To become a Jew by conversion is to join the covenant of God and Israel for the sake of tikkun olam—which is, in the words of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, "the replenishment of the deficiency in creation, when the real world will conform to the ideal world." This "dream of creation," Rabbi Soloveitchik went on to say, "is the central idea in the halakhic consciousness—the idea of the importance of man as a partner of the Almighty . . . [and] the ultimate aim of Judaism."

A family, the family of Abraham and Sarah and their grandson Jacob, took on this covenantal mission. To enter into the covenant, one must join this family. The mandated rituals of circumcision (for a male) and immersion in a mikveh offer a symbolic and spiritual rebirth and thus reflect the same basic truth. Since the family is dedicated to the higher ideal, it is not just a tribe that you can only join if you are born into it. To the contrary, you can join by accepting the family mission and committing yourself to its ideals. But this requirement means accepting the tie to the biological family; means committing one's body and not just one's soul; means pledging to continue the life's work of the past members of the family and to identify with their history, heritage, names, and memories. It means, in short, taking the fateful risk taken by Ruth in the Bible when she said, "where you go, I go; where you sleep, I sleep; your people is my people; your God is my God."

After the commitment of body and soul, the third element of conversion, according to halakha, is kabbalat mitzvot, the knowing acceptance of the Torah's precepts and laws. In joining the family, declares the convert, I acknowledge that there are obligations on me. I will not act and do whatever I please but rather will discipline my behavior to advance the purpose and mission of the covenant.

What are these mitzvot, these human behaviors structured to advance the covenant and its goals? Many of them involve the realms of the ethical and the interpersonal. Because we seek a perfected world, with justice and dignity for all, I must not steal from or exploit others. I should love my neighbor as myself, and so I will not speak evil of others, not curse the deaf or put stumbling blocks before the blind. I must help build love, family, and healthy relationships, and so I will honor my father and mother, have and raise children, take care of my family and of those in need.

Beyond the strictly ethical and interpersonal there are the mitzovt beyn adam le-maqom: ritual activities, similarly structured to advance the covenant. Shabbat, the Sabbath, inculcates in us an awareness of Creation and Redemption—we invoke the Exodus in the Friday—evening blessing over wine, marking our awareness that the Creator is the One who gives us our freedom, teaching us to love God, and reminding us that we are not God. Kashrut inculcates reverence for life, as well as the distinctiveness that is central to the mission and purpose of the Jewish people. The festivals of the Jewish year instill identification with the history, experiences, and fate of the Jewish people. The mitzvot of family purity instill a sense of the holiness in sexuality and intimate relationships.

We know that many people, most people, will not live up to all the mitzvot; we are, after all, only human. What then? How should this knowledge affect our approach to potential converts? To put my own position briefly, I believe that the halakhic requirement of kabbalat mitzvot is fulfilled by a person's acknowledging and accepting the principle that there are indeed obligations we are commanded to keep if we would live up to the brit, the covenant.

The Talmud tells us that in teaching potential converts, the practice is to explain or emphasize "some heavy mitzvot and some lighter mitzvot." The choice of what to emphasize will vary from situation to situation. The individual should then accept the mitzvot in principle, while explicitly committing himself or herself to the fundamental precepts of ethics as well as to such basic rituals as kashrut and shabbat.

And even here, there is room for nuance. For instance, kosher means that, because one is a Jew, one will or won't eat certain foods. Thus, a person who gives up pig or shellfish, or eats no hametz (leavened products) on Passover, can, even if not keeping a kosher home, legitimately say: I accept the obligation to keep kosher. By the same token, a person can honor shabbat as a special day by lighting candles, scheduling a special family meal on Friday night, visiting mother and father religiously on the Sabbath day, and thus, even if not observing the 39 proscribed categories of labor spelled out in the Talmud, still legitimately declare: as a Jew, I will observe shabbat.

As an Orthodox Jew and a rabbi, I myself want people to observe shabbat and kashrut in a fully halakhic way. Yet I affirm this limited form of observance as a legitimate accommodation to enable the conversion of people who will be serious Jews—albeit not Orthodox Jews. And what I am proposing is emphatically not some thin fig leaf. First, refraining from ever eating pork, or from eating leavened products on Passover, is itself a significant halakhic act—as would be a positive commitment to eat matzah on Passover. Second, converts like these will add to the total societal atmosphere that makes shabbat a special day and contribute to overall observance (a consideration particularly important in Israel). Third, taking on the obligation even of limited observance upholds the principle of obligation to a higher authority.

Rabbi Soloveitchik in a powerful essay distinguishes between two forms of covenant: the covenant of fate and the covenant of destiny. Acceptance of fate, he writes—i.e., sharing in whatever happens to the family, for good or for ill--precedes acceptance of destiny, which is marked by kabbalat mitzvot. Indeed, the Talmud says:  "When a person comes to convert . . . , we say to him: what have you seen that makes you want to convert?  Don't you know that [the people of] Israel in this age are persecuted, oppressed, despised, harassed to the point of madness and swamped by suffering? If [the potential convert] then says ‘I know this, yet I am unworthy [i.e., I still consider it a privilege] to become a Jew,' then we accept him at once."

Note: only after this exchange does the Talmud instruct us to talk with the potential convert about some mitzvot, light and heavy. In other words, acceptance of fate alone creates a strong presumption of worthiness—and, for Jews, a corresponding obligation to be accepting of the one who presents himself as a candidate for conversion.

Surely the same reasoning applies today. After the Shoah, after 60-plus years of wars and terrorism in Israel, a person's readiness to accept the high cost of entering the brit should carry overwhelming weight. In my judgment, such acceptance constitutes nothing less than a readiness, if need be, for martyrdom-not only for the convert but for all of his or her future children. If anything belongs in the category of "heavy mitzvot," surely this does! Once you have put your life on the line, shabbat, kashrut, and other such obligations, critical as they are, assume proportionately less weight, and an individual's failure to live up to them in full, however disappointing, should not constitute any sort of disqualification. I hold this to be especially true of converts serving in the Israeli army. 

The Talmud continues, significantly, "And we do not say too many words"-the commentator Rashi explains: lest we  frighten him into backing away-" and we do not insist on fine points. If he accepts [the mitzvot we have spelled out for him], we circumcise him at once. . . . We immerse him at once and two sages stand by his side and inform him of some of the light and heavy mitzvot, and when he emerges he is like an Israelite in every way." 

In converting non-observant or less observant Jews, as I do, am I not afraid they will be punished by God for their lapses when it comes to keeping the ritual commandments?  Why do I not agree with a great figure like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who said that in so doing we confer no honor or privilege (z'khut) on converts, who will now be held to account by God for obligations they will not fulfill and that formerly did not bind them? My answer is this: I believe that becoming and being a Jew is itself a z'khut. Carrying on the mission, the covenant, the fate of this people is itself an honor, a privilege, a blessing, and a reward. Despite all the suffering inflicted by other peoples—or by God—on the Jews, there is no higher privilege than being or becoming a member of this family. 

Furthermore: I believe with perfect faith that God loves and honors good, serious Jews-whether or not they keep all the mitzvot. I believe that the merit of the mitzvot they do keep, including in the form of good deeds and self-sacrifice, outweighs all the punishments that can be incurred by non-observance, and that God will treat them accordingly. Personally, I also believe that after the Shoah, the threat of hell is not so intimidating: everybody knows that worse than hell was inflicted on living Jews as well as on their children, on their loved ones, and on whole communities. People ready to stand up in defiance of another Shoah need not be deterred by threats of heavenly punishments. 

Not only that, but I remain absolutely convinced (despite traditional teachings to the contrary) that just as God did not bring the Holocaust on the Jews because of their sins, so God will not inflict hell on people who, while failing to keep shabbat or other ritual mitzvot, faithfully observe the ethical and interpersonal mitzvot, commit their lives to the Jewish people and its fate, and thereby not only join but advance the purposes and mission of the great covenant.   

I would add a final merit. "Whoever rejects  idolatry," the Talmud pronounces, "is equivalent to one who affirms  the whole Torah." Many, if not all, non-observant Jews and even so-called "non-Jewish Jews" do reject idolatry: reject, that is, absolute claims made in the name of such contemporary human-made gods as absolutist faiths and totalitarian systems. This, too, God weighs and appreciates—and so should we.

All these, I contend, are legitimate standards for conversion, standards that meet the needs of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora and that would serve God. Particularly in Israel, I believe they are justified by the overriding need of this generation to see that Israel remains Jewish and to unify the Israeli people. Many converts may not adhere to even a modest regime of ritual mitzvot, but if they seriously commit themselves to the maintenance of the Jewish people and to high Jewish standards of ethical behavior, we can face God with a clear conscience and the conviction that we have honored the tradition of kabbalat mitzvot.

As a concluding note I add this: when it comes to defining a good Jew,  stressing the "particularist" ritual mitzvot over against  the "universalist" mitzvot of ethical behavior is itself a gross distortion. In the formulation of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the  founder of the 19th-century Musar movement, both desecration of the Sabbath and unethical behavior are equally forbidden, "as the Torah and its laws judge." After all, Rabbi Salanter points out, the two biblical commands of  "do not eat meat torn in the field" and "do not oppress the widow and orphan" appear in the very same chapters of Exodus.

If we were to adopt this approach, I am convinced we would in fact end up with many more fully observant converts than we have now, not to speak of the tens of thousands who, even though less than fully observant, would be fully serious Jews. And the conversion process itself would be honest—a quality never so essential as at the moment of rebirth.