The Shulchan Aruch states that a wicked person should not be buried next to a righteous person, and an exceedingly wicked person should not be buried next to a moderately wicked person. Similarly, a righteous person or an ordinary person should not be buried next to an exceedingly pious individual. However, the author notes in his other halachic work, the Bais Yosef, that a ba’al teshuva may be buried next to a fully righteous person, by which he presumably means one who was observant all his days (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De’ah 362:5).
The previous source clearly indicates that one who has rehabilitated himself from sin reclaims his status in the community. Not only that, but it is absolutely forbidden to remind a ba’al teshuva of his past deeds or a convert of the deeds of his forefathers, as the Torah states (Shemos 22) “Do not torment or oppress a convert” (Mishna Bava Metzia 4:10). We are adjured in numerous places throughout the Torah to treat converts with equity and sensitivity. It goes without saying that ba̓alei teshuva, who are born as “one of us,” should receive this same treatment. In contrast, the laws of shechita, such a vital aspect of kashrus, are barely hinted in the Torah.
Yet while so many Jews turn their lives upside down over the most remote concerns with kashrus, that which the Torah treated with utmost priority is trampled upon. Nowadays it has become completely mainstream in the shidduch world for contestants to be made to divulge whether they are ba̓alei teshuva and, if so, for how long. Those who must check this unfortunate box on the questionnaire are essentially branded as undesirables.
There can be no greater violation of the previous source, no greater “reminder” of one’s past lifestyle, than this – yet there is no public outcry over this travesty, no rabbinic condemnation of this defilement of those who are pure.
I would not be at all surprised if this widespread injustice is partially responsible for the degradation the Jewish people suffer at the hands of the nations of the world. After all, Hashem always repays in kind.
One Shabbos last year I was a guest speaker at a shul in a large Jewish community, and I touched upon the mistreatment of so-called ba’alei teshuva. Afterwards a man approached me and related his heartbreaking story. He had become observant in his early twenties, and since that time had contributed greatly to the community as a teacher and through his involvement with communal affairs. The community, however, never forgot, or let him forget, that he wasn’t “one of them.” Most notably, shadchanim were unwilling to propose suitable shidduchim.
Now in his forties, he remained unmarried more than twenty years since becoming observant, denied true entrance into the community like a leper or a Moabite. I asked him whether, if it were possible to do it all over again, he would make the same decision to become observant, knowing the rough treatment he would suffer by his fellow Jews. He said that he would not.
This is a damning verdict against the Jewish people. We sing the praises of repentance, yet brutally punish those who undertake the holy challenge. Do those involved with outreach inform their naïve and trusting clientele of the stigma that awaits them? Do they tell those seeking a religious lifestyle that no ne will want to marry them? When embracing them with open arms, do they whisper in their ears that they would have a heart attack if their own children ever wanted to marry them? I suspect that those involved with outreach say none of these things, preferring to draw them close under false pretenses and betray them later on. God’s holy work, indeed.
