Conversion: Historical Underpinning in this Week's Parsha

Very often we see that a historical event in the Torah takes on a different significance at a later point in time. For example, the act of bringing the Korban Pesach, the Paschal lamb was, at the time, an act of immeasurable faith and belief in the supremacy of the true God; the lamb was set aside four days before it was sacrificed, for all of Egypt to see. Nowadays, though, the import has changed dramatically, and we try to commemorate some elements of the initial historical act, by, for example, nowadays, not eating the Korban Pesach in the absence of the Beit Hamikdash; were there to be one, it likewise would have to be set aside in advance for the exact number of people who were to eat it, and similarly, it had to be eaten in one house, just like the night of the killing of the firstborns, when no Jew was allowed to leave his home. 

The same could be said of the details we glean from the historical act of the conversion of the Jewish people, as described in the Gemorah, Yevamot (46:). The question the Gemorah tries to tackle is, "How do we become Jewish?" For a man, the Gemorah asks, is it circumcision alone, or, in order to convert, is it necessary to immerse oneself in a mikveh as well? For a woman, what would suffice for her? Presumably, states the Gemorah, the men of the bible only needed circumcision, and women, clearly only needed immersion, so, can we, asks the Gemorah, learn that like women, men only need immersion? Would that suffice? 

Then, the Gemorah says, we can learn out what is really necessary from this week's parsha, for, after Moshe's helpers offered sacrificial peace offerings, Moshe sprinkled part of the blood on the altar, and the rest - after the Jewish people entered the covenant by stating that they would do God's will - on the people themselves. This sprinkling, states the Gemorah, cannot be done without first undergoing immersion, a symbolic statement that when one wants to remove impurity, he needs to first, on a human level, do the maximum he or she can, and only afterwards turn to Hashem for further assitance. One cannot become pure, without doing everything in her capacity; thereafter, Hashem acts to remove further impurity. This connotes that we need to do the maximum we can, and then, we can trust in God's good grace to help us, which is exactly what conversion, the likes of which the Jewish people underwent at Sinai, is all about.