Of course the final decision is(46b) that he must be both circumcised and bathed; and a woman proselyte, of course, must have the ritual bath. As the law is now in the Shulhan Arukh, the proselyte is first closely asked why he is willing to accept the persecutions, etc., to which Jews are subjected. Then he is told of the reward and punishment for some of the commandments, and then he is circumcised and, when healed, taken to the ritual bath.
Now we should try to determine the degree of importance of these elements in the process: a) the questioning as to sincerity, b) the instruction in the commandments, ¢) the double ritual requirements. As for the second(the instruction in the commandments) the law is careful to say: You do not do more than mention"some"(mitzvot) of the commandments. You do not tell him too many(en marbin alav). In other words, it is clear that the instruction in the law is the least important of the three elements, perhaps because the law is so complex that you could not instruct him sufficiently anyhow. Furthermore, even the instruction mentioned is not actually instruction. The laws are cited to show what punishment there is for their violation. The candidate is told that while he is a Gentile, he will not be punished for violation of these laws, but when he becomes a Jew, he will be punished. So why is he willing to take this new burden on himself? Therefore it is evident that even this partial instruction in the law is not so much instruction, but belongs under the first element mentioned, namely, the testing of his sincerity.
Even the earnest testing of sincerity was subject to some mitigation. Doubt as to sincerity was based upon the desire to improve one’s status or increase one’s safety or to marry a Jew. It is because of the first two doubts that the Talmud deprecates the converts who flocked to Judaism in the time of David and Queen Esther. And it is because of the latter doubt, the desire to marry a Jew, that many Orthodox rabbis hesitate to perform conversions
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