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<DIV>In Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 304 dated 8/24/2008 "Chana Luntz"
<Chana@kolsassoon.org.uk><BR>writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><BR>>
When the would-be ger agrees verbally that he will keep the mitzvos,
the<BR>> Bais Din believes him and accepts him for gerus (unless of course
they<BR>> have some good reason to suspect that he is not sincere).
But if, after<BR>> the conversion ceremony, he does not in fact /ever/ keep
any mitzvos, then<BR>> his gerus is invalidated and his own actions prove
that his KOM was not<BR>> real -- that there never was any actual KOM on
his part. [--TK]<BR><BR>RCL: >>Yes, I know that is the way it is
generally understood. <BR><BR>The thing is, you are not thinking like a
halachist. What you appear to be<BR>creating here is a new paradigm
within halacha, without reference to the<BR>traditional discussions. You
see, verbal statements, including agreements<BR>to something or promises to do
something is discussed extensively throughout<BR>shas, under the rubric of
nedarim and shavuos (vows and oaths). There is a<BR>lot of discussion
about what happens when somebody has one thing in his<BR>heart and another
thing in his mouth.... </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>What you
are saying here is there occurs a case - that of KOM, where a<BR>person can
stand up in front of beis din and say something. They can fully<BR>mean
to say exactly what they said. They understand (as it has
been<BR>explained to them) the consequences of what they have said. They
are in<BR>fact lying through teeth - as they never intended to do what they
have<BR>promised to do - and the consequence is, not that they are considered
a<BR>violator of their shavuah (bemazid or beshoggeg) and chayav the
consequences<BR>of that, which is what you might deduce from every other case
in which a<BR>person stands in front of beis din and says something untrue -
but that the<BR>statement never was, and the whole thing is undone.<BR><BR>Now
there is a mechanism for undoing a shavuah or a neder, a procedure
for<BR>being matir neder or shavuah, and that is detailed extensively in
the<BR>sources.....<<</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></FONT>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 PTSIZE="10"
FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><B><BR></B><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR><BR></B><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">It's only a deal if it's where <I>you</I> want to go. Find your travel deal <A title="http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047" href="http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047" target="_blank"><B>here</B></A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>