doubtlessly sin, and yet we are chayav,
proving we need a savior to escape from the inescapable mire of sin -
joking.)

> In sharp contrast, there is no similar halacha regarding a ger; nowhere do the seforim say
> that the ger must be taught ALL the mitzvos that he'll have to do. But this actually
> strengthens the argument that the first writer was trying to make: If we have sympathy for a
> bar mitzvah boy who has difficulty with mitzvos that he's been learning about for years, then
> we should certainly have sympathy for a ger who might have first heard about mitzvah XYZ
> only very recently.
>
>  Akiva Miller

This is exactly what I was trying to say.

But I'm confused: above you say that "My understanding of the first
comment was simply to say that a bar mitzvah is like a ger, in the
sense that he is suddenly obligated to do all the mitzvos, and that is
an unreasonable burden," and to this I replied that this is an
incorrect understanding of what I meant. Now you say "But this
actually strengthens the argument that the first writer was trying to
make...", and you procede to say *exactly* what I had meant. You seem
to have gotten two opposing understandings of what I meant, and I'm
not sure which one you think I meant.

Mikha'el Makovi