[Avodah] Geirut

[Chana Luntz]

RTK writes:

>  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.

I just wanted to comment on this statement of RTK's.  Because there is
an assumption here - which is that the person seeking to convert wants
to become a Jew.  Now in Israel that is likely to be pretty much true
(as they want everything that comes with being a Jew in Israel).
However in Chutz L'aretz, surprisingly often I suspect that it is
actually not true.  What the person seeking conversion wants in
actuality, is to marry X or Y, who is a Jew.  And X or Y says to them
(or X or Y's parents says to them) you cannot marry X or Y, unless you
become a Jew. 

In one case I know of, the woman was, in fact, pretty open (although I
don't know whether she was with Beis Din) that her ideal scenario would
have involved Y converting to Roman Catholicism, or at the very least,
agreeing to the children being brought up Catholic.  However, there was
no way he was going to do that.  So the second best option in her
opinion was her converting to Judaism and them having chuppah kiddushin
(she was too "frum" a Catholic to contemplate no marriage - or in fact
in her case, no religious marriage - although I think in many cases to
snare their Mr or Miss Right, the person would have quite happily
settled for a registry marriage, if the Jewish partner had been prepared
to contemplate this). 

In many of these cases, BTW, the person is quite willing to observe
mitzvos - *to the extent that the Jewish spouse in the equation wants
them to* - at least for the duration of such a marriage (of course if
the marriage falls apart, that it another story).  But very often the
Jewish spouse, while they do not want to marry out, and want desperately
for their spouse to convert, also do not want to be, or their spouse to
be, a meshuggne frummer either - and miss eg the family bar mitzvah at
the treif seafood resturant on Shabbas announced in shul but not at
walking distance from the shul (to use RAF's example).  The Jew in the
equation may, in order to get their partner through beis din, be
prepared to go along with all this frumkeit (and similarly the parents
in law to be may well be persuaded to tolerate it), but once converted,
the ger or giyores will be expected to conform to the family standards
of lack of frumkeit (and I suspect they generally know this).

So in order to get mitzva observance, the real people to get to, if you
like, are the Jewish family involved (but often if you do involve them,
the real people lying to Beis Din are the Jewish side of the equation).
That is why - leaving aside the questions of halachic validity which we
have been discussing, in terms of public policy, if you like, what the
beis din needs to do if it wants to maximise mitzva observance is to
somehow get through to the Jewish part of the equation and their family.
This is why, as a matter of public policy, the attitude taken by RAF,
especially vis a vis minors, makes a lot of sense (even if it is not
strictly speaking halachically necessary in order to effectuate a
conversion).  Because if you tell the family that this minor is not
going to be converted unless the family becomes observant and stays
observant, then in many many cases, because the family is desperate to
have the child be Jewish, they will comply, and over a significant
period of time it will become part of their life, and part of the life
of their other children, etc etc.  The Bamboo Cradle type scenario is
not that an uncommon one.  And if the Beis Din does not require that in
the first place, the families are far less likely to try and comply, and
we will end up with far less mitzvah observance in total.  And if there
are Beitei Din that are known to be around who are not as strict, then
people seeking an easy way out are more likely to gravitate to them.
That is why it seems to me that this is, as a public policy approach,
the correct approach for Beis Din in Chutz L'Aretz to take.  However,
that is a different question from the question as to whether in fact, as
a matter of pure halacha, the conversion "works", if in fact this
approach was not taken.

--Toby Katz

Shavuah tov

Chana