I sign on with something to discuss and find out I'm a maintainer of this community. Um...Thanks?

Anyhoo....I just recently got wrapped up in a discussion with someone who claimed to be only Christian before but then revealed that he was also Jewish and simply trying to find "common ground". If he's biologically Jewish he's definitely a JFJ, and a couple of points I made for the case of "Who is a Jew" in this respect were literally run over by him, so I stopped the whole interaction, and I hope for good. This guy revealed somewhere in his arguments that he thinks the case could be made that were it not for the designation of a religious document, the Talmud could be considered illegal. ???

 I pointed him towards David Klinghoffer's arguments since he seemed to only use scripture as proof, in which Klinghoffer writes that the case could be made that Jesus might have been a rabbinical student at one time, and that the reason why he was turned over to the Romans was because during his interrogation by the High Priest....the High Priest rent his garments. Klinghoffer writes that the only time this would have been done is if blasphemy was proclaimed, and a condemnation would be passed down.

 So this...um...idiot, indulging in idiocracy only because his whole point was to slag off my beliefs and convert me, goes and emails me scriptural quotes which say that the kohens are only to rend their garments in grief or not at all, which proves nothing because he refuses to investigate Klinghoffer's assertions. The whole argument was straying dangerously close to him saying that those who opposed Jesus were not real jews.

 well I had a simple line of defense, which was: some of these issues you should bring to a rabbi, not me, I don't want to get involved. Then when he pressed it, I fired back with him walking the path of the seducer and the oppressor.

 So you must all know the book I'm referencing, which is Why The Jews Rejected Jesus. Any comments? Especially about the Talmud being an illegal document and Klinghoffer's conclusion of the interrogation?

 And I apologise if it's not fit for this group, I just didn't want to bring it to Wierd Jews 2.

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I've observed two general problems with a Conservative conversion. Please correct me if you see more. And I will try to explain why I don't see these problems as problems. Again, feel free to correct me.

> Situation 1: You convert Conservative and you are male. Orthodox uproar:
> You aren't a real Jew and you are making it bad for real Jews if you are
> counted in a minyan or get aliyah. Why this isn't a problem: If you
> converted Conservative, why would you go to an Orthodox minyan? If you
> want to join an Orthodox congregation, if you didn't know before this,
> then at the time of joining the rabbi will tell you your conversion
> didn't count and you'll convert again. The converted Conservative males
> aren't a force of evil out to disqualify minyans. They know they
> can't count for Orthodox purposes. Rare is the Conservative convert who
> doesn't either find this out during the process, or is informed later
> down the line.

> Situation 2: You convert Conservative and you are female. Orthodox
> uproar: You aren't a real Jew and your children aren't real Jews and they
> will marry Orthodox Jews and make the kids not Jewish. Why this isn't a
> problem: If you think it is a problem, you definitely haven't gone
> through the Orthodox shidduch process. They find this shit out. If you've
> moved from somewhere, they'll want to speak to your previous rabbis. If
> your parents rabbis are dead, they'll want to see your parents and even
> maternal grandparents ketubot. And they will check out the rabbis names
> on the ketubot. And if your rabbi doesn't do this, he's not really
> Orthodox and you should move to a real Orthodox community.

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sethg_prime posted this in weirdjews2

When you smell a delicious aroma wafting out of a restaurant with no hashgacha, and you feel very very very hungry, that feeling does not give you license to rush in, order a hamburger, and wolf it down before you have any evidence that the meat is kosher.

Likewise, when you hear someone make a statement that conveys incorrect information about halakha (e.g., "I converted under Conservative auspices and therefore I'm now a Jew"), and you burn with revulsion/fear/anger about this misrepresentation, that feeling does not give you license to rush in, declare "No you're not", and rebuke everyone who disagrees with you before you have confirmed that your rebuke is kosher.

Rebuke, in halakha-as-understood-by-the-Orthodox, is a behavior subject to specific laws. One of the more important of these laws, as I understand it[*], is that the person issuing the rebuke has to have some reason to believe that the audience will change its behavior. If the person you rebuke is just going to shrug it off and continue sinning, it's usually better to keep silent. If there is a risk that the person will respond to the rebuke by having a stronger motivation to sin ("I'll show him!"), it's usually much better to keep silent.

For the specific topic of recent discussion, it's probably worth mentioning, as some sort of standard disclaimer, that conversions done under non-Orthodox auspices are not considered valid by the Orthodox--if only because there are babies born every minute who some day have to learn this fact for the first time. But beyond that...what's the point? I think if you talk to ba`alei teshuvah about what finally convinced them to "frum out", very few of them would give credit to perfect strangers lecturing them over the Internet.

[*]I don't have my copy of Jewish Tradition and the Non-Traditional Jew on hand, so I can't cite sources right now, but I do recommend the book very highly.

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