[Avodah] Geirut

[T613K at aol.com]

In Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 304 dated 8/24/2008 "Chana Luntz"  
<Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk>
writes:


>  When the would-be ger agrees verbally that he will keep the mitzvos,  the
> Bais Din believes him and accepts him for gerus (unless of course  they
> have some good reason to suspect that he is not sincere).   But if, after
> the conversion ceremony, he does not in fact /ever/ keep  any mitzvos, then
> his gerus is invalidated and his own actions prove  that his KOM was not
> real -- that there never was any actual KOM on  his part. [--TK]

RCL:  >>Yes, I know that is the way it is  generally understood. 

The thing is, you are not thinking like a  halachist.  What you appear to be
creating here is a new paradigm  within halacha, without reference to the
traditional discussions.  You  see, verbal statements, including agreements
to something or promises to do  something is discussed extensively throughout
shas, under the rubric of  nedarim and shavuos (vows and oaths).  There is a
lot of discussion  about what happens when somebody has one thing in his
heart and another  thing in his mouth....  
 

What you  are saying here is there occurs a case - that of KOM, where a
person can  stand up in front of beis din and say something.  They can fully
mean  to say exactly what they said.  They understand (as it has  been
explained to them) the consequences of what they have said.  They  are in
fact lying through teeth - as they never intended to do what they  have
promised to do - and the consequence is, not that they are considered  a
violator of their shavuah (bemazid or beshoggeg) and chayav the  consequences
of that, which is what you might deduce from every other case  in which a
person stands in front of beis din and says something untrue -  but that the
statement never was, and the whole thing is undone.

Now  there is a mechanism for undoing a shavuah or a neder, a procedure  for
being matir neder or shavuah, and that is detailed extensively in  the
sources.....<<
>>>>
I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to this, but I did mean to  comment. 
 The thing is, a person who goes through a conversion process and  then never 
keeps the mitzvos -- his conversion is not valid.  RCL thinks of  this as a 
case where somebody makes a vow, violates his vow and then gets off  scot-free, 
released from his vow with no consequences.  To my mind, this  person faces 
heavy consequences, since his intention was to be considered a Jew  and he 
simply cannot achieve that.  He just can't get what he wants, as  long as he 
refuses to do the main thing a convert must do -- keep the  Torah.  His attempt to 
achieve Jewish status just won't work.
 
His statement or his thought, "I want to become a Jew but I want to  become a 
sinning Jew, I want to be accepted lechatchila as a non-frum secular  Jew" is 
like the statement of an international gangster, "I know that there are  many 
American citizens who are criminals, and that's what I want to be too -- an  
American criminal.  I want to immigrate to America and become an American  
citizen so that I can be an American criminal."  Then he takes an oath to  uphold 
the Constitution, all the while planning his glorious criminal  career.  If 
the government finds out he's a career criminal, he will not  get his 
citizenship.  He just can't get what he wants.
 
You want to say  that "agreements to do something or promises to do  
something are discussed extensively throughout Shas, under the rubric of  nedarim and 
shavuos (vows and oaths)" so if he doesn't end up being frum,  he is like 
somebody who made a shevuah and now wants to be released from his  vow.  
 
But he doesn't want to be released from it!  When he made it in the  front 
place, he was lying, he never intended to keep it, but he wants  people to think 
that he /is/ still keeping his vow or intends to keep it.   He wants the 
status that his false promise brings -- the status of being a Jew  -- and that is 
the one thing he can't have.   
 
I don't know what the halachic status is of a vow that a person makes,  with 
no intention of ever keeping it, but I can't help thinking that a  false oath 
is different from an oath that one wants to be released  from.   He doesn't 
want to go back to being a goy, like a person who  first thought he wanted to be 
a Jew and now has charata and wants to be  released.  He wanted to be a Jew 
and he still wants to be a Jew, he just  doesn't want to fulfill the necessary 
conditions.
 
It is true that I am "not thinking like a halachist" so I would like to  have 
this halachic point clarified:  What is the status of a vow that the  person 
never intended to keep?  What is the status of a false vow?






--Toby  Katz
=============






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