AMBIVALENCE IN PROSELYTISM The Mitzvah of Accepting Converts

Whether the rabbis found converts helpful or harmful to Israel , may be related to their view of a crucial issue: Is the acceptance of a non-Jew into Judaism a matter of the predilection of the individual rabbi or Bet Din or is it a mitzvah to accept candidates for conversion and to bring them into the Jewish fold? Indeed, are we commanded to convert gentiles to Judaism ?

Maimonides informs us in his Book of the Commandments that the verse:™And you shall love the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 5:5)... commands us to seek out and call upon all humankind to serve God and to believe in him... and when you truly love God ... you undoubtedly search for unbelievers and the unlearned and bring them to knowledge of the truth which you have acquired."

The Rambam goes on to quote the Sifre on Deuteronomy : “And you shall love(ve-ahavtah) the Lord your God ... make him beloved(ahavehu) by all his creatures as did Abraham your father... "Just as Abraham loved God ... and with his great understanding and faith sought out people(and led them) to the faith strengthened in his love, so shall you love God until you seek out and call mankind unto Him."

Some commentators explain Maimonides ’ interpretation of this commandment as a call to receive converts and bring them into the fold, even though he did quote the rest of the Sifre commentary on Abraham :"This teaches that Abraham , our father , converted them and brought them under the wings of the Divine Presence."’

An eleventh century sage, R. Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona, lists the conversion of gentiles as a positive commandment derived from another verse:"And you shall love the ger"(Deut. 10:19). he

proclaims in poetic verse:"The proselyte who comes to be

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