Comments on: Rabbis easing rules on conversions?

By: Rishona

Rishona — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:09:25 +0000

I don’t think that the conversion process itself should be made easier (I’m currently in that
“1 year waiting period” awaiting my file to be looked at by the Beis Din) because living as a
Torah observant Jew does not happen overnight. However, I think along the way, there should
be encouragement and support; as well as the general attitude that if you are willing to
commitment, then we are willing and happy to have you. To facilitate conversion just because
they married a Jew is not doing any justice to that person nor to Judaism.

By: Bob Miller

Bob Miller — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:23:07 +0000

Does the availability of a post-facto remedy with a hechsher remove a obstacle to intermarriage?

By: Eliezer Barzilai

Eliezer Barzilai — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:23:57 +0000

It’s interesting that you bring this up around Purim time, because the Gemara in Sanhedrin 99b indicates that Amalek, the ancestor of Haman, was born as a result of our forefathers’ rejection of a potential proselyte, Timnah. Similarly, the Gemara in Sottah 42b notes that Goliath and his brothers, including Yishbi, who almost killed King David, were the sons of Orpah, another rejected applicant for geirus.

On the one hand, R Schwab is quoted as having said that Amalek became what he was because he saw how embittered his mother, Timnah, was by her rejection.

But the Alter of Slobodkeh (in his work Ohr Hatzafun) says that we know that Avraham was a great seeker of geirim, and if he refused Timnah, he must have discerned in her the some irremediable flaw which indeed ultimately produced the nation of Amalek, and they didn’t want those personality traits grafted onto the Jewish people. He believed that it is better to allow the creation of an eternal existential threat rather than jeopardize our defining Jewish traits.

By: Elliot Fein

Elliot Fein — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:48:41 +0000

To Liberal Jews, your argument that “history demonstrates that resistance to conversion and opposition to intermarriage serves the Jewish people well” is nonsense since the Jews experience in America is radically different than anything they experienced in Christian Europe or the Islamic world. Time will tell who is right on this issue.

Elliot Fein