Unconversions

by DK

6 comments

1 Sarah/froylein { 05.15.08 at 11:56 am }

Good piece, Rabbi Kelsey.

2 suitepotato { 05.16.08 at 4:55 pm }

Catholicism did this sort of thing once. On nearly any anonymous claim, you could be called before religious authorities to recant ideas that you never even had, and failing to do so at all or with enough sincerity be put to punishment as a heretic and if you survived that and still didn’t satisfy that, be excommunicated and you’d not be considered a Christian, you’d receive no sacraments of the church nor be attended as you died.Those who did not wish to run afoul themselves would be under extreme pressure to have nothing to do with you. You’d be cut off. And when you died, buried outside holy ground with no rites.

In some places, they’d desecrate your remains to boot.

So if the rabbis wanting to turn halacha on its head, and violate G-d’s will that His children play nice want to do that, well, look at the company they’d be in.

If that’s not enough you might want to consider that one time when this kind of questionable behavior in the face of the world came up, some guy later called Jesus tried a small internal protest and reformation that unfortunately turned into a full blown separate religion called Christianity because nothing is ever simple and nothing ever stops where it should (Doc Martin Luther King died and look what his successors did, JFK died and was remade into a godling in Camelot) .Well, the Christians never learned enough is enough either and they turned some protests over indulgences into the Reformation and kicked off Protestantism and the ten million little congregations each a church unto themselves.

It very nearly happened again with chasidism except that eventually got co-opted by the way of the mitnagdim because having too much joy for G-d is evidently viewed with distrust by humans far and wide. How many Muslim hippies do you know? See?

Why doesn’t anyone ever learn?

3 Jeff Eyges { 05.18.08 at 9:50 am }

You’re kidding! That’s all it takes?! I blaspheme on a regular basis! My own rabbi called me an apikores (although he meant it as a compliment).

Where do I sign up for deconversion?

4 DK { 05.18.08 at 10:26 am }

Jeff, it’s not so done if you are born Jewish. A few of my friends got all excited as well, but to no avail. Sorry.

5 Sarah/froylein { 05.18.08 at 10:47 am }

Jeff, mayhaps if you wrap yourself in a bacon blanket?

6 Jeff Eyges { 05.18.08 at 5:24 pm }

Nah, no good; I’m a vegetarian!

Well, maybe I could use some of that soy bacon… . He probably wouldn’t know the difference.

You know, I just came from my rabbi’s house. They’re MO (actually, like Avi Weiss, they prefer the term “Open Orthodoxy”), and his wife, who doesn’t wear a sheitl, was also wearing jeans. I told her to be careful; they’ll take away her membership card!

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