Presence

With Shavuos around the corner (and the recent RCA business), I thought I'd post some scattered thoughts on the relationship between Shavuos, conversion and the giving of the Torah. I'm sort of developing my thoughts on this as I go, with only an instinct as to how this stuff all fits together.

We will begin with a comparison of a passage that originates in the Talmud, noting the permutations it undergoes as we follow it through the Rambam, Tur and the Shulchan Aruch.

Yevamos, 47A:

Our rabbis taught: if at the present time a man desires to become a proselyte, he is to be addressed as follows: "What reason do you have for desiring to become a proselyte? Do you not know that at the present time Israel is persecuted and oppressed, despised, harrassed and overcome by afflictions?" If he replies, "I know, and yet am unworthy," he is accepted forthwith; and we make known to him a few simple commandments, and a few stringent commandments...

Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Relations, 14:1-2

How do we accept righteous proselytes when one of them comes from amongst the idol worshippers, and we have ascertained his sincerity? "What reason do you have for desiring to become a proselyte? Do you not know that at the present time Israel is persecuted and oppressed, despised, harrassed and overcome by afflictions?" If he replies, "I know, and yet am unworthy," he is accepted forthwith; and we make known to him the fundamentals of our religion, which are the oneness of the Name and prohibition against idol woship, and we expound at great length upon this topic; and a few simple commandments, and a few stringent commandments, but we do not expound upon this topic.

Note the comment of the Maggid Mishneh:

All this is explained over there [i.e. Yevamos 47], except for the passage, "and you go into great detail regarding the oneness of the Name and the prohibition of idol worship," which is not mentioned there; but the matter is simple: since these things are the fundamentals of our religion and belief, we must clearly make them believed and known, and go into great detail regarding them, as they are the fundamentals of Judaism, religion and conversion.

Tur, Yoreh Deah, s. 268

...and make known to him some of the simple commandments, and some of the stringent commandments...

Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, s. 268:1

...and we make known to him the fundamentals of our religion, which are the oneness of the Name and prohibition against idol woship, and we expound at great length upon this topic; and a few simple commandments, and a few stringent commandment...

Hopefully you noticed: Maimonides takes the gemara and flips it on its head. While the Talmud focuses on the legal obligations of the Torah, Maimonides focuses on ikkarei ha'das, the fundamentals of faith, making the main criteria for conversion not the acceptance of the yoke of the commandments, but knowledge of the dogmas of Judaism. This is a huge innovation, with huge ramifications for what it means to convert. As you can see, Rambam's formulation was not accepted by most of the rishonim (the Tur follows the Rosh, who did not make alterations to the gemara); the Shulchan Aruch, however, did incorporate the Rambam's formulation, with a slight adjustment.

To better understand what this means and why the Rambam would make such drastic alterations, we must examine the source of geirus, and than means examining the Giving of the Torah, from the perspective of both the Talmud and Maimonides.