Posted on 11/07/2014 10:38:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The most common reason why people convert to Judaism today, I would guess, is because they want to marry a Jewish spouse. Such conversions are a sign of the amazing acceptance that Judaism enjoys in America, compared to the stigma it labored under for most of Western history. For a Christian to marry a Jew in medieval Europe meant stigmatization, isolation, perhaps even violence, as it does in many parts of the Muslim world today. For us, it is simply a personal choice, even a laudable demonstration of spousal loyalty.
It was surprising to learn in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, then, that according to the Talmud, converting out of love is actually forbidden. “Both a man who converted for the sake of a woman and a woman who converted for the sake of a man,” we read in Yevamot 24b, “they are not converts.” (The Koren Talmud’s notes make clear, however, that this is not how conversions are actually regulated in practice today; as often, the law has evolved significantly since the Talmud was written.)
The Talmud’s logic seems to be that conversion must not be undertaken for the sake of any personal advantage or reward, but strictly out of belief in the truth of Judaism. That is why the rabbis list converting for love alongside other kinds of compromised conversions, such as “one who converted for the sake of the king’s table”—that is, in order to receive financial support or career advancement from a Jewish government.
The same holds true of those who convert to escape punishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
Please tell me the name of this lovely girl. Movie name???
movie: The Professional (1994)
girl: Natalie Portman
Serious Jews DO accept sincere converts, as a matter of religious obligation. Jewishness is a (religious) legal status and not related to DNA at all.
By the way, something stated in the Talmud is no way determines Jewish law. The Talmud is a record of discussions and opinions which may or may not be a matter of Jewish law.
“I thought that serious Jews didn’t accept converts anyway (because their relationship with God was specific to certain bloodlines).”
The opposite is closer to the truth. The Torah repeatedly exhorts us to love converts and to take great care not to make them embarrassed for having been born into other faiths. A famous example, of course is Ruth, for whom an entire book of scripture is named, telling the story of how she converted and ultimately merited to be the great grandmother of King David.
“By the way, something stated in the Talmud is no way determines Jewish law.”
Not quite correct. It is more accurate to say that you cannot read the Talmud as a codification of Jewish law, but ultimately, out of the discussions and arguments about Jewish law, final rulings are reached. Even then, unless one is a gigantic scholar of the Talmud, you would not rely on the Talmud for final rulings. Codifiers of the halachah, most famously Maimonides (in Yad Hachazaka) and Rav Yosef Karo (in the Shulchan Aruch), collected all their material from the Talmud, organized it systemically and set out final rulings.
Bottom line: the Talmud is ultimately the source of all Jewish halacha and the ultimate source for deciding all questions of halacha.
Actually our belief is that the (sincere, true, whatever...proper, would-be-orthodox) convert’s soul is Jewish all along, merely given a test of having descended into a non-Jewish body. Caramba! (Thought I read a snicker between your “two souls” line...so fuel for the fire for ya’.)
Merely quoting or, more likely, paraphrasing the Talmud does not establish Jewish law.
In the question at hand, conversion in order to marry a Jew is indeed prohibited, but such a conversion is nevertheless assumed to be valid without specific evidence to the contrary.
Suppose a woman undergoes an apparently valid conversion to Judaism, has children, and then later returns to a non-Jewish religion. Are the children considered Jewish?
“Merely quoting or, more likely, paraphrasing the Talmud does not establish Jewish law.”
No one is talking about “merely quoting” or paraphrasing, although a huge number of cases codified in Shulchan Aruch and Yad Hachazaka take their phrasing straight from the talmud and express the ultimate legal ruling in the same terms as expressed in the Talmud. The Talmud does contain final rulings of law. That’s simply a fact.
Yes, the children are Jewish.
Even tough the Talmud forbids “converting for love.”
And for some it's: Too soon old and too late smart.
Ain't THAT the truth?
...I was answering about “...apparently valid”
If there were reason to doubt some authorities may require a further ‘conversion’ [reaffirmation, of sorts...with some of the requirements of conversion such as immersion in a mikveh (ritual bath)] of the children. A similar case arose with a friend of mine from seminary... he was a child of parents of questionable (though otherwise orthodox) conversion, and for his own future unconditional acceptance in the Jewish community, underwent “re” conversion (immersion—)
I guess the Jewish person relaying that to me did feel it was related to DNA (that God had a covenant with specific people). It is irrelevant to me (a Gentile), as is the source of Jewish law; I don’t know enough about it to confirm or dispute it.
Interesting; good point about Ruth.
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