Excerpted from Megillat Ruth Mesorat HaRav, co-published by OU Press and Koren Publishers Jerusalem
The Jewish People’s Conversation at Sinai
Maimonides (Hil. Issurei Biah 13:1,4) writes:
Israel entered the covenant with three acts: circumcision, immersion, and offering a sacrifice…. Similarly, for [all] future generations, when a gentile desires to enter into the covenant, take shelter under the wings of the Divine Presence, and accept the yoke of the Torah, he must undergo circumcision, immersion, and the offering of a sacrifice.
Maimonides’ description is based on the Gemara (Keritot 9a) which derives the laws of conversion from the experience of the Jewish people at Sinai. The Vilna Gaon (Beiur HaGra, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 490:9) explains that this is the basis for our custom to read Megillat Rut on Shavuot – just as Megillat Rut describes one conversion, Shavuot commemorates the conversion of the nation.
However, the idea that mattan Torah was the Jewish people’s conversion seems to stand in contradiction to a statement of Nahmanides in his commentary on the Torah (Lev. 24:10). Nahmanides writes that “from the time that Abraham entered the covenant, they [i.e., his descendants through Isaac and Jacob] were Israelites and were ‘not reckoned among the nations.’” According to Nahmanides, following Abraham’s circumcision he and his descendants already achieved Jewish status. If so, what was the need for the conversion at Sinai? Ritva (Ketubot 11a) addresses this issue and states that, “The seed of Abraham had already been commanded regarding circumcision and were entered into his [Abraham’s] covenant from their youth, and this [i.e., the conversion at Sinai] was only the completion of conversion [gemar gerut].” How are we to understand this?
We can explain as follows. The concept of conversion is equivalent to accepting the yoke of Torah and mitzvot. Abraham was given one commandment – circumcision – and therefore, in his time only partial conversion was possible. In Egypt, the Jewish people received additional mitzvot (see Hil. Melakhim 9:1) but since they did not receive all the mitzvot, full conversion was still impossible. At Sinai when the people received all six hundred and thirteen mitzvot, they required a new act to complete their conversion and be imbued with the full sanctity of the
Jewish people. Since the sanctity of the Jewish people derives from Torah and mitzvot, the addition of new mitzvot required a new conversion; the completion of kedushat Yisrael could take place only with the revelation of all six hundred and thirteen mitzvot. This is the meaning of the gemar gerut that took place at Sinai.
Although we have described the conversion at Sinai as the paradigm of future conversions, it seems that there is one significant difference between the conversion at Sinai and subsequent conversions. In characterizing the offering brought as part of the people’s conversion, Maimonides (Hil. Issurei Biah 13:3) writes: “Sacrifiices [were offered then], as the verse (Ex. 24:5) states: ‘And he sent out the youth of the children of Israel and they brought burnt offerings.’ They offered them as agents of the entire Jewish people [על ידי כל ישראל הקריבום].” The phrase על ידי כל ישראל הקריבום seems to indicate that these offerings were brought on behalf of the Jewish people as a nation, not as individuals, i.e., as korbenot tzibbur. If so, it follows that the conversion of the Jewish people was performed not as a group of individuals but as a single communal conversion. Likewise, the acceptance of the mitzvot (kabbalat mitzvot) was performed communally when the people said naaseh venishma – “we shall do and we shall heed” (Ex. 24:7) – “as one man, with one heart” (Rashi, Ex. 19:2). The conversion took effect on the nation as a whole at one time.
Based on this, we can resolve a question that arises from the Gemara (Shabbat 130a). Commenting on the verse “Moses heard the people weeping with their families” (Num. 11:10), the Gemara explains that Israel was weeping concerning family matters, for marriages within the family that became forbidden after they accepted the Torah. Yet there is a well-known rule that a convert to Judaism is akin to a newly born infant (Yevamot 22a) – meaning that the convert’s former family relationships are dissolved. If so, Maharal (Gur Aryeh, Gen. 46:10) notes that there should have been no prohibited marriages following mattan Torah, since all Israel underwent conversion at Sinai.
However, according to the above, we can explain that this rule did not apply to the conversion at Sinai because it was fundamentally distinct from the ordinary form of conversion. Ordinarily, conversion is an individual act, and in such cases the convert gains the status of a newborn. But the conversion at Sinai was not a separate conversion of each individual member of Israel, but a conversion of the entire nation in the aggregate. Since the conversion at Sinai took effect on the whole nation as a single entity, their family relationships persisted.
