Subject: [ETI Main] Conversion versus Decision
From: "End Time Issues" <[email-masked]>
To: "James End Time Issues" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 12:56:15 +0200

Greetings

Following is a mail that was received today.

This follows a discussion that I have recently held regarding the distinction between people making a "decision for Christ" and people being "CONVERTED".

This teaching is in the Judaic context and was posted on a Messianic list.  However, it contains some thoughts which seem to me to have a bearing on those who call on the name of Yahshua Messiah (Jesus Christ).

In particular, the emphasis on conversion being a drastic change is something that has been exercising my attention for some time.

All too often, people come to accept Jesus Christ as Lord based on a very simple decision.  This decision results in the experience which many refer to as being "born again".  Without going into the semantic issues regarding being "born again" what is important is that we recognize that most of those who make a decision and become "born again", that is who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, find that their lives are little changed and MANY of them will be found far from God in years to come.

This contrasts with those who have a "conversion" experience, that is those who come to a dramatic and profound revelation of their sinful natures and a deep revelation of their need for God to touch their lives.  Such people seldom turn back and will generally be found serving God years later with dedication, having overcome many of the obstacles which cause those who make a "decision" to stumble and fall.

Accordingly, while I suggest that there is no need to read this particular item in depth, thereby getting immersed in detailed Jewish technicalities, I commend it to you for a brief review as a source of ideas to challenge all those who seek to preach the Gospel and lead others to salvation.

May the LORD (Yahweh) bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you.  In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Yahshua Messiah) of Nazareth, King of king's and Lord of lord's.

James Robertson

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From:          "Yeshivat Har Etzion's Virtual Beit Midrash"
To:            [email-masked]
Subject:       HALAKHA61 -13: On Conversion 

                   YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
      ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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                    TOPICS IN HALAKHA

                           On Conversion 
                            
              By Harav Aharon Lichtenstein
            Translated by Dr. Michael Berger

      The  status of gerut (conversion) as a  subject  of
discussion  and  debate is not a recent  phenomenon.  For
ages, indeed millennia, this topic has been implicated in
a  broad  range of problems. Some have been disturbed  by
the  option of gerut, per se. For those who have stressed
the unique, inborn holiness that characterizes the Jew  -
for instance: Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, the Maharal of Prague,
and  the  School of Chabad - the ability of a non-Jew  to
convert aroused varied difficulties and objections. Quite
apart from this primary issue, however, the problems  can
be further subdivided.

      First,  how  is  one  to treat  the  candidate  for
Judaism?  This  question  has practical  consequences  in
determining  the  actual  conversion  process.  Shall  we
pursue  the proselyte or avoid him? Repel with  the  left
hand while attracting with the right or vice versa?

       Secondly,  how  should  we  relate  to   the   ger
(proselyte)  after his conversion? Needless to  say,  the
possibility of derision is out of the question; the Torah
explicitly  admonishes us: "And the  ger  you  shall  not
deride nor oppress."[1] And the Rabbis state: "...He  who
derides the ger violates three negative commandments;"[2]
R. Eliezer the Great numbers thirty-six distinct places -
and according to one opinion, forty-six - where the Torah
forewarns  us  to  respect the ger.[3] But  beyond  this,
assessment  of the nature of the ger and his  integration
into  the  Nation of Israel appears unclear - perhaps  in
dispute.  Encouragement on the one hand and repulsion  on
the  other; some esteemed the ger while others approached
him with cautious apprehension.

GERUT AS SPIRITUAL REBIRTH

     However, the issue of relating to the ger is not the
one  I  wish  to address. My focus is on the  process  of
gerut  itself  - the phenomenon, per se. If  we  wish  to
define and describe it, we will discover that the essence
of  gerut is its being a turning point. Its foundation is
a  radical transformation: an uprooting from one world to
strike root in a different one.

      This  point specifically characterizes Jewish gerut
and   distinguishes  it,  historically,   from   parallel
movements  in the classical world. As Arthur  Darby  Nock
emphasized, whereas adoption of one of the religions that
dominated  the Helellenistic world - Orphism,  Mithraism,
and  others  -  meant merely a supplement  to  the  local
tradition  and  not the former's total negation,  Judaism
(and consequently, Christianity) presents conversion as a
total metamorphosis. The ger is compelled to abandon  his
past  background and enter the realm of his  future,  for
commitment  to Judaism is based on Elijah's  question[4]:
"How much longer will you oscillate, wavering between two
options?"  In  the  words  of  Nock,  conversion  demands
"renunciation and a new beginning. What was required  was
not merely the acceptance of ritual, but rather a willful
attachment to a theology; in a word, faith: a new life in
a new nation."[5]

      This  should not cause surprise. Gerut, after  all,
embodies  - nay, constitutes - the forging of a covenant,
which is, by its very nature, exclusive: "And the two  of
them  made  a covenant"[6] - to the exclusion of  others.
Nonetheless,  the  question still arises:  what  type  of
turning point? How does it take effect and in what manner
is it realized and manifested?

     It seems to me that in gerut,[7] both in the process
and in the outcome, there exist two elements that are  to
some  extent parallel, to some extent complementary,  and
to  some extent contradictory. On the one hand, gerut  is
grounded in a profound revolution. In its ideal form, its
root is a longing for holiness; its core, desire for  the
Infinite,  gravitation to a sublime  and  exalted  ethic,
striving for a world wholly good and wholly true.  "David
called  himself a ger, as it is said:[8] 'I am a  ger  in
the  land.'"[9] Of course, he was not a ger in the strict
halakhic   sense   (although  he   was   descended   from
proselytes);   rather,   in  the   realm   of   religious
experience,  he had penetrated the soul of  the  ger  and
related to it: "As a hart panting after water brooks,  so
my  soul  pants  after You."[10] Here is the  essence  of
gerut:  a craving that can dislodge one from the  society
of   one's  youth  and  which  finds  expression  in  the
overcoming of the confines of group and nation.

      The source and character of this element are, to be
sure,  apt  to change. In certain cases, its  essence  is
reaction  to  a sullied past, a renunciation  of  a  life
filled  with iniquity or deprived of meaning and purpose.
In  this  form, gerut is included in teshuva, repentance;
it  is  precipitated by regret over the past, abandonment
of  sin, and resolve for the future. At other times,  the
motive  propelling  the proselyte  is  the  glow  of  the
future,  rather than the sordidness of the  present.  The
potential ger, despite his being in a setting that is not
necessarily  defiled, but merely defective, sees  himself
as  isolated, "in a dry and thirsty land, without water."
In  his  anguish  he  pleads: "O God,  You  are  my  God,
earnestly I seek You: my soul thirsts for You,  my  flesh
longs for You."[11] At the practical level, as the Rambam
put it, the ger desires "to enter the covenant and to  be
absorbed  under Divine aegis, and to accept  for  himself
the   yoke  of  the  Torah."[12]  But  categorizing   the
different  types of gerut is merely a matter  of  detail.
The   fundamental  motive  here  is  one  -  a  religious
experience,   a  spiritual  effervescence   -   sometimes
feverish, ofttimes tranquil; in short, the birthpangs  of
a Jewish soul. This creation is private and personal - if
you  will, even subjective. Essentially, it is the  ger's
intimacy with the Holy One. "The king has brought me into
his  chamber,"  and  no stranger will trespass  into  the
inner sanctum. Nothing is more a matter of the heart than
gerut,  and, in the channels of the heart, can  there  be
room for external involvement?

      This  principle finds expression in a  simple,  yet
famous,  halakha: "A ger is like a newborn babe."[l3]  ...

FOOTNOTES

1.   Shemot 22:20; compare ibid. 23:9 and Vayikra 19:33.

2.    Bava  Metzia 59b. See also the Rambam's  Sefer  Ha-
Mitzvot,  the  beginning of the  ninth  shoresh  (in  Rav
Heller's  edition, pp. 19-20), in which he  explains,  in
light  of  his  opinion  of  multiple  warnings  for  one
commandment, that the transgressor does not violate three
actual negative commandments, but rather only one,  which
is   merely  "strengthened"  by  the  repetition  or  the
admonitions.  But in the Mishneh Torah,  Hilkhot  Mekhira
14:15-17,  the Rambam sets down that one does  transgress
three  negative  commandments,  literally.  However,  his
words  there  require further explanation, in  their  own
right,  for  it appears that in reference to  a  ger,  he
ruled  that  all  who  vex  the ger  either  verbally  or
financially  violate  both prohibitions,  whereas  for  a
vexing  Jew, he made a distinction between the  two.  See
also  the  prohibition raised by the  discussion  in  the
gemara, ad loc. The Rambam's commentators have dealt with
this  extensively in their comments to the Mishneh Torah,
ad loc.

3.    See  Bava Metzia, 59b and the sources cited in  the
notes  of  Rav Chaim Heller on the Sefer Ha-Mitzvot  loc.
cit.

4.   I Melakhim 18:21.

5.   Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion (Oxford, 1933), p.12.

6.   Bereshit 21:27.

7.    My  approach  here is phenomenological,  and  I  am
dealing  with  types.  Of  course,  from  a  sociological
standpoint,  the  issue  must  be  dealt  with   entirely
differently,  but  the two approaches  are  not  mutually
exclusive.

8.   Tehillim 119:19.

9.    Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Mishpatim, portion  18;
in the Horowitz-Rabin edition, p.312.

10.   Tehillim  42:2. I quote the verse in light  of  the
explanation  of the words that are in the  Targum:  "that
desires." The Septuagint translates, likewise, epipothei,
and   from  there,  the  Vulgate,  desiderat.  But  Rashi
accepted  the  interpretation of Dunash,  that  the  verb
refers  to the ram's cry; the Midrash Shocher Tov  there,
following in the same vein, understood the whole psalm as
placed in a time of exile and calamity.

11.   Tehillim 63:2.

12.   Hilkhot Issurei Bi'ah 13:4. His three-way  division
is  of  fundamental importance, but this is not the place
to analyze it.

13.  Yevamot 22a.

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