The Spiritual, the National and the Conversion Crisis in Israel
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5771
There was a wonderful open in the Jerusalem Post last week regarding the conversion crisis in the state of Israel today. It was written by Rabbi Seth Farber who is the head of an organization named ITIM which helps people navigate the Israeli rabbinate when dealing with conversion and lifecycle events.
He pointed out that nearly half of the recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union do not meet the rabbinate’s criteria for Jewishness. That includes people whose father is Jewish but not the mother or cases where there is simply not enough evidence to determine Jewish status definitively. The numbers are now in the hundreds of thousands. A few thousand convert a year but the rest cannot meet the demands of the rabbinate and do not or are completely secular and do not. The question is – what do we do about it? Do we simply let throw up our hands and give up, or do we work to find a halachick solution to this dilemma?
Rabbi Farber’s piece was a call to action to try and find some way to resolve this untenable situation.
I don’t want to speak about conversion perse this morning, but I do want to speak about what motivates and drives Rabbi Farber and those like him.
To do that I want to share with a dvar Torah from Rabbi Benny Lau, a leader in the moderate religious Zionist group in Israel today.
In this morning’s parsha we are commanded to eat the Korban Pesach on this night, balayla hazeh.
The Talmud in Berachot records an argument (9b) between Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Akiva as to whether this means until midnight or through the entire night, i.e. till the morning.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says till midnight- the Torah says “this night” referring to the plague of the first born and that means midnight, so too here by the Korban Pesach it means midnight.
Rabbi Akiva argues that it says “you eat it in haste” that must imply until the time that they left in haste- i.e. the morning.
What are they actually arguing about?
Rav Lau explains- there are two separate elements to Pesach, the spiritual and the national. We come to recognize Hashem as our one true God, and we achieve freedom as a nation.
The plague of the first born represents the culmination of an educational process meant to teach the world that there is one God and that Israel is God’s first born- that is the spiritual component- our recognition of and relationship with God.
The exodus itself is the forming of a national entity. We became a free independent nation.
The argument over when to eat the Korban Pesach is an argument over whether the Korban Pesach should be connected to physical redemption and forming of a nation or to the spiritual component- our relationship with God.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says that just as the plague of the first born, spiritual, happened at midnight, so too the Korban Pesach celebrates the spiritual and must be eaten by midnight.
Rabbi Akiva says that just as the national, the exodus, happened in the morning, you have until the morning to eat the korban because it celebrates the national.
Now comes the kicker, the best part. Rav Lau argues that this is not just a conceptual argument but one that represents Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Akiva’s attitudes living under Roman rule in the land of Israel after the destruction of the second temple.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah argues that as long as we are spiritually free then we can celebrate Pesach because the spiritual element is the critical one in Judaism. Yes, we are under a foreign rule but as long as we have our spiritual freedoms, we can celebrate.
Rabbi Akiva argued. We cannot have a complete celebration until we are nationally free. Our peoplehood is critical as well, it is what the Korban Pesach celebrates and without it- we are missing something crucial.
Historically we know that to be true- Rabbi Akiva was one of the great supporters of Bar Kochba and his rebellion because he believed that our peoplehood and national freedom was critical to destiny. That belief is represented in his halachik opinion.
The crux of their argument is, how much do we value the national element of Judaism?
For centuries of Jews that was not a practical question to ask. There was no land and there was no nation; we were simply Jews living under foreign rule. During those centuries we hoped and prayed for the question to again become relevant, but it was only the spiritual that maintained us.
Now with a return to the land, the question of Jewish peoplehood and national priorities has again resurfaced. Are we content to live in the land and have spiritual freedoms without any national concerns or do we celebrate the national and value its importance to us as Jews?
In relation to the question of conversion I would phrase the question as follows: Do we simply say that the Russian immigrants will not meet the ideal standards for conversion and since all we really care about is the spiritual, and the spiritual alone, there is nothing we can do?
Or do we care about the spiritual and the national and try and find a halachically acceptable albeit less than ideal solution to this issue? Do we value the national character of our people in our land enough to at least try and find a solution?
That is what motivates Rav Lau and that is what motivates Rabbi Seth Farber. It is the idea that being a free people, a nation of Jews is of religious value. Maintaining the Jewish nature of the state, the demography is not simply a pragmatic question but one with religious significance.
