Cold Chill on a Hot Day

It's not easy to have a cold chill pass over your body on a 90 degree day, but sometimes there are things that can accomplish that and then some. Reading a past comment to a post over on JBC.org managed to cause me a cold chill and a momentary feeling of despair just now.

The post was titled Three Inspiring Gerim: Rabbi Asher Wade, Gavriel Sanders, and Yisrael Campbell, and described the conversion experiences of these three Orthodox Jews. It was not the original post, but a response to it by none other than Gavriel Sanders himself which affected me so much:

I hold one simple metric for defining a Jew: will this person have Jewish grandchildren? Maintaining the living links in the chain of Jewish perpetuity is what matters. The Torah provides profound guidance for insuring the Jewish future. "Atem had’vekim ba’Hashem Elokeychem - chaim kulchem hayom." - You who cling to Hashem your G-d are all alive this day."

I can't answer his metric. Will I have Jewish grandchildren? If my family has anything to do with it, probably not. This is something which has bothered me from the time I started to consider conversion, and it continues to bother me...can I be Jewish if I'm unable to bring my children along? Is there a point in becoming Jewish if I can't be "fully Jewish" by having a Jewish marriage and a Jewish home? According to Sanders, apparently no.

A further comment by a poster known only as "Rebbetzyn" included this even more circumscribed thought:

There is a commenton a film that can be ordered from J.E.M.S/KEHOT by the Lubavitcher Rebbe where he talks
about how any movement that is Non-Orthodox dupes the convert
as they cannot effect a conversion his words are ” they do
NOT get a Jewish soul and they lose the one they have”
The explanation is as I understand it their “Beis Din” cannot affect the descent of a Jewish soul through their auspices.
and that because / if they themselves are halachically Jewish the fact that they are Jews means that they have enough spiritual power to do the opposite of good to the unsuspecting person…what is affected is a loss with no gain…..Ithink that it would
be in the best case scenario the seven noachide laws by default.

[sic]

It comes as no surprise that an Orthodox Jew (I assume, judging by the stance this poster takes) believes that one cannot be a Jew through conversion under auspices other than the Orthodox. It is still a bit of a blow, especially when combined with a supposed quote from the Rebbe that not only would such a convert lack a Jewish soul, but would also lose the gentile one which they had. I don't know if it's superstitious of me to be affected so much by that thought, but I am. Although I am not an Orthodox Jew, I still have respect for the Rebbe as a great and wise leader.

Do I really believe that by converting under Reform auspices I'll lose my soul? No. Surely it isn't the specific religion, but the clinging to G-d which is most important to one's soul? I must admit this may be my own wishful thinking, but there it is. Does one actually lose a soul in any conversion? Is that possible? I don't think so. I also don't think a Jewish soul can be created where one doesn't already exist. A heightened understanding, sympathy, tolerance, openness, those may be created in someone through knowledge and experience. Only G-d places souls, and only He knows which soul he placed in each person.

Yes, Sanders and "Rebbetzyn" rattled my nerves a bit this afternoon by touching on an already sore spot. However, if I don't allow misguided Christians calling down hellfire on me to rattle me, how can I allow a nameless poster and a Jewish strict constructionist to do the same? Only G-d and I know the state of my own soul, and that is enough for me.