Perhaps we’ll never know if accusations of conversion scandals are true, so you wouldn’t want to click this link.

But it’s clear that the process of conversion has changed over time, and the Talmud has some interesting information on practices of former times.

We have the stories of prospective converts who were rejected by Shammai but accepted by Hillel (Shabbat 31a). These teachers flourished at the beginning of Rabbinic times; but what about earlier?

Officially, many agree, the first Jews underwent conversion–immersion in a mikveh, circumcision for men, and acceptance of the commandments–at Sinai. By this reasoning, Abraham wasn’t the first Jew. Some say he was the first monotheist, but Adam came earlier. (So who invented polytheism?)

Juan Mejia describes some of the Talmud’s statements on conversion and Maimonides’ interpretation of them in an article that I found fascinating.

But the Talmud has an earlier case of conversion to Judaism: Pharaoh’s daughter. When she went out to “bathe” in the Nile, she didn’t just go for a swim. She immersed herself in the river as a mikveh in order to repudiate her father’s idolatrous practices. That’s why–although her name was “Bitya” she was known as “Yehudiah.” Anyone who repudiates idol worship is pretty close to being Jewish. You can argue about how close, and whether the distance is significant, but I must admit I was surprised to read this (Megillah 13a, with Rashi).

Could someone accept the commandments before they were given? Perhaps, as Einstein said, “the distinction made between past, present and future is  nothing more than a persistent, stubborn illusion” (quoted by Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons, 58).

We can also ask who raised Moses, the biological mother who nursed him or the princess who adopted him.

For me there’s one more question: can our prayer communities be more open to people who may not consider themselves Jewish but whose religion, like ours, obliges them to repudiate idolatry?