The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
Several dozen times throughout the Torah, we are reminded to treat converts with respect. The Torah insists that we love them and treat them justly because we too were once strangers in the land of Egypt.
So, it would be understandable if one were taken aback when the Talmud compares converts to a skin ailment.
“Converts are difficult for the Jewish People like tzaraas,” the Talmud states. The Talmud justifies the analogy based on the similarity of the word ונספחו (v’nispechu) used to describe converts, a term also used to describe a form of tzaraas.
Why is the Talmud being so callous to converts? Aren’t we supposed to love them?
Tosafos cites several explanations for this passage. One reason why converts are “difficult,” Tosafos explains, is because since they are newcomers to Judaism they are not proficient in all of the laws and customs, and therefore often have improper practices that can influence the rest of the Jewish community. Another reason Tosafos cites, notably from Rav Avraham the Convert, is far more charitable towards converts. Essentially, converts due to their passion and commitment in joining the Jewish community make the rest of the Jewish community look bad. A convert who leaves their birth family and home better understands the precious privileges of Jewish life far more than those born and raised within the Jewish community.
As someone who has worked with many who have joined Jewish practice later in life, I see the merits of both of these approaches in Tosafos. There is an organic rhythm and cadence to Jewish practice that those raised within the community have, which converts often struggle to embody. On the flip side, converts undoubtedly exhibit the type of commitment and sacrifice that few born Jews, especially within the current generation, fully inhabit. Regardless of which approach of Tosafos resonates more, there is still an obvious question. Why does the Talmud compare converts to tzaraas? Whether the analogy is highlighting something positive or negative—why make the analogy at all? Is it just because a similar word, “saapachas,” is used to describe both? Surely, there must be more to this analogy.
One more question. There is a strange requirement in the laws of tzaraas: a kohen must declare the skin ailment either tahor or tamei, pure or impure. It doesn’t matter if the greatest rabbi in the world definitively states its status—it specifically must be a kohen who determines the final status of the skin lesion. In fact, Rav Menachem Kasher, in his work Torah Shleimah, has an entire essay considering whether or not they had special rabbinic ordination for kohanim that gave them actual expertise in such declarations. It is more likely, however, that the kohen just needs to make a declaration of pure or impure—someone else can even determine whether or not it is actually tzaraas. Why is it so important for a kohen to be involved in this process?
To understand all this, let’s explore the tug of war between innovation and tradition that has marked and shaped Jewish tradition.
I benefitted greatly from the research of my dearest friend and chavrusa, Rabbi Jake Sasson, the shiur from Rabbi Moshe Sokoloff, as well as the articles that are always linked to below.
Two years before the industrialization, messianic hopes, and future podcast names associated with the calendric year 1840, a French Jew named Isaac Singer figured out how to bake matzah using a machine. After the machine’s invention in France in 1838, the innovation slowly made its way to Frankfurt, Germany where it was used in Posen, Poland, where Rav Shlomo Eiger, son of Rav Akiva Eiger, served as rabbi.
The Jewish community is no stranger to innovation. Printing presses, medical progress, and general societal development have all posed serious questions for Jewish law, life, and practice. Sometimes the Jewish community adopts a more stringent approach, sometimes it adopts a more lenient approach, and sometimes it oscillates between different approaches over time. The case of “machine matzah,” which embroiled much of rabbinic leadership at the time, is just one of many such cases—but an illuminating lens to consider Jewish communal reactions to innovation.
In the first decade or so following the advent of machine-baked matzah, rabbinic leadership was fairly quiet. In 1859, however, Rav Shlomo Kluger, one of the foremost rabbinic leaders of Galicia, authored a responsa, prohibiting the use of machine matzos for use on Passover.
He raised 3 primary concerns:
(1) Intentionality: Matzah used at the seder, the Talmud explains, needs to be baked with specific intentionality for use as a mitzvah. This intentionality is called l’shmah, meaning for the sake of the mitzvah of matzah. Matzah baked by machine, Rav Kluger argues, does not fulfill that requirement.
(2) Chametz: Machines cannot be cleaned so well, and residual dough may get stuck within the machine and become chametz. Admittedly this could be an issue with hand baking as well—later machines are certainly more reliable than those used in the time of Rav Kluger.
(3) Tradition: Given the advent of reformers, Jewish leaders were especially wary of innovations to Jewish practice. The emerging reform movement had introduced many changes without a basis in Jewish law, so many Jewish leaders—including Rav Shlomo Kluger—were suspicious of new changes. Even if it could be halachically justified, it was better to draw a strong line prohibiting machine matzah, lest other more problematic reforms reshape the very fabric of Jewish practice. “It does not appear correct to me,” Rav Kluger wrote in a different responsa, “that we should introduce any new innovations nowadays specifically in this generation where everything that is added to religious life is really detracting from it.” Additionally, Rav Kluger was concerned that traditionally hand-baked matzah was always round and machines were only capable of making square matzah!
As always, along with innovation comes societal upheaval. The industrialization of the nineteenth century had many anxious about the future. Machine-matzah was no different. It’s not right, wrote Rav Kluger, that machine matzah will also displace many in poverty who rely on baking matzah professionally.
Not everyone was so cautious. Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, one of the leading rabbinic figures of his time, was one of the first to explicitly permit the use of machine matzah. Marshaling both halachic and sociological arguments—this would actually make matzah much more affordable—he staunchly defended the new practice. Perhaps more surprisingly was the support for machine matzah expressed by Rav Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, son of the famed Chassam Sofer, who also supported the use of machine matzah. In his responsa entitled Ksav Sofer, he explicitly departs from the rabbinic aphorism popularized by his father that “chadash assur min haTorah,” a play on a different rabbinic principle that was repurposed to mean that all innovation is prohibited by the Torah. Instead, the Ksav Sofer argues, that machines are far more reliable than the normal bakers at the matzah factory.
Soon enough, compendiums for each side of the issue were published. One work, entitled Modah L’Beis Yisroel (Proclamation to the Homes of Israel), published by Chaim Dembitzer, the original person who asked the question to Rav Kluger, collected all of the responses of those who prohibited machine matzahs. A separate work, Bittul Modah (Nullification of the Proclamation) collected all the responses permitting the use of machine matzah.
This halachic question became a referendum on the Jewish approach to innovation itself. One rabbi was fired for prohibiting machine matzah, later appealing to Rav Avraham Bornstein, author of the responsa Avnei Nezer for guidance. In a different responsa, the Avnei Nezer wonders how anyone would use machine matzah, “and not fear being burnt by the coals of their words,” a reference to those who prohibited their use. Some families were even torn apart—Rav Mordechai Zev Ettinger, vociferously argued with his brother-in-law, Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson’s permissive ruling. Ads were placed in newspapers defending each side. The Avnei Nezer recommended that everyone just bake matzos for themselves and not rely on machines or bakeries. Rabbi Arnold Heisler’s 1967 MA thesis, “The Problem of Machine-Made Matzot as Reflected in the Responsa of the 19th Century,” carefully details each side of what he describes as a “long and acrimonious dispute.”
The surge of change that the modernization of the 19th century brought highlighted the competing instincts of innovation versus tradition that continue to this day. Questions such as those on Torah translations, praying in English, and inclusivity bounds continued to divide rabbinic and communal leadership. Yet, the luxury of time allows one to see both strands of communal leadership—those who embrace progress and those who defend tradition—working together to ensure the underlying fabric of yiddishkeit is never torn asunder.
Much of the Torah ideas shared here were originally published in my Hebrew work B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor—you can find a link to the original Hebrew essay below.
And this brings us back to converts and kohanim.
Rambam was the first to note that much of the development of Jewish tradition has been through the leadership of converts and kohanim.
A convert, Yisro, established the Jewish judicial system. The great mishnaic sage, Rebbe Akiva, descended from converts as did Rebbe Meir, who serves as the anonymous voice of the Mishnah. As Rav Yeshayahu Horowitz, known as the Shelah HaKadosh, writes, “it is worth considering why most of our Oral Torah, was given through converts.”
Kohanim also serve an outsized role in the development of Torah. “The mouth of the Kohen protects wisdom,” the verse in the second chapter of Malachi states, “seek Torah from his mouth.” In the chain of Jewish tradition listed at the beginning of Pirkei Avos, the first individual rabbi mentioned is Rebbe Shimon, who served as Kohen Gadol.
Converts and Kohanim each respectively represent the competing approaches אם change and innovation within Jewish Tradition. Kohanim represent those who protect tradition—they are deliberately privileged above the rest of the Jewish community with specific laws regulating who they marry and what they eat. They are holy—set aside from the winds of communal change. Converts, however, arrive from outside the Jewish community. Immersed in the secular world, they understand how to build bridges from within. It is no coincidence that the master translator of the Torah into the commonly spoken language at the time was Onkeles, himself a convert. The two main approaches to derash—Rebbe Yishmael and Rebbe Akiva—you guessed it, a kohen and a convert. Kohanim protect our tradition, converts innovate within tradition.
Sometimes I like to think of the archetypal approaches of the kohen and the convert, as the distinction between the companies Coca-Cola and Apple. When Coca-Cola was founded in 1886 by John Pemberton, he wanted a beverage that would be distinct and instantly recognizable. In 1916 they patented the very contours of a Coke bottle, so a bottle of coke would even be recognizable if it shattered to the ground. Its formula remains a trade secret, which famously made kosher certification quite tricky. What disrupts a company founded upon such a rich legacy of tradition? Innovation. When Coke changed its formula in 1985 and introduced New Coke, the public was outraged. People called their local politicians to complain and put pressure on Coke to go back to their original formula, which they eventually did a few months later. “Some national institutions cannot be changed,” remarked Senator David Pryor of Arkansas, after hearing Coke reverted back to their classic formula. Much like Kohanim, Coca-Cola is about being classic. Innovation can destroy companies like Coke.
Apple, on the other hand, was founded upon innovation. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” begins the ad for Apple that was personally written by their CEO Steve Jobs. Apple’s mantra was “Think Different.” As Walter Isaacson explains in his biography on Steve Jobs, they insisted upon the slogan “Think Different” even though “Think Differently” is more grammatically correct because they wanted something that captured the total innovation—not incremental change—that Apple tried to represent. Steve Jobs hated market research, he would invoke Henry Ford’s famous line, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’” Apple is all about innovation. And what endangers a company like Apple? Stagnation, tradition, and complacency. When Steve Jobs passed away the primary concern was whether Tim Cook, their new CEO would be able to keep apace with the innovation associated with Apple. Much like converts, Apple is associated with innovation. Tradition can destroy companies like Apple.
Converts are difficult for the Jewish People like tzaraas. What is behind this analogy? Someone with tzaraas is cast out of the community, but we are told to love and accept converts?! This Talmudic statement is not about, God forbid, marginalizing converts but rather about the process through which the innovations that converts represent can be incorporated into the community. A kohen must make the declaration whether or not a skin ailment is actually tzaraas. The Talmud is stating that the interplay between innovation and tradition is the same as converts and kohanim—the only difficulty we have with innovation is when it undermines the tradition that kohanim must preserve. And Jewish history itself is the story of the interplay between converts and kohanim, tradition and progress, where emerging from this necessary tug of war emerges a yiddishkeit that is both traditional and innovative, instantly recognizable like a bottle of coke but also constantly changing like Apple’s products.
There is one other place where the term sappachas, used in the Talmud’s analogy between converts and tzaraas, is interpreted to refer to a segment of the Jewish People. When discussing the traditions of Passover, Midrash Rabbah states:
אמר רבי ברכיה כנגד מי אמר בחוץ לא ילין גר אלא עתידים גרים להיות כהנים משרתים בבית המקדש שנאמר (ישעי' יד, א) ונלוה הגר עליהם ונספחו על בית יעקב ואין ונספחו אלא כהונה שנאמר (ש"א ב, לו) ספחני נא אל אחת הכהונות שעתידין להיות אוכלין מלחם הפנים
Rebbe Berachia states, “…in the future converts will serve as kohanim in the Beis Hamikdash, as it says “and the convert will join them and cleave to the Jewish people.” And the word v’nispechu (ונספחו) only refers to kohanim as it says: “please assign to me (ספחני) the duties of the kohein.”
Nearly an identical derasha to the aforementioned Talmudic passage that compared converts to tzaraas except this time it is not referring to converts, it is about kohanim! A future where converts serve in the Temple is about the integration and resolution of the tugs of war between converts and kohanim, where in the end every communal innovation that has been accepted by the Jewish people will be welcomed with the same integrity as our classical tradition. The strengths of Apple and Coca-Cola, so to speak, eventually merge together within the rich tradition of yiddisheit. Where all along the voices of innovation and tradition will not be seen as antagonistic to one another, but as complementing one another to ensure the proper stewardship of Jewish life and progress throughout all generations.
In Jonathan Sarna’s fantastic article, How Matzah Became Square: Manischewitz and the Development of Machine Matzah in the United States, he explains how the story of machine-matzah is really the story of “traditional Judaism itself.” It is about the interplay between innovation and tradition, the approaches of converts and kohanim, and the ever-unfolding story of the resilience of Jewish tradition in an ever-changing world.
And there is one night where we actually embody the imagined redemptive unity between converts and kohanim: The Passover Seder. At the seder, each of us acts as both a convert and a kohen. During the entire time of slavery in Egypt, the Jewish people are described as “converts” גרים, in the land of Egypt—כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים. As we see ourselves at the seder once again in slavery, we are in a sense seeing ourselves as converts. In fact, as many ask—why don’t we make a bracha on the mitzvah to retell the story of leaving Egypt? The Chasam Sofer shares a fascinating approach. He says we do make the bracha—it is the blessing we say at the end of Magid, known as אשר גאלנו. So why, he asks, don’t we make the bracha before we tell the story like nearly all other blessings we make on mitzvos—we first say the blessing and then perform the mitzvah?! The Chassam Sofer explains that the reason why we only make a blessing on the mitzah to retell the story of the redemption from Egypt, after we are done telling the story is that it parallels the blessing a convert makes after becoming Jewish, which is only done after they emerge from the mikvah. In fact, the Meshech Chochmah writes that the korban Pesach itself can also function as the korban normally brought by converts. On Seder Night we reenact the conversion process of the Jewish people. Yet on Seder night, we also act like kohanim—even if our family is not kohanim. One reason, suggested by Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, why many wear a kittel at the Passover Seder is to parallel the garments worn by the Kohen Gadol. Some even explain that the reason we wash our hands at the seder before karpas is to mimic the washing of the kohanim before the service in the Beis Hamikdash. When we were finally redeemed from Egypt, the Jewish People are described as a “nation of kohanim.”
The Seder night is the one night of the year when we as converts become kohanim. Pesach is about the integration of the innovation represented by converts with the traditional preservation represented by kohanim—and on the night of the seder, we embody that final redemptive spirit where we finally serve as both.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
Appendix: Kohanim and Converts in Jewish Tradition (Hebrew), Dovid Bashevkin
The Problem of Machine-Made Matzot as Reflected in the Responsa of the 19th Century, Arnold Heisler
How Matzah Became Square: Manischewitz and the Development of Machine Matzah in the United States, Jonathan Sarna
The Machine Matzo Controversy, Shmuel Singer
Halachic and Hashkafic Issues in Contemporary Society: Machine Matzot, Anthony Manning
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