Pesachim 92

There are a few moments in Judaism that all have similar ritual around them: conversion, Yom Kippur, and your wedding day (and even your day of death). On each of these days you go to the mikvah and immerse and you come out with a pure/(re)new(ed) soul (for the dead this is part of tehorot). You leave these days after having completed their rituals with a different status than you had prior to your immersion. You are a different person. What you did before that time no longer applies to the new you (in many ways).

So, what happens when someone converts to Judaism the day of Erev Pesach? One would think that they immerse and can eat – regardless of whatever they had done in the week prior (when we normally have to worry about contracting impurities). The Mishnah on today’s daf states: With regard to a convert who converted on Passover eve, Beit Shammai say: He immerses and eats his Paschal lamb in the evening. And Beit Hillel say: One who separates from the foreskin by being circumcised is ritually impure, like one who separates from the grave after coming in contact with a corpse. Consequently, he must first observe the seven-day purification process necessary to remove ritual impurity imparted by a corpse.

What is Hillel talking about? Usually the more permissive of the two, this seems out of line his normal rulings. The Gemara explains:

Beit Hillel hold that there is a rabbinic decree due to a concern that perhaps he will become contaminated by a corpse in the following year and he will say: Last year, even though I had come in contact with a corpse previous to Passover, did I not immerse and eat the Paschal lamb without completing the purification process for impurity imparted by a corpse? Now also, I will immerse and eat. And he does not know and understand that last year, before his conversion on Passover eve, he was a gentile and therefore he was not susceptible to ritual impurity, because gentiles do not contract ritual impurity according to Torah law, but now he is a Jew and is susceptible to ritual impurity.

So, this ruling is a fence around the law. It reminds us that the way we all learn best is by example, but living through something. Hillel here is worried that allowing them to eat the pascal lamb will mislead this new Jew into believing that, even if they come into contact with the dead the week before Passover, they can simply immerse and eat.

My questions is: Why not just explain – this is an exception to the rule? This is the one and only time this will be the way you do things because your status prior to mikvah – as that of a non-Jew – meant that you could not contract impurity? Why not use this as a teaching moment?

I am reading a parenting book, and one of many lessons, besides modeling being a big educator (like Hillel is pointing out), is that we need to explain why the rules are what they are, not just give them in a dictatorial style.

So, Hillel, I get you, but I would beg to differ. For this daf, I am team Shammai.