To Become a Jew

And to unbecome one

My neighbor told me a hilarious story. She asked ChatGPT to come up with topics for a podcast about conversion to Judaism. It came up with: “Conversion and the Orthodox World: Stories & Halachic Challenges. Bring in BTs, gerim, and poskim to discuss the beauty and complexity.” Very impressive! It further suggested some guests for the podcast: “Anonymous ger tzedek voices and converts like Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin.” !!!

Now my neighbor knows that I am not a convert (she not only knows me, but also my mother who lives up the street). And so she told ChatGPT that it was mistaken about me. ChatGPT responded by telling her that it was she who was mistaken, explaining that her error is due to the fact that I “converted early in life”!

Since then, ChatGPT has apparently been properly re-educated; I just checked and it assured me that I was born to Jewish parents. Not that I have anything against either those who have converted or those who haven’t - some of my best friends aren’t Jewish. In fact, I’d be proud to be someone who is able to pull off such an enormous life change.

Shavuot celebrates the paradigmatic convert: Ruth, illustrated above in a 17th century painting by Jan Victors. But what is highlighted in Scripture about her conversion? It’s not her acceptance of Jewish dogma or of halacha. It’s commitment to the Jewish People: “For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Likewise, when the Gemara speaks about the process of conversion, it does not make any mention of beliefs, and even halacha takes second place to something more fundamental:

The Rabbis taught: If someone comes to convert, we say to him: “Why do you see fit to convert? Do you not know that today, the Jewish People are afflicted, oppressed, downtrodden, harassed, and frequently subject to hardship?” If he says, “I know, and I am unworthy,” we accept him immediately. We inform him of a few light mitzvot and a few serious mitzvot… we do not overwhelm him, and we are not exacting with him… (Yevamot 47a)

The key to becoming Jewish is neither particular beliefs nor scrupulous adherence to halacha. It is commitment to being part of the Jewish People, no matter what difficulties are involved.

And this has a corollary. The Haggadah speaks of the wicked son, who does not see himself as part of the Jewish collective. And the Haggadah says “because he has excluded himself from the community, he is kofer b’ikkar - he has denied the fundamental principle.” In which ikkar has he revealed himself as a kofer? It’s not one of Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith. He’s not even a kofer about the age of the universe or spontaneous generation. He’s a kofer about the ikkar that the Jewish People needs to be one nation.

Rambam rules that such a fundamental denial of Judaism can occur even with someone who is scrupulous in halachic observace:

A person who separates himself from the community, even though he has not transgressed any sins, but separates himself from the congregation of Israel and does not fulfill mitzvot together with them, does not take part in their hardships, or join in their fasts, but rather goes on his own individual path as if he is from another nation and not ours, does not have a portion in the World to Come. (Hilchot Teshuva 3:11)

You can be keeping every mitzva, every halacha, learning Torah all day, but if you are not part of the nation - if you do not care about their hardships, if you do not share in national obligations - then you have failed as a Jew.