One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הלכות איסורי ביאה
Issurei Biah 14
Sefer Kedushah · Forbidden Intercourse · the procedure for receiving a convert, the status of a resident alien, and which family ties bind a convert afterward
3
Judges present at the immersion
7
Noahide laws make a resident alien
12
Months before an unwilling servant is sold
6
Relations a gentile is forbidden
Part 1Reception and Full Disclosure
- Background first, then the hard question. We inspect for an ulterior motive; absent one we ask why he chose to convert and whether he knows that in this era the Jews are afflicted, crushed, subjugated and strained. If he answers that he knows and wishes to be part of them, he is accepted at once (14:1)
- Elaborate on the fundamentals, not on the mitzvot. The unity of God and the prohibition of false worship are taught at length; some of the easy mitzvot and some of the severe ones are stated without elaboration (14:2)
- The gifts to the poor are named deliberately. Leket, shichachah, pe'ah and the tithe are set before him, obligations whose amount and recipient the giver does not control (Rashi), together with the penalties he becomes liable for, forbidden fat and Sabbath desecration among them (14:2)
- Reward told as plainly as punishment. He is told that he merits the World to Come, which is stored away for the righteous, and that Israel's hardship in this world reflects the good held for them; we elaborate on this so that he feels cherished (14:3-5)
RememberWe do not teach him every particular, lest worry turn him from a good path to a bad one: soft and appealing words first, bonds of love after (14:2)
Part 2Circumcision, Immersion, and the Adjacent Statuses
- Circumcision at once, immersion after healing. If he retracts he goes on his way. If he accepts there is no delay; one already circumcised has the blood of the covenant drawn, and immersion waits until he has healed entirely (14:5)
- Three judges, and the mitzvot repeated in the water. They stand over him and tell him some of the easy mitzvot and some of the severe ones a second time while he stands in the water (14:6)
- A woman's immersion is arranged for modesty. Women position her in the water up to her neck while the judges remain outside and inform her from there; she immerses in their presence, and they turn their faces away and depart before she comes up (14:6)
- Resident alien, and the Jubilee limit. A gentile who undertakes the seven Noahide laws is neither circumcised nor immersed and counts among the pious gentiles; but resident aliens are received only in an era when the Jubilee is observed, so not in this era (14:7-8)
RememberA purchased servant is never asked why he chose to convert, because he did not choose; if he refuses the status we are patient twelve months and then sell him on (14:9)
Part 3The Convert's Lineage After the Water
- A convert is like a newborn child. Relatives he had before conversion are no longer his relatives, and if he and they convert he carries no liability for relations with any of them (14:11)
- The Sages overrode the Scriptural leniency. By Scriptural law he could marry his mother or maternal sister after they convert; the Sages forbade it so that converts should not say they came from a greater holiness to a lesser one (14:12)
- Maternal relatives barred, paternal permitted. Rabbinic law forbids his maternal relatives; paternal relatives are permitted even where paternity is certain, since the Torah recognizes no paternal lineage for a gentile (Maggid Mishneh) (14:13)
- Marriage limits, and no decree on the shniot. A man married to a female convert along with her converted daughter, or to two converted maternal sisters, keeps one and divorces the other; the more distant relations were left undecreed (14:15-16)
RememberOnly six relations are forbidden to a gentile, and a freed servant is treated as a convert in every respect, bound by all that binds a convert (14:10, 14:19)