[Avodah] Stam yeinam of Giyur Candidates

[Chana Luntz]

RMM writes:

> One musing of mine is that often, we need not be concerned with
> intermarriage. That is, practically speaking, if the person is
> committed to doing giyur, we have no concern with marrying either him
> or his daughter; he will be kosher very soon, and his daughter, when
> she comes of age twenty or thirty years from now, will be a frum Jew
> as well! 


But while no doubt many of those in such a circumstance do in fact finish
the course, not all do.  In particular I am thinking about somebody with
whom my husband was very friendly when at university, and who subsequently
moved to London and was accepted as a giyur candidate by the London Beis Din
(which as you may know, is regarded as one of the toughest out there) and
was really a long way down the track when her father was diagnosed with
cancer.  And she told them she needed to take time out to go nurse her
father.  And they told her that if she took time out, she need not bother
coming back.  And she took time out and nursed her father for a year before
he passed away (in the village a couple of hours drive out of London from
which she had come).  And she was very bitter about it all, but somehow she
accepted their rejection and didn't (as far as I am aware, this was all long
before I met my husband) try other avenues (eg Israel), and she then met her
(non Jewish) husband, and they are now married with four daughters and
living in this village out of London where she grew up.  We see them
occasionally, and a couple of times they have "come for shabbas" -  they are
one of the few people one can without qualms invite for shabbas who live
hours driving away.  And it is very weird because she can of course
completely follow the service, and she took her daughters along and was
explaining everything.

Now I confess that my instincts are that we should rather "have" the sort of
person who would put her father's needs over her own and take time out to
nurse her father, than the sort of person who would ignore those needs in
order to continue with her conversion, but then, I am not the beis din, and
it would seem you would also disagree with me.

> She notes that amira l'akum is permitted where there is real true
> suffering (the aged and infirm, etc.); should the personal feelings of
> a giyur candidate take precedence over the needy? Should not he be
> willing (if not proud!) to help these individuals by violating
> Shabbat? Is this not also a bein adam l'havero?

> This point is true, but I will emphasize again how profound the
> emotional pain can be of a giyur candidate. ...

>To
> ask them to perform melacha is simply a slap in the face; it is to
> remind them that despite all their endeavors so far, they are still
> nothing, that they haven't accomplished anything.

I am not denying the emotional pain.  And yet, there are other aspects to
consider.

Let's take one of the categories of permitted amira l'akum that is probably
even more problematic for you than that of suffering - the situation where
it is l'tzorech mitzvah - ie in order to enable a mitzvah to occur. Without
the involvement of the akum then there will be no mitzvah, so their
involvement increases the number of mitzvos in the world.  Thus in fact
their role is that of enabler.  Of course a regular akum doesn't care
whether he is enabling a mitzvah or not, he is doing it, generally as a form
of favour to the Jew, but if anything someone on giyur track might perhaps
feeling differently.  Now you will say "But if no Jew would deign to involve
himself in the present matter, then neither should the candidate himself be
expected to involve himself" - ie if nobody who is obligated in keeping
shabbas is allowed to violate shabbas to enable this mitzvah, then there is
clearly no value to this mitzvah and no value to an enabler role.  An
enabler role is "nothing" and all that is of value is being within the scope
of being commanded in the mitzvos, particularly shabbas.  That is what they
are giving up so much to achieve, and that is all that matters.

I would however point out that there is a very strong analogy to another
group of non commanded enablers.  Probably not the minyan in your yeshiva,
as that is likely made up mostly of bochrim, but most minyanim around the
world run because the participants are enabled to attend by having their
wives (non commanded in tephila b'zibur) man the home front.  Ditto for
torah study, as the gemora in Sotah acknowledges on 21a - and note by the
way the clear implication of that gemora that by enabling the boys to go off
to school and waiting for the husbands to come home, the women share in the
reward of the Torah study, to the extent of it suspending punishment for
being sotah, despite not being within the scope of the command.

Of course, there is a lot of emotional pain expressed also by numbers of
women at being expected to be the enablers, and not the main act, if you
like.  And indeed they also express the view that without the main doing
they are "nothing".  And there are two responses to that emotional pain.
The first is to try and do, even if not commanded (and to feel pain if one
is not able to do, not unlike your story with the driving to shul) and the
second is to denigrate the role of enabler.  In relation to the first, I
would note that you will find opinions (like that of RYBS in the famous
story regarding a woman who wanted to wear a talit to be found at this link
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xMRTndCRTGUC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=rav+solo
veitchik%3B+woman%3B+talit&source=bl&ots=AFzkbTNc6U&sig=1IDVwBjWVh2ZY9SRjyHs
m35F6rw&hl=en&ei=7hIxSpu4FdKhjAehrtTOBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum
=1#PPA20,M1) which hold that unless you have a vadai mitzvah, there is no
value to any approximation, and emotional pain is completely illegitimate.
I confess that I find that position somewhat difficult to understand, as the
concept of nachas ruach l'nashim is from the gemora (Haggiga 17b) but even
so there are clearly limits on what this can allow.

I see from various links provided on Areivim that there is a shul in
Jerusalem called Shira Chadasha, where, in order to deal with the emotional
pain that their women members feel about being excluded from the count of a
minyan ("counting for nothing"), they have instituted a rule that they will
not start davening until there is both 10 men and 10 women.  And you could
say that, where the difference is that perhaps they will wait a few minutes
longer to start davening, it does not really matter, and why not act in this
manner so as to assuage this emotional pain.  But the nub of the issue is
this: - what if they find themselves in a scenario where there are 10 men,
and it becomes clear that 10 women are just not going to show up? Are they
going to forgo all of the mitzvos involved in davening b'tzibur because of
this emotional pain of their woman members?  Your answer from the analogous
case with the people on giyur track would seem to be yes, they should -
because likewise in your case, you are willing to forgo the performance of
mitzvos because of the emotional pain of the candidates who feel they are
nothing if they are not mezuva and do not like to be reminded of this fact.
But can you also understand from my analogy why this is something of a
controversial opinion?  Can you also understand why some people may feel
less than comfortable with a stress on emotional pain (no matter how deeply
and truly felt) which has at least certain roots in, or links to, a
denigration of the enabler role.

> Michael Makovi

Regards

Chana