RE: Jewish music performance series/take1

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

>B.t.w., wasn't
>the Rabbi who converted him capable of recognizing insincerity?

No, things like this aren't necessarily a matter of insincerity.  When you 
first fall in love with someone, you may think that you would be willing to 
give up your world and lifestyle for them and you sign up for an Orthodox 
conversion.  But relationships change and any of the following may happen: 
love cools down and you aren't as eager to make such sacrifices for your 
spouse; couples don't get along and you hate having to go to shul so 
regularly; the lifestyle becomes too unbearable; one's relationship with 
one's own parents improves and one may feel more positive about one's own 
previous religion or religious style; one may feel good about Orthodoxy, 
but hate the Orthodox people one has to deal with; you discover that your 
partner now no longer wants to remain Orthodox and used you as a way out of 
it; your job has forced you to re-locate and you now have to live among 
non-Jews where that life-style is too difficult; Orthodoxy or Judaism or 
Jews are not what you thought they were going to be; or you simply changed 
your mind/feelings for whatever reason.  None of this necessarily means 
that the person was insincere at the outset or even at the end of the 
conversion year or year and a half.  The natural process is for things to 
change and then the question is how will one feel about continuing with the 
Orthodox lifestyle.   Living an Orthodox life is very difficult and raising 
children to be Orthodox in modern times is very trying.  The fact is that 
conversions that are based on love aren't as stable as conversions of 
people who changed because they discovered enough things in Orthodoxy that 
they really want for the rest of their life. There are serious problems 
thereafter if children are involved and there almost always are children 
involved with Orthodox couples.  We are seeing this in the headlines with 
the divorcing billionaire Ronald Perlman and Patricia Duffy who underwent 
Orthodox convertion and signed papers committing herself to raising her 
daughter in an Orthodox lifestyle if the couple separated, but after 3-4 
years of marriage is now back to doing Easter Egg hunts with her small 
daughter.  Perlman, who isn't the frumest of Jews, has gone ballistic about 
this and it's all very ugly and crazy.  I know of cases where a non-Jew was 
asked to convert upon marriage and became much more observant than the 
Jewish partner, even Haredi, and that caused terrific problems in the 
marriage.  Some people convert because they are unhappy with themselves and 
seek to make as many changes as possible, but then don't get the 
satisfaction out of the conversion that they thought they would get and the 
Jewish partner is stuck with a very unhappy, troubled person.   Some people 
know that they will be truly accepted as Jews if they go through an 
Orthodox conversion, but will become secular Jews as soon as the Orthodox 
conversion is granted (I know several cases like that including an 
excellent Jewish ethnomusicologist).  If someone is already moving towards 
Orthodoxy and on the way meets an orthodox partner that they want to marry 
and then makes the full conversion, then that conversion is more stable 
than someone who has been told that a marriage can take place only if a 
conversion happens first.  If people see that a convert has lived for some 
years as an Orthodox Jew and then still wants to marry an Orthodox partner, 
then they have to accept that person as Jew.  If they don't, their rabbi 
will explain to them why they have to and why Orthodoxy demands it.  And 
then it becomes just a matter of some time passing.  In Judaism, what you 
do is what defines your belief and not what you believe (that's 
Christianity).   Since Orthodox behavior is so cut and dry when it comes to 
its defining features, it makes defining and manifesting one's religious 
beliefs much easier to other Jews than the sects that have liberal demands 
on observance levels and these are the things that count in Orthodoxy.   If 
your in-laws go to synagogue only on high holidays, then your conversion to 
that liberal kind of Judaism doesn't give a convert enough opportunities to 
demonstrate how much a change has taken place in the person and so the 
whole thing becomes a bit tenuous for born Jews to be able to judge. 
  Orthodox parents want to make sure that there won't be any changing of 
minds after the first few years of passionate relationships and that their 
grandchildren will grow undisturbed within Orthodoxy.   But once they are 
assured of this, they have to accept their in-law as a Jew.

OK, enough of this.  I have to go back to my own mailing lists before I go 
to my Conservative shul.


Gut shabes,

Reyzl
A former Orthodox





----------
From:  Marvin [SMTP:physchem (at) earthlink(dot)net]
Sent:  Friday, September 24, 1999 9:36 PM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:  Re: Jewish music performance series/take1

----- Original Message -----
From: Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl (at) flash(dot)net>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 6:22 PM
Subject: RE: Jewish music performance series/take1


> I don't know what you call Orthodox or how really Orthodox this family
was,
> but if they are really Orthodox, they would have to accept him.  Converts
> are expected to prove that they really meant it and actually abide by all
> the stringent rules to be accepted.  They don't accept converting for the
> sake of love so readily as they would if they felt the person converts
> because they believe and accept torah on its own terms - a very demanding
> kind of life.   If he would clearly live as an Orthodox Jew for some
years,
> I am sure that they would have accepted him.   You know that not everyone
> who gets an Orthodox conversion stays Orthodox, and the parents must have
> known that.  It's a lifestyle that is sometimes too hard to maintain,
> especially if one was raised Reform.
>
> Of course, there are exceptions to everything too

You seem to have missed my point.  I was replying to a post which stated
that Orthodox
Jews always accept Orthodox conversions, by pointing to an exception that I
knew of.  I guess you are (perhaps inadvertantly) supporting my message by
giving hypothetical reasons for not accepting the convert.  B.t.w., wasn't
the Rabbi who converted him capable of recognizing insincerity?





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