or eft se, on

ily vill he eir

HALAKHAH AND ULTERIOR MOTIVES

therefore permitted, even commanded, to bring these people into the covenant of Israel and thereby expunge the blight of intermarriage that is now a raging pestilence..."

The cases, of course, are not so similar. Hillel and R. Hiyya were persuaded that their converts would eventually"do so leshem shamayim",’* a term generally understood to imply the observance of the mitzvot. Here, Uziel provides absolutely no evidence that such an outcome is predictable. How"Jewish " will this woman ever be? How observant is her husband, whose religion she will eventually- after her conversion-come to accept? Uziel offers no discussion of this issue, nor does he claim, following Kluger et al., that a conversion in a situation such as this is in fact leshem shamayim. Indeed, the religious sincerity of the prospective proselyte is virtually irrelevant to his decision. He permits the conversion, not because he can predict that the woman will eventually accept all the commandments, but because of the potentially negative consequences which would result from denying it. As he makes clear in a related responsum, Uziel radically expands the discretionary power granted by the phrase"the entire matter is left to the judgement of the court", holding that the rabbis may permit a conversion even if clearly undertaken for ulterior motives, since that course of action is necessary to combat the plague of intermarriage"that threatens to wreak destruction upon our people.” This is a dramatic departure from the codified halakhah, which is decidedly non-consequentialist: a conversion is permissible, not because to permit it is good for the Jews , but because the convert wishes to become a Jew"for the sake of Heaven". Uziel, alone among the posqim we have surveyed, makes the general welfare of the Jewish community the pivotal factor in deciding the halakhah on this issue.

His pragmatism shows itself as well in his treatment of the

second issue in this case: if we allow this woman to convert, may she marry her current husband according to Jewish law? The

27