canasia.org

Naomi - A slightly diferent spin on this issue. While I didn't handle any adoptions when I was practicing law, I was involved in a lot o cases with foster kids. You asked for some ideas on the issue of handling becoming a Jew. But what if this child, adopted once he has been raised within some sort of cultural millieu, wants to stay part of that culture, because of its _link_ to his birth family? Many older adoptees feel the need to stay connected, whether it's through contact with siblings, still attending the same place of religious observance, maintaining a cultural identity and language usage, etc. What if this boy not only doesn't want to give up things like christmas, what if doing so would  damage his sense of identity? What if he already feels so 'different' rom the rest of society because of his troubled homelife, that the craving for sameness means he doesn't want the differentness of being Jewish? A lot of this depends on the age of the adoptee. But the 'magic' of christmas is akin to the 'happy ending fantasy.' Yes, everything can be good and wonderful, even for one day. And its the kind of thing that kids available for adoption have to cling to, this hope that the magic will happen, in order to not be totally beaten down by their sitution. To ask the child to give up the cultural manifestation of this belief will be very hard for the child, and throw them onto some very shakey emotional ground. As much as Jews talk about the December dilemma, I'm not sure there is an understanding of the emotional tie people have to christmas. It's impact is on hope and goodness. The whole 'peace on earth good will towards men' thing. Emerson, Lake and Palmer even had lyrics saying something like - the world is a cynical and hard place, but, christmas is what makes it all bearable and worthwhile, its the dessert. An older child up for adoption lives on this knife's edge with hope on one side and despair/disappointment on the other. To ask the child to give up the manifestations of their tie to hope will leave them vulnerable to not being able to find another _link_ to hope, another way of geeting access to that emotion. And particularly Russians have this thing about emotions being 'in their blood.' That some emotional needs and ties are biological and thus cannot be set aside. So what are you going to do if that child's emotional state means he needs to continue having christmas is his life?

: It makes no difference as long as the conversion is done PRIOR to the : child being a ben or bat mitzvah since we follow the gemara in Ketuvot : 11a on zakkin al daat beit din (see: Yoreh Deah 268:7). The Shita : Mekubetzet there (Ketuvot 11a) quotes the RITVA that lack of kabbalat : ohl mitzvot does NOT invalidate a conversion of a child under the age : of BarMitzvah (in contradistinction to an adult). See: Beit Yosef TUR : Yoreh Deah 268 and MAHARAM Shick YD II 248 and Tshuvot Chatam Sofer YD : 253. Speaking from experience with how the halakhah is applied by a number of batei din (courts): Actually, we require qabbalas ol mitzvos (accepting the responsibility of mitzvos) at the time the child reaches majority. If the child accepts the mitzvos but then changes his/her mind later, the child is still a Jew. (As is true for qabbalas ol mitzvos at the usual time for other converts.) The Torah defines majority as the growth of two pubic hairs. Because of the impracticality of implementing this, both because of modesty issues and because hairs fall out, for rabbinic laws we rely on a presumption. We assume that by age 12 or 13 (depending on gender) majority was reached. Thus the concept of bar/bat mitzvah. For conversion, we can't rely on this presumption. So we don't know the exact moment at which such acceptance is meaningful. Before that moment the child is a minor and can't meaningfully accept anything. But anything after that moment (there's probably a few second window tokh kedei dibbur ) is a second decision and doesn't count either! The conversion is contingent upon the child's behavior. If the child acts as an observant child would for the period of time including that moment of reaching majority, we may presume that the child was in favor of accepting the mitzvos at that moment. Some courts require a formal statement of acceptance in addition to that, but I don't think they consider it law . BTW, the talmud says that even before reaching majority, it is so likely the child will accept the mitzvos that we can presume it. The case given is one where a girl who was converted as an infant is married off to a kohein before she turns 12. If she is a convert, she is the wife of a kohein and may eat terumah (a gift from one's crops given to kohanim). If she is not, the marriage wouldn't be valid, and she'd have no right to eat terumah. The gemara concludes that the odds of her not accepting her conversion are small enough to be ignored, and she may be given terumah to eat. -mi

: It makes no difference as long as the conversion is done PRIOR to the : child being a ben or bat mitzvah since we follow the gemara in Ketuvot : 11a on zakkin al daat beit din (see: Yoreh Deah 268:7). The Shita : Mekubetzet there (Ketuvot 11a) quotes the RITVA that lack of kabbalat : ohl mitzvot does NOT invalidate a conversion of a child under the age : of BarMitzvah (in contradistinction to an adult). See: Beit Yosef TUR : Yoreh Deah 268 and MAHARAM Shick YD II 248 and Tshuvot Chatam Sofer YD : 253. Speaking from experience with how the halakhah is applied by a number of batei din (courts): Actually, we require qabbalas ol mitzvos (accepting the responsibility of mitzvos) at the time the child reaches majority. If the child accepts the mitzvos but then changes his/her mind later, the child is still a Jew. (As is true for qabbalas ol mitzvos at the usual time for other converts.) The Torah defines majority as the growth of two pubic hairs. Because of the impracticality of implementing this, both because of modesty issues and because hairs fall out, for rabbinic laws we rely on a presumption. We assume that by age 12 or 13 (depending on gender) majority was reached. Thus the concept of bar/bat mitzvah. For conversion, we can't rely on this presumption. So we don't know the exact moment at which such acceptance is meaningful. Before that moment the child is a minor and can't meaningfully accept anything. But anything after that moment (there's probably a few second window tokh kedei dibbur ) is a second decision and doesn't count either! The conversion is contingent upon the child's behavior. If the child acts as an observant child would for the period of time including that moment of reaching majority, we may presume that the child was in favor of accepting the mitzvos at that moment. Some courts require a formal statement of acceptance in addition to that, but I don't think they consider it law . BTW, the talmud says that even before reaching majority, it is so likely the child will accept the mitzvos that we can presume it. The case given is one where a girl who was converted as an infant is married off to a kohein before she turns 12. If she is a convert, she is the wife of a kohein and may eat terumah (a gift from one's crops given to kohanim). If she is not, the marriage wouldn't be valid, and she'd have no right to eat terumah. The gemara concludes that the odds of her not accepting her conversion are small enough to be ignored, and she may be given terumah to eat. You lost me here. If she is a convert is she not automatically forbidden to a Kohein and thus forbidden to eat terumah?