Conversions: How Jewish Law Should Not Work

"We found out about a convert with a couple of kids who had forgotten to take out her contact lenses [before immersing in a mikva for her conversion. Therefore] the immersion was not kosher and she and her children [born to her in the years after the conversion] are not Jewish."

All remarks in square brackets [  ] are mine. I also lightly edited the exchange for the sake of clarity, for example by adding a paragraph space between speakers, and changed the English-language spelling of Rabbi Elyashiv's name from Eliashiv to Elyashiv to match the one normally used here.

Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn writes:

Had an interesting chat with a well known talmid chachom [Torah scholar]. His complaint - Eternal Jewish Family.

He said he had a conversation with one of the main machers of EJF R' E [this is clearly referring to Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein, the Rabbi of the Ma'alot Dafna section of Jerusalem and haredi leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv's point man on conversion issues]. who explained to him what universal [conversion] standards means:

[Rabbi Eisentein:] "We found out about a convert with a couple of kids who had forgotten to take out her contact lenses [before immersing in a mikva a part of the conversion process]. Since this is a chatzitza [a barrier, something that interferes with the ability of the mikva water to reach every part of the body] the tevila [immersion] was not kosher and she and her children [born to her in the years after the conversion] are not Jewish."

The talmid chachom replied, "But Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav [Shmuel HaLaevi] Wosner both say that contact lenses are not a chatziza so she is a valid convert." [Both rabbis are recent preeminent leaders of haredim who were internationally known experts on Jewish law.]

R' NE [Rabbi Eisentein]: "Where do they say that? I never heard of this before. Besides Rav Elyashiv says it is a chatzitza."

Talmid chachom: "The fact that Rav Eliashiv is machmir [strict] - doesn't mean that she is not a kosher convert, he is machmir on many things. You don't posul a convert [rule a conversion invalid] because of Rav Elyashiv's view if there are other gedolim [recognized Torah scholars of great stature] who disagree."

In other words, because there are legal opinions from great scholars to rely on, Rabbi Elyashiv's stricter opinion can – and should – be disregarded.

On any issue of Jewish law, one can see gradations of interpretation, usually running the full spectrum from extremely strict to the opposite.

After the fact, rabbis adopt more lenient rulings. An example:

Rabbi X holds that Manufactured Food Product A is not kosher. Other leading rabbis disagree and hold the food product is kosher. A family in Rabbi X's congregation accidentally uses Manufactured Food Product A, serving it hot on the family's heirloom antique china. (China generally cannot be made kosher once it has become non-kosher.)

In that circumstance, Rabbi X will normally rule that, because this happened by mistake, and because there are great rabbis who believe Manufactured Food Product A is kosher, the family's irreplaceable heirloom dishes are still kosher.

But, if the family came to Rabbi X before cooking and asked about that food product and were told the food product is not kosher, but chose to intentionally disregard that and cook and serve it, then the irreplaceable china would (usually) be considered non-kosher.

In our case, rabbis – even the rabbis mentioned above who say contact lenses do not spoil an immersion – want converts to remove contact lenses before immersion in the mikva.

But, if a convert forgot to do so or if the rabbi forgot to tell the convert to do so, the conversion is still valid after the fact.

But on this and so many other issues, Rabbi Elyashiv and his followers disregard the normal functioning of Jewish law. They do so for political reasons, using issues like conversions to attack their rabbinic enemies.

You can read more about that over on Jewcy.com. 

Jewcy Haredi Conversion Exposé: Part 1, Part 2.

Comments

[critical_minyan]

my rabbi said that it is important to distinguish between community rabbis and roshei yeshivot. roshei yeshivot usually are more stringent but have no authority outside the yeshivot. community rabbis have to deal with balaei batim and they are much more flexible.

[Michael Makovi]

Critial_minyan,

That's exactly the argument Rabbi Marc Angel gives. Also, it'd be supported by what Professor Menachem Friedman (http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/so/mfriedman.html) says about yeshiva culture being a monastic culture divorced from traditional Jewish communal life. And see from Professor Haym Soloveitchik's "Rupture and Reconstruction" (http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm) says about the Mishnah Berurah and Arukh ha-Shulhan.

[Michael Makovi]

R' NE: "Where do they say that? I never heard of this before. Besides Rav Elyashiv says it is a chatzitza."

A more normal response would be something like, "Really? I never heard of this! Could you please give me a citation? I find this novel, because I've only ever heard Rav Elyashiv's opinion. This is interesting."

Can we declare R' NE a heretic for disregarding a Brisker Torah-lishma view? I.e., he should have been eager to learn one more meqor. Heretic.

[Shmarya]

I think a better way to look at that is the Chabad/Rebbe paradigm.

In Chabad, whatever the Rebbe did or said is the halakha and other – even other more normative – views are ignored, unknown or ridiculed.

There is only one 'right' way to do something and all other ways are defective.

If you take Chabad practice regarding this, strip out the emphasis on outreach and on ahavat yisrael, and you end up with the Rabbi Elyashiv paradigm.

[seymour]

the contact lenses does not make sense since what if I close my eyes when one goes to the mikva does that mean they are not Jewish then

[Mr. Apikoros]

One doesn't have to be well-versed in Talmud and Tanach to know the rabbi who made this statement is an idiot.

It appears that the rabbi was merely making hypothetical statements, meaning he's only hypothetically an idiot.

[Ben]

R.Eisenstadt is not hypotetical. He and his ilk are currently destroying lives of tens of thousands of converts in Israel and effecting negatively lives of hundreds of thousands of converts in Israel and around the world.

He is just as intellectual as Dr.Frank (nazi head of Warsaw getto) and as Dr.Mengele (who made scientific experiments on children and adults alike). They too saw theory and not real people and they followed their pure theory like Eisenstadt follows his. No, Eisenstadt does not kill, but I fear that if this stupid SOB in rabbinical mantle would hear opinion of Rav Elyashiv that secular Jews must be killed, he would not hesitate to do it. He would do it because this is right and this is right because sick minded Elyashiv opined this way.

[Ma. Rabbi]

Shmarya, why are you mixing Chabad into this? This is a purely Halachic question. Every Rav will pasken that a woman must remove her contact lenses before immersing in a Mikva. The question here is one of bdieved or after the fact. I find it difficult to believe that a great posek like Rav Elyashav Shlita would invalidate a conversion on this basis. Either the story is not true or there is more to it than what was posted.

[Shmarya]

Please.

He does exactly what you say he doesn't do all the time.

You'll note, also, that I correctly explained the halakhic issue – including lechatchila and bedieved.

And you'll also not that my representation of Chabad is accurate.

[effie]

seymour stole my thunder. How many people open their eyes under water in the mikva?

[SJ]

I think that alot of the anti-convert stuff from the orthodox has alot to do with kicking out people who possibly can have a different opinion (even a little one) from the establishment.

[Hyman Rosen]

People who feel that their lives have been destroyed because of technical details about their religion clearly don't have much of a life to begin with. It's difficult to get outraged about halachic issues, because really, why should anyone care? People who take the edicts seriously are punishing themselves, and people who take the edicts seriously deserve to be punished, so justice is done.

[chanale]

You are all ignoramuses. This thread is pathetic!!! You're like 2nd-year language students trying to translate a complicated literary work. FYI, your very inability to understand the importance of halachically ALLOWING important things be'diavad but LEGISLATING lechtechila-guidlines explains why you are on the outside of the world of kedusha and tahara. It's the Jews who have held tight to halacha who have made it possible for Yiddishkeit to endure through so many terrible centuries. ( We are Yidden today thanks to their stubbornness to stand up for Yiddishkeit when challenged!) And P.S. the halacha is alive, not rigid, as the eruv rav out there likes to say.

My big question is why oh why do you losers-who-love-to-be-on-the-outside keep on "looking in"? Go bang on someone else's windows -- or get a proper education first. Shabbat shalom

[Ben]

HR, people care, because they can not marry, their kids being kicked from schools, they can not be a buried next to their loved ones... There multiple psychological problems for the and grand kids of the converts who grew up knowing that they are part of Jewish nation and were fulfiling commandments and then rudely told that they don't belong.

Imagine youself on their place (if you can of couse).

[Y. Aharon]

The above post reveals a strange attitude towards halacha by some Hareidim. To my knowledge, a "chatzitza le'tevila min hatorah" is something on the skin that is deemed objectionable by the mikvah goer or covers most of the body. Contact lenses clearly fit neither category. Moreover, it is something normally covered by the eyelids during total immersion (bet ha'sitarim). If there is a "chatzitza problem, it is of rabbinic origin, and the lenient view should therefore prevail. This is particularly true after the fact (bidi'avad). Hence there should be no basis for questioning the Jewishness of the woman convert or her subsequent children. I doubt that Rav Elyashiv would rule that her expost facto conversion was thereby invalid. That is simply the stance of some rabbi who wishes to minimize conversions using his alleged mentor's name.

By the way, what is the status of Rav Elyashiv's health, and why is no one else apparently reporting a current hospital stay?

Y. Aharon

[Itchiemayer]

"It's the Jews who have held tight to halacha who have made it possible for Yiddishkeit to endure through so many terrible centuries. ( We are Yidden today thanks to their stubbornness to stand up for Yiddishkeit when challenged!)"

While I don't share her outrage at this particular thread, am not an ignoramus, and am not a loser, the above quote by Chanale is one with which I would agree.

[Shmarya]

Y. Aharon –

RYSE had a course of IV antibiotics and went home (under special medical care and arrangements) for Shabbos.

Rabbi Eisenstein is, sadly, reflecting RYSE's view – and RYSE's behavior and the behavior of his proxies.

[Asa]

This is not about stubbornness in keeping tradition and halacha. No one's disputing that here. What's being disputed is the use of halacha to oppress a convert. This is not halacha-enforcement pure and simple, it's taking advantage of strigency to get rid of non-haredi or not-sufficiently-haredi converts.

[maven]

""It's the Jews who have held tight to halacha who have made it possible for Yiddishkeit to endure through so many terrible centuries. ( We are Yidden today thanks to their stubbornness to stand up for Yiddishkeit when challenged!)"

While I don't share her outrage at this particular thread, am not an ignoramus, and am not a loser, the above quote by Chanale is one with which I would agree.""

This is of course a bit of a self serving myth that is not valid at this point because the "yiddishkeit" that was "held tightly to" would not be considered halachic by R. Elyashiv and the current generation of so-called poskim. R. Hayim Soloveitchik wrote a well known essay on this.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Wrong, wrong wrong. Attitudes like those of Chaneleh are exactly what turned off most modern-day Jews from orthodoxy. It didn't save Judaism at all.

If being Jewish meant I had to choose between being ultra-Orthodox and following a bunch of idiotic nonsensical rules (such as not wearing contact lenses in a mikva just for starters), or not being considered Jewish by a bunch of zealots, guess which one I'd chose?

[Hyman Rosen]

Craving validation from abusive figures of authority is never a good idea. As I said, if you feel that your life can be ruined by such people, then you have a problem independent of the actions of those figures. Get married in Cyprus. Send your kids to public school. Don't worry about where you'll be buried, because guess what, you'll be dead and it won't matter. Or go live out of the bounds of their enforceable authority.

You can complain that they're being stupid, but if you let them ruin your life, that's your problem.

[Asa]

"Craving validation from abusive figures of authority is never a good idea. As I said, if you feel that your life can be ruined by such people, then you have a problem independent of the actions of those figures."

Never thought of it that way. Kinda true, though, isn't it?... There is a kind of self-validation involved.

[Ben]

HR, I agree with you on this one, but my point still stands - this abusive rabbis do hurt a lots of people. It might be peoples fault that they put up with the abuse, but it does not absolve abusers of their own share of responsibility.

[Dave Marshall]

Asa, and everyone else- they can always become Karaite- that way they can be traditional (believing in Torah mi'Sinai) and radical (rejecting the Oral Law) at the same time, ha ha !

[Asa]

Lol, yes, but, then again, Karaites "aren't Jews", remember? I mean, they might as well become Chabadniks. (;

[mekubal]

First whether contact lenses are a chatzitza. They were, when originally invented, as they were truly a glass lense that one placed within the eyes.

Now however they are made of a semi-permeable polymer, hence the reason that above Rabbis ruled that B'diavad they are not a problem. The question is whether R' Eliashiv ever read those rulings, or if he is even aware of modern developments. My guess is no. R' Eliashiv has been spoon fed his information for years. The tail truly is wagging the dog. He is not, as in previous generations, a posek sitting somewhere doing his best to make accurate rulings, he is in essence a corporation, everything that reaches him comes through layers and layers of filters, all of whom are people whose only importance lies in the fact that they have the ability to wield his name.

He has made the mistake of giving them his trust, and thus has essentially created what looks to be an ancient oligarchy, where the ministers of the king live it up while they can, and try to secure themselves(usually failingly) positions of importance when he passes.

I have worked with R'E on a number of occaisions with conversions and have sat under him for shiurim in Dayyanut. I can assure you that the story above is completely believable and that R' Eliashiv does in fact rule that way.

[mekubal]

To the person who wants to draw the line between Roshei Yeshivot and community Rabbis. R' Eliashiv has no Yeshiva, he is a community Rabbi. R' O. Yosef on the other hand is a Rosh Yeshiva and he is complaining constantly that standards for conversion have become too strict in Israel.

That dichotomy may work in the US, but here in Israel, it does not.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

r' mekubal
tks for your input. after few years, after giving birth to more than one kid, she is sure that she didn't remove her lenses?
who is sure? her? the balanit?
what with safeq sfeiqa lehaqel? besides, can she witnesse herself? into psila?
and what if she closes her eyes instiinctively during tvila? does she have to keep them open?

[Shmarya]

To the person who wants to draw the line between Roshei Yeshivot and community Rabbis. R' Eliashiv has no Yeshiva, he is a community Rabbi. R' O. Yosef on the other hand is a Rosh Yeshiva and he is complaining constantly that standards for conversion have become too strict in Israel.

That dichotomy may work in the US, but here in Israel, it does not.

Please.

Rabbi Elyashiv is N-O-T a community rabbi. He's a lone torah scholar who was for many years a dayan in the religious court system.

He retired from that system early in order to protest Rabbi Goren, and spent much of the next 40 years trying to tear it down or coopt it.

A community rabbi is the rabbi of a defined geographic (or by membership, or both) community who deals day in and day out with practical halakha and practical halakhic questions.

Rabbi Elyashiv is not this.

On the other other hand, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef – who is a rosh yeshiva and was a Chief Rabbi – served as a community rabbi before that and continues to fill that role for Sefardim who live near him.

Rabbi Yosef has always considered himself a man of the people, so to speak, and has always worked among them.

None of this is true for Rabbi Elyashiv.

[nobody]

"But on this and so many other issues, Rabbi Elyashiv and his followers disregard the normal functioning of Jewish law."

This doesn't cite Rabbi Elyashiv "doing" anything. It is only someone else (EJF) doing something in his name. Who says he would approve? He might (or likely does) agree with "well known talmid Chacham."

The curiosity bugs me, I want him to name the well known talmid chacham.

[mekubal]

Many Ashkenazi Chareidim in Israel view R' Eliashiv as "their Rav." As far as being a Rav of a geographical location, he pretty much is the Rav of the Litvak community holed up in Meah Shearim. He claims to deal day to day with the halachic issues of his "community".

However before you burn me at the stake, do note in my original comment that stated that he has actually succeeded in setting up a small oligarchical empire, and that most actual information does not reach him.

Also please note that my primary point was that R' Eliashiv was not a Rosh Yeshiva. Not now, not ever. Also that simply being a Rosh Yeshiva does not separate one necessarily from being a realistic and down to earth Rav.

Personally I feel that having a following of a quarter million Jews who claim to follow his rulings(at least when they are convenient) does qualify him as a community Rav of some sort.

[Shmarya]

Um, "community rabbi" means, in the way used by the Grach and others, "rabbi of a shul."

[mekubal]

Fair enough, we are comming from different definitions. When most people here in Israel speak of a "community Rav" they are talking about the posek that their shul follows(be that R' Yosef, R' Hillel, R' Eliashiv, the Admur of Belz ect.). Partially as a recognition that post-WWII with the loss of the shtetl "community" has an entirely different meaning, as people may daven in a certain shul, but not necessarily be of the same "community".

Yes I concede that by your definition R' Eilashiv is not the Rav of a community.

[seymour]

from mikva org

The Mikvah lady led me in, checked my fingers and toes, checked my back for hairs that may have fallen out of my head, gave me a general once over and took my robe. Down the steps I went, into the pool. I loosened my body the way my Kallah teacher had shown me, took a breath, in I went. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the rush of warm water and hear the splash and bubbling. I came up.

Damb, don't they know they should check for contacts, how many frum people are living in sin.

R' Eilashiv should address this issue NOW NOT LATTER Everyday frum people could be having sex with their wife's in sin.

Scream and post all over the web. We must stop address this issue now before there is more damage to the Jewish soul

[Ben]

RYSE is a trully scary creature. What G-d had in mind when he created RYSE and blessed him with over 1500 direct discendents in his liftime? Is it possible that G-d like RYSE more then other people?

[Shlomo]

""It's the Jews who have held tight to halacha who have made it possible for Yiddishkeit to endure through so many terrible centuries. ( We are Yidden today thanks to their stubbornness to stand up for Yiddishkeit when challenged!)
This is exactly the problem Chareidim are changing our holy religion into something it never was
How can they dare do this?

[Ma. Rabbi]

As I suspected the story is false. Rabbi Tropper who is Not a friend of mine posted the real story:
1 It was a male convert not a woman
2 The contact lenses were removed but he did not shampoo his hair or brush his teeth before immersing.
3 The convert himself came to ask a Shaloh.
4 ETF asked Rav Wosner NOT Rav Elyahiv and he said the man should immerse again.

[Shmarya]

As I suspected the story is false.

Please.

Tropper is not a player in this story. Rabbi eisenstein is.

Tropper was not there.

Tropper has long history of lying.

Tropper is nogeiah bedavr.

Process.

[adam]

The thing that has struck me is that EVERY PROBLEM regarding conversion every person is female. Do Rabbi's only convert women which in itself is quite disturbing and if the Rabbi's are even trustworthy of this since they hate a bias against men. IF the women hate the rank and file man the Rabbi's consider them a good candidate for conversion.

The Rabbi don't treat the women that well only use them as pawns for their agenda's but men they treat even worse as they don't allow them to work and want to control every detail of everything they do. If 90% of the conversions that the so called Orthodox Rabbi's are doing are female that in itself should raise eyebrow's