[Avodah] [Areivim] More Conversion issues in Israel (revised)

[Zev Sero]

On Areivim, Stadlan, Noam wrote:

> In August of 2008, Yossi Fackenheim, who was converted to Judaism at the
> age of two by an Orthodox Rabbinical Court in Toronto, had his conversion
> revoked by Rabbi Yissachar Dov Hagar, a judge on Jerusalem's Rabbinical
> Court.  
> 
> 
> Rabbi Marc Angel had this to say:  "Yossi Fackenheim was converted
> according to halakha, and is halakhically Jewish. The rabbinical court
> that annulled the conversion has acted against halakha, against Jewish
> ethics, against the people and State of Israel.

It seems from the news reports that the BD inquired into when he stopped
keeping mitzvot, to determine whether it was before 13 or after.  The
reason for this inquiry seems obvious: a child who is converted al daat
bet din is only converted subject to his approval when he becomes a bar
daat.  If he continues to keep mitzvot for even a moment after he becomes
a bar daat, then we take that as retroactive consent, and his conversion
is valid; but if at the first moment when he can refuse it he does so,
then it has been retroactively revealed that the BD had no right to convert
him, and he is a goy.

>From the simple language of the halacha it would seem that this moment of
consent happens as soon as he becomes a gadol and continues to do mitzvot,
even if he had no idea that he had a choice in the matter.  But some say
that the gemara is referring to a child who knows his background and that
he has a choice; but if he didn't know then his continued keeping of
mitzvot doesn't prove anything, because he's only doing it because he
thinks he has to, and when he does find out, even at a later age, that is
the moment when he can consent or refuse his conversion.

>From all this it would seem that the BD acted entirely properly, and
that R Angel, in accusing it of acting against halacha and Jewish ethics,
is displaying appalling ignorance. (What the people and the state of
Israel have to do with it, I don't know; a BD's loyalty must be only to
Torah, not to any government or people.)

HOWEVER, there's one big flaw in that whole analysis.  A few paragraphs
ago I referred to "a child who is converted al daat bet din".  *Was*
this young man converted al daat bet din?  While a cursory reading of
the halachic sources would make it seem so, a second and more careful
reading might introduce some doubt.  There are poskim (I don't know
whether they are the minority, majority, or consensus, but I know they
exist) who read the gemara and rishonim carefully, and conclude that
there are *two* kinds of child converts: those who come to BD on their
own or are brought by strangers (usually adoptive parents), and those
who are brought by their fathers.  The former are converted al daat bet
din, which only has the power to act as an agent of the child's future
adult self; anything it does must depend on the child's future consent.
But the latter are converted on the authority of the father, who has
the right al pi din to convert his son, just as he has the right to beat
him for misbehaviour, or to sell him into slavery.  Such a conversion
does not depend on the child's present or future consent; he may go
into the mikveh kicking and screaming that he is devoted to Zeus and
Jupiter, and he may keep up this rebellion through his whole life, but
al pi din he is a Jew because the Torah gave his father the right to
make that decision for him.

So it would seem that R Angel is correct after all.  But not so fast.
The gemara is talking about a goy who brings his son to be converted
(whether with him, or just on his own -- it seems that the father may
convert his son even without converting himself).  But the Torah tells
us that a goyta's offspring from a Jew are not his children.  It warns
us that if our daughter marries a goy he will lead our grandchildren
astray; but if our son marries a goyta, while that is just as forbidden,
we don't care how any products of the union are raised, because they
are not our grandchildren anyway, they have nothing to do with us, so
what happens to them is no concern of ours. If they end up serving AZ,
that is no worse than any goy doing the same.  If this is so, then who
gave the sire any right over them at all?  Who says he has the right to
sell these children, or to convert them?  Maybe halachically they have
no father at all, and can only be converted al daat bet din, and we're
back to square one.

The ideal solution, of course, would be for the young man to start
keeping mitzvot and undergo a giyur lechumra.  But if he's not
interested in accepting the yoke of mitzvot then that won't work.
So how can a BD approve his marriage to a bat yisrael?

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                   - Margaret Thatcher