[Avodah] Geirut

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "Chana Luntz" _Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk_ 
(mailto:Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk) 


>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."  [--TK]

>>But your premise is false - because there are cases,  discussed cases in
the gemora, about somebody coming to the court without  necessarily any
intention to keep all the mitzvos - such as the case of the  fellow who
came to Hillel and said he wanted to convert on condition he could  be
Kohen Gadol....  

And then there is the case being discussed between RMB and RMS in  the
Rambam, about the wives of Shimshon and Shlomo HaMelech....
 
And then there is the case of the Kusim whose conversions were  very
dubious and debated.....<<




>>>>>
My understanding of the case of the fellow who came  to Hillel and said he 
wanted to convert on condition he could be Kohen Gadol was  that Hillel accepted 
him /as a candidate/ for conversion, as a student, on  the assumption that 
after he taught him Torah, the fellow would then  realize on his own that his 
demand was ridiculous (but would still want to  go ahead and convert).
 
In the other cases you mention there is an element of coercion involved,  
where the wives of Shimshon and of Shlomo were either forced to convert or  given 
strong inducements to do so.  The same is with the Cusim (who if I am  not 
mistaken are the same as the Shomronim/Samaritans) -- and precisely because  
their conversions were coerced (and also because they never totally gave up the  
practices of their former A'Z religion), their status as Jews was /always/  
questioned and they were /never/ fully accepted.  That was the point, just  BTW, 
of the "Good Samaritan" story in the NT -- that Jews always thought the  
Samaritans were "bad" and kept them at arm's length and never fully accepted  
them, but Yoshke accepted them and showed how the despised Samaritans could be  
better than the "real" Jews.
 
You didn't mention the similar case of the Idumeans (Edomim) of the second  
BHM'K era, out of whose ranks came Herod.  They likewise were forced to  
convert to Judaism and their status as Jews was always under a cloud.  One  of the 
reasons Herod beautified the BHM'K was to gain acceptance from the Jews  as a 
"for real, honest to goodness real boy"!  -- oh wait, that was  Pinocchio -- 
well, as a real Jew.  Of course his bloody massacres of Jewish  leaders and 
talmidei chachamim didn't help his acceptance project  much.
 
Anyway, I think the question of the halachic status of somebody who was  
forced or compelled to convert to Judaism is somewhat different from the  question 
of somebody who comes to a bais din for conversion on a purely  voluntary 
basis -- and either states openly "I won't keep mitzvos" or has mental  
reservations when saying "I accept the mitzvos."  I am actually not sure  whether the 
coerced convert is more or less likely to be considered a halachic  Jew than a 
pure [but insincere] volunteer.   

 

--Toby  Katz
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