What should be our initial response to the application of a potential convert to Judaism?
In the Tractate of Yevamot, the Babylonian Talmud issues clear instructions:
[If a prospective] proselyte comes to convert in the present era, we say to him: “What did you perceive that prompted you to come? Do not know that Israel [i.e., the Jewish people] is, in this day, afflicted, oppressed, downtrodden and harassed – and that hardships are frequently visited upon them?”
If the individual responds: “I know, and I am not even worthy [to share in their hardships],” we accept him immediately [as a potential convert worthy of education].1
Only after this interchange has taken place, continues the Talmud, do we begin to teach the candidate about the enormous responsibilities inherent in halachic observance.
What prompts the scholars of the Talmud to suggest this specific response to a potential convert?
Why begin the encounter with discouragement? And, why this particular dissuasion, which focuses on the travails of the Jewish people?
Before addressing the questions above, we must correct a widespread misconception concerning the Jewish attitude toward conversion: Jewish tradition does not view conversion to Judaism negatively.
In fact, the opposite is true. Righteous converts are meant to be held in high esteem.
Three times daily, we recite in the weekday Amidah: “Upon the righteous, the pious, the elders of your people, the house of Israel, the remnant of their scholars, the righteous converts, and upon us, may your compassion be aroused…” Clearly, this blessing places the convert in rarefied company, indicating the deserved respect meant to be shown to someone who becomes a “Jew by choice.”
Our initial hesitancy toward a potential convert is not a reflection of a negative bias toward conversion, but stems instead from two important facts.
- In Jewish thought, you do not need to be Jewish to be righteous. Properly observed, Judaism is the most tolerant of religions. Unlike other faith traditions, Judaism accepts the existence of different paths toward God. The very existence of the Seven Noachide Laws — seven basic moral principles incumbent upon the nations of the world — is proof of this truth.
Our response to the potential convert is designed to give the aspirant pause. You need not take this step, we counsel the individual. While we are deeply confident in the meaningfulness of our tradition and law, it may not be right for you. And, from our perspective, that is just fine. For we believe that you can be righteous while remaining outside of our faith tradition.
- Judaism demands seriousness of intent from a potential convert. Conversion to Judaism is far from a pro forma process. A person who wishes to become Jewish must accept all the obligations that such joining entails. The potential convert is, therefore, initially discouraged from continuing on this path in order to underscore the seriousness of the step about to be taken…and he/she is clearly told that, upon the conclusion of the process, he/she will no longer be able to “opt out.”
Our questions, however, are now deepened. Why does the Talmud mandate discouragement based on the persecution of the Jewish people? Given the reasons for our hesitancy, wouldn’t it make more sense to instead stress the halachic obligations that the convert will be required to accept?
Upon consideration, the rabbinic rationale for the convert’s first steps toward “Jewishness” becomes clear. The convert’s journey to Jewishness must mirror our own.
The Jewish nation is born through two distinct yet interrelated events. Obvious proof of the fact lies in the calendar journey before us. Pesach precedes Shavuot; the Exodus precedes Revelation.
Before an individual could arrive at Sinai, that individual had to be willing to first leave Egypt, to throw his/her lot in with a fledgling nation traveling into the unknown. This was far from an easy step. The rabbis, in fact, maintain that only one-fifth of the Jewish people left Egypt during the Exodus.2 The narrative before us is not a fairy tale, the rabbis declare. Leaving “the known” for the “unknown,” even when the reality you know is oppressive bondage, requires faith and courage.
The first step toward Jewishness, we inform the potential convert, is the first step our ancestors took centuries ago: conscious affiliation with the Jewish people. Only if you are willing to be part of this people, in good times and bad, only if you are willing to share in its sorrows as well as its victories, can you begin your journey toward becoming a Jew.
Support for our suggested explanation is found in another powerful Talmudic observation concerning the process of conversion. The rituals required in the eventual conversion process — circumcision for a male, immersion in a mikvah (a pool of naturally obtained water), and acceptance of halachic law — are directly derived from the rituals experienced by the Israelites at Sinai. Once again, the convert’s journey toward Jewishness must mirror our own.
Emerging from these combined rabbinic observations is an astonishing truth concerning Jewish identity: Fundamentally, we are a nation of converts. The descendant of Avraham, standing at Sinai, who refuses to accept the obligations divinely revealed, disappears from the Jewish story. In contrast, the Egyptian who accompanies the Israelites out of Egypt and who, standing at Sinai, wholeheartedly accepts those obligations becomes a full Jew. The convert who chooses Judaism today shares the journey of all Jews. Whether today or through our ancestors at Sinai, we are all converts.
The period between Pesach and Shavuot thus acquires a unique tension and beauty. Traveling between the two essential steps that shape our nation’s birth — the Exodus from Egypt and the Revelation at Sinai –—we yearly relive our national journey toward Jewishness.3 We once again connect with the truth that we are a nation like no other, an eternal people born out of a shared destiny.
A personal experience underscores the wisdom of the sages. A number of years ago, during my first rabbinic tenure in Potomac, Maryland, I taught a young woman in preparation for her possible conversion. While she seemed sincere enough, something just didn’t sit right. Try as I might, however, I could not put my finger on the problem. Something was awry, but I couldn’t tell what.
Suddenly, one evening, she called me on the phone in tears.
After almost five decades, her words remain as clear to me as if they had been spoken yesterday.
“I just saw a television program on the Holocaust,” she said. “I could never become part of a people that the world could do that to.”
After this realization, she broke off her pursuit of a conversion.
It was then, early on in my rabbinic career, that I realized the wisdom of the rabbis in their approach to conversion. The first step toward Jewishness is affiliation with the Jewish people. To become a Jew, the convert must be someone who would rather be “part of a people that the world could do that to” than “part of a world that could do that to a people.”
As we traverse the period between the festivals of Pesach and Shavuot, we renew our affiliation with our own people and its destiny. We look back across the centuries and realize that our first steps out of Egypt, toward Sinai, launched a people’s story in which we can take deserved pride.
Rabbi Goldin is the author of a popular five-volume set on the Torah, Unlocking the Torah Text, as well as Unlocking the Haggada, which has enriched many Sedarim since its printing in 2019. At the request of the RCA, he also partnered with Rabbi Lenny Matanky in co-editing a new HaMadrikh, Rabbi’s guide, published this year.
Together with his wife Barbara, Rabbi Goldin made aliyah to Israel in 2017, where he continues to teach, write and speak in a wide array of settings.
1 Talmud Bavli Yevamot 47a.
2 Mechilta, Shmot 13:18 (quoted in Rashi).
3 It should be noted that we use a degree of poetic license when we speak of our historical journey toward “Jewishness.” The terms “Jew” and “Jewish” actually emerge much later in history, during a period of national division. Most Jews trace back to the Kingdom of Judea, conquered by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Judea consisted primarily of two tribes of Israel, Binyamin and Yehuda, who, upon exile to Babylon, retained their Jewish identity. The ten other tribes, constituting the Kingdom of Israel, were conquered earlier by the Assyrians, only to disappear into the mists of assimilation.
