[Avodah] Geirut

[T613K at aol.com]

In Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 305 dated 8/26/2008 "Chana Luntz"  
<Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk>
writes:


>>An alternative halachic paradigm that could possibly be  applicable is that
of tnai....    In that sense, the way KOM  is usually understood (and as you
have articulated it) appears to resemble  a tnai on the giur.  That is, the
convert says, or is deemed to have  said (or is required to say), I convert
on condition that I accept that I  am obligated that I keep the mitzvoth -
and then if he does not accept the  mitzvot, the giur is never chal.  This
fits rather better with what  you quote as your father's view that if the
person at some later time did  accept the mitzvoth, the giur would be chal at
that time, than what appears  to be the more common view in circulation at
the moment that conversions  can be completely invalidated by showing that
the person was not  immediately after the conversion, shomer mitzvos....  

[snip]

And as I  have indicated, the intrinsic argument is difficult, because then
the codes  really ought to say: the requirements for giur are: a) mila; b)
tevila; c)  korban and d) KOM (not necessarily in that order).  Even if it
was a  rabbinic requirement, learnt out from Bechoros 30b, one would have
expected  it to be listed in the codes as one of the necessary elements.
That is,  trying to leave aside the politics, the textual difficulty.   People
are so convinced that KOM is an intrinsic requirement, that they  keep trying
to read the sources as saying that.  But the language one  would expect to
see in such a case is just not there.  And that is  what makes this tricky. 










>>>>>>
As I wrote in another letter, trying to become a ger without keeping the  
mitzvos would be like to trying to become an American so you can be an American  
gangster.  To me KOM seems to be so intrinsic to being a Jew that it just  
would not have occurred to any generation before the Reform movement that there  
could even be such a concept as "a Jew who does not keep mitzvos."  There  
could be such a thing as a Jew who is porek ol, a rasha, a sinner, a bad person,  
but there couldn't be such a thing as a Jewish identity DEFINED other than 
"the  ones who are beholden by the bris, the ones who are subject to the Torah." 
  I think that the earlier generations didn't list KOM as a requirement for 
gerus  because it literally did not occur to them that somebody who was not 
born a Jew  would approach a court and say, "I am not presently a Jew but I want 
to become  one, al me-nas  to be a porek ol, a rasha, a sinner, or a tinok  
shenishba."  If you had said any such thing to a bais din before  the 19th 
century, they would have said, "This--does--not--compute."  If you  had said to 
them, "I want to convert al me-nas to be a Tzedoki, or a  Karaite" I do not 
believe that any court would have accepted such a ger  (unless it was a Tzedoki or 
a Karaite court).  KOM was so  intrinsically part of the definition of being a 
Jew that they didn't even think  of listing it as a separate requirement for 
conversion -- it would have seemed  tautological to them -- like saying, "In 
order to be a Jew, you have to be a  Jew."


--Toby  Katz
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