The Righteous Convert

Question

Dear Rabbi,
What is Judaism’s attitude towards how converts to Judaism should be treated? Someone I spoke to said that he thinks they are to be treated like second-class citizens compared to native-born Jews. Is he wrong?
Thank you

0

Answers

  1. The Just Ask! - AskTheRabbi.org Team

    Wow! He is as wrong as a person can be, and it is disturbing that a person would even think such a thing! The Torah commands us to love converts as ourselves, to treat them with compassion and to be careful not to cause them any injustice or suffering. There are no less than 36 commandments in the Torah that ensure the wellbeing of converts. These mitzvahs are in addition to the mitzvahs that apply to the loving and caring ways in the Torah which apply to every Jew. Therefore, one who shows love to a convert fulfills both the mitzvah of loving a fellow Jew and the mitzvah of loving a convert. Why does Hashem repeat this precept so many times?

    Judaism teaches that God loves converts tremendously and cares greatly about their welfare. It is therefore stated “God protects converts.” One of the ways He protects them is by commanding us repeatedly to treat them with love and compassion. The Midrash cites Hashem as saying to the Jewish People: “A convert has left behind his family, his nation and all that the world has to offer to come and join us. It is only fitting that we appreciate this and treat him accordingly!”

    On a deeper level of understanding, we are all sojourners in this temporary world. Even David, a well-established monarch and world power, said about himself, “I am a sojourner before You”. Radak explains: Just like a sojourner has no set place in a foreign land and is ready to relocate at any time, so too a person in this world has no steady standing and permanence. Every day, his standing is liable to change, and he does not know when the day will come when he will have to leave this world entirely. David continues, “a temporary resident like all my ancestors.” Alshich explains that David was referring to the Patriarchs, who were sojourners in the land of Canaan and had to move around constantly. Avraham, the ultimate sojourner, left behind his family, people, and idolatrous theology to begin entirely anew in a foreign land. It is apt that he was famous for drawing in converts and would be known as the “father of all converts.” He could intimately relate to converts, not only because he himself was a convert and a foreigner but also because his lack of any sense of permanence in the physical helped him to focus on the truly permanent spiritual world and on his relationship with the Eternal. From the perspective of eternity, we are no more than foreigners in this world, eternal souls residing in temporal bodies.

    Accordingly, we may thus suggest that by commanding us to relate to converts as ourselves, Hashem means to remind us that we, too, are not truly natives in this world. We remain “sojourners in a foreign land,” as we were in Egypt, to this very day. We are only passing through, as fast as time flies. Like a renter who would rather save money until he can afford to purchase his own house, and thinks twice and three times before investing anything in his landlord’s house that he will soon leave behind, we ought to invest the bulk of our resources and energy in our everlasting home in the World to Come. This way of life is the path that has been trodden upon firmly and successfully by the Patriarchs, King David and all the great people in Jewish history.

    Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team