LAYMAN CONDUCTING A CONVERSION

Solomon B. Freehof

QUESTION: An Indian Gentile girl in Bombay desires to convert to Judaism . She has presented herself as a candidate for conversion to our Reform congregation in Bombay (a congregation of the Benei Israel). The congregation has no rabbi at present and they have asked whether laymen are eligible to perform the ceremony of conversion.*

ANSWER: The Shulhan Arukh in Yoreh Deah 268:3 says that a conversion must be conducted by a court of three"eligible to judge." The question which concerns us is what is meant by this phrase. Of course,"eligible to judge" can mean simply that the judges are not relatives.(See Perishah to the Tur who quotes the Mordecai as the sources of this explanation.) However, there is a much more fundamental question involved as to the nature of the court.

In Mishnaic and Talmudic times there were two classes of

courts, those that dealt with religious and criminal matters and those that dealt with adjudicating civil disputes. The courts that dealt with religious and criminal matters were generally the fixed courts and were composed of men who were formally ordained (musmakhim). Since ordination in the old classic sense could take place only in Palestine, then those who conducted such courts x Babylon had a somewhat different status, but one which to the same thing. They were called mumhim, literally Ci men." It meant, actually, official appointees of the Exilarc: Musmakhim in Palestine and mumhim in Babylon could also judge civil matters; but civil matters could legally be judged by AE if the two parties in dispute selected them and were content Wi

each other's selection.