Page 94 - EDOS Dinner Journal 2019_website

94 | FESTSCHRIFT

Interesting cases come before Beth Dins, which only heighten Rabbi Rapp’s innate
capacity to entertain while lecturing on dead-serious topics, such as stem cell research
and conversion to Judaism.

As in, a case that recently came before the Beth Din of a woman undergoing a conver-
sion while she was pregnant. Question: As the woman converts, does the fetus also
convert; or does the fetus need a separate conversion?

But wait, part of conversion is immersion in a mikveh, so that as the mother immerses,
wouldn’t we say that the fetus immerses, too, and that if the fetus must undergo a sepa-
rate conversion, well, it has just done that with the mother’s immersion?

As in, what’s the difference? Either way, whether the fetus converts as part of the
mother or separately, it’s all the same immersion. What’s the difference?

Try this: If the fetus turns out to be a boy, it needs a bris. If the fetus converted with
the mother and therefore is born Jewish, the bris would be on the eighth day of his life,
as with any Jewish male newborn; and, if that day were Shabbos, the mohel would be
commanded to desecrate the Shabbos in performing surgery on the baby.

But if the fetus is not born Jewish, that is, it is undergoing a separate process of conver-
sion and, in fact, completed only part of the process with the immersion of its mother
in the mikveh, then the baby is still not Jewish. For it still needs a bris to complete his
conversion.

And for a potential convert, that is, a non-Jew, the bris need not be on the eighth day
of life and a mohel would not be allowed to desecrate the Shabbos by performing the
bris for the baby boy then.

So you see it turns out that there are practical differences how one conceives (pardon
the pun) the effect of the mother’s conversion on her fetus — whether it converts as
part of the mother or as a separate entity.

It turns out that the intellectual side to observance — the reason for a mitzvah — can
play an important role in determining the parameters of its observance.