A more realistic understanding of the conversion crisis

Bright Eyes responds to RaP:

RaP makes a very interesting case.

The Supreme Rabbinical Court in Israel has concluded in what is certainly a thoroughly analyzed decision (50 pages worth) that Rabbi Druckman's conversions were performed illegally.

RaP says that if we do not accept these illegal conversions, then bad physical things will likely happen to the Jewish people (such as Civil War), and specifically to the people who are responsible for making and supporting these rulings, "the life you save, may be your own."

Put another way, the goal of RaPs argument is to cause Jews to accept illegal conversions (aka goyim) for the sake of their own protection.

This way of thinking is the basis of strong arm organized crime globally. This is the whole logic behind "protection money."

I am in the U.S. and have intentionally stayed ignorant of Israeli politics for my entire adult life because I have observed that the more one knows about it, the more one argues and gets upset.

However, one cannot avoid hearing the well informed argue, and from what I gather Bedatz, the Rabbanut, and the RCA can all be described as opposite corners of a triangle, and that neither Bedatz nor the Rabbanut accept the other as an authority.

So, the notion that the Supreme Religious Court's ruling of last week was somehow orchestrated by people at Bedatz seems absurd.

Also, I don't think that Rabbi Eidensohn posted the Syrian Takana in order to endorse it. Throughout these last few months, Rabbi Eidensohn has posted various aspects to the question of how conversion is viewed and handled and opened the topic to discussion. The Syrian Takana was one of many viewpoints posted.

There were so many viewpoints presented, it is clearly impossible for any one human being to embrace them all.

RaPs general thrust seems to be that of the Religious Humanist, which is that popular sentiment should be the decisor of religious law and practice.

While he makes a nice defense of Rabbi Druckman as a "mainstream" Rabbi, this does not exempt Rabbi Druckman from needing to follow Halacha. If a court comprised of properly competent judges has determined that his Conversion proceedings have not followed the law, Rabbi Druckman's public standing and reputation is not a factor in the difference between legal and illegal.

In the Christian world, senior clergy, such as the Pope, are "infallible" and above reproach. Not so in Judaism.

It alarms me to see RaP judging entire segments of the Jewish people using Christian standards of "good and evil."

He has made it quite clear that anyone who he sees as not being open enough, such as the "Haredim", Syrians, and various Hasidic groups, are all defined as bad because of this characteristic. He also labels them as such based on false information.

Again and again he accuses the Syrians in particular of not accepting converts even though he is repeatedly presented evidence that they do indeed accepts genuine converts.

RaP makes it appear as though Rabbi Eidensohn and Bedatz (whose Rabbonim are really just easily controlled puppets of Rabbi Eidensohn) has done a bad thing by not publicizing the list of Rabbis who received private mail from Bedatz. In other words, because Rabbi Eidensohn would not smear many Rabbis who have done nothing wrong (remember, the letters spoke as warnings against future behavior, and were not judgments against past behavior), he is one of the bad guys!

His argument makes it clear that he considers nobody to be a religious authority. He likes the RCA and says they would never accept Bedatz's standards, yet ignores the fact that the RCA has already accepted those standards by agreeing to the newly published standards of the Rabbanut (who in this case appears to be in agreement with Bedatz).

Regarding the RCA, he says that they "would not accept the standards of the BADATZ and it would drive a wedge with the American communities where the real problems of intermarriages and fuzzy conversions exists." In other words, he feels that the RCA will not accept any ruling that disqualifies intermarriages and "fuzzy" conversions. If I were an RCA Rabbi, I would be highly offended!

People who support Halacha and disqualify fraudulent conversions are now like Nazi's to him! That's quite a viewpoint. Since when is "breach of contract" a racial issue? All Jewish communities accept converts. RaP would have us believe otherwise.

RaP has made it clear that in his view what Judiasm today really needs is a moratorium on practicing and enforcing Jewish law.

Ethereal concepts such as subjective individual ideas of right and wrong for him take precedence over Halacha.

I have spent many years fighting missionaries from other religions. They try to cause ordinary Jews to think like RaP does. I have heard no fewer than ten known missionaries disguised as Orthodox Rabbis say "You can wear the black coat and grow a big beard, but if you don't have love in your heart you aren't practicing Judaism" in order to cause ordinary people to disregard everything that legitimate religious authorities rule on. He's saying those same words in a different way. Instead of discussion/debating the Halachic sources and logic of decisions which make him uncomfortable, he just erases the credibility of everything with broad brushstrokes. Somehow he speaks for all Mizrachim, Hassidim, Ashkenazim, Sephardim etc....are each of us really just cookie-cutter clones of other who share our religious and culinary culture as RaPs would have us believe? I don't think so. I know Ashenazi Rabbis who say that the Syrian Takana is the only way to save the Jewish people, and I know Syrians who say the Takana is the most repulsive thing any Jewish group has ever done.

We're all individuals.

From my point of view, RaP is preaching rather than debating, and his message is dangerous.