A 19th Century American Patriot From Derby, PA who Converted in Yerushalaim
Written by Rabbi Moshe Taub for Ami Magazine November, 2012
He arrived on the shores of eretz yisroel in the summer of 1844 holding a dove and an American flag.
After receiving approval to be the first American Consul to Jerusalem, Warder Cresson was unaware that the President of the United States had revoked his status while already Israel bound.
Yet this is by no means the most fascinating part of his story.
‘Who was Warder Cresson?’ you may ask.
Well…who wasn’t Warder Cresson!
Polymath, convert, source of halachic battle, mevakesh, man of history, the list goes on.
Several years ago my predecessor in Buffalo, HaRav Yirmiyah Milevsky, published a wonderful article researching the life of Warder Cresson. His discovery was passed around rabbinic circles as it resolved an old halachic history that we shall soon discuss.
Warder was born July 13, 1798 to a deeply devout Quaker family. After some business success, by the age of thirty he began to question his faith. According to the historical research of Dr. Yitzchak Levine, “By the 1840’s he had become, in turn, a Shaker, a Mormon, a Seventh Day Adventist and a Campbellite.”
Like Yisro, or the King of Kuzar of the sefer Kuzari, who had examining many faiths until discovering Torah and yiddeshkeit, Warder was a searcher, a mevakesh.
Inspired by the writings of some of the rabbis of his time, his heart began to pine for avira d’arah. Before embarking on this journey he somehow convinced the American government to give him the official title of American Consul to Israel. There were men who knew of Warder, and viewed him as a religious fanatic (we can only imagine how many faiths he had angered by this point!). One man, Samule D. Ingham, who had served as President Jackson’s Secretary of Treasury ten years earlier and who knew Warder wrote to President Tyler’s administration to have Warder’s title revoked. They concurred. But it was too late for Warder to find out before his arrival.
In time he became dismayed at what he saw. Missionaries living in luxury while the Jews and others lived in utter poverty.
He also strongly criticized the church’s overt desire to convert Jews. He wrote a parody titled ‘The Society Formed in England and America for Promoting Sawdust, Instead of good Old Cheese, amongst the Jews in Jerusalem’
In it he compared Cheese to Judaism and sawdust to his and the missionaries’ faith that may look like shredded cheese and be sold as such but was a ruse and not the real thing.
A few years after, and now almost fifty years of age, Warder Cresson became a ger.
He wrote: “When I became fully satisfied that I could never obtain Strength and Rest, but by doing as Ruth did, and saying to her Mother-in-Law, or Naomi ‘Entreat me not to leave thee … for whither thou goest I will go’…. In short, upon the 28th day of March, 1848, I was circumcised, entered the Holy Covenant and became a Jew….”
After a short visit to America, he returned to Israel under the name Michael Boaz Yisroel Ben Abraham, married, had two children and lived the life of a sefardi. He died in 1864 and was buried on har zeisim. His burial spot was only discovered last year.
While Warder Cresson’s life still had even more fascinating turns –his autobiography detailing his life choices titled ‘Key of David’, his divorce from his first wife and loss of much of his American estate, his likely 1857 meeting with Herman Mellville, author of Moby Dick – it is his halachic legacy that I wish to share.
The shu’t Binyan Tzion (91) by Rav Ettlinger –better known perhaps as the Aruch L’ner –discusses the case of a Moroccan convert in Israel.
Here is the shailah that was posed to him (translation from Rabbi Milevsky):
“Here in Yerushalaim on Tuesday the twenty third day of the month of Adar Sheni of the year (5)608, a non Jew came from Morocco and had a bris for the sake of geirus, and accepted all the mitzvos. On the following Shabbos, he had not fully recovered from the circumcision and thus not entered the Mikvah…a rabbi claimed that due to the fact that he did not yet enter the Mikvah he must not observe Shabbos and must perform a melacha…Consequently he violated Shabbos by writing a few letters. After Shabbos when the Rabbis in town heard of the ruling they disagreed claiming that after his bris he is considered a Jew and must not violate Shabbos.”
The question is a fascinating one. What is the status of a ger between the stages of bris and tevilah? Many teshuvos have been written about this case throughout the years from all over the world.
The Binyan Tzion has a remarkable approach that while not yet a yid, once convalescing from his bris and before tevila he is also no longer a gentile, and the prohibition on gentiles in keeping Shabbos no longer applies! This seems to be the understanding of the Chasam Sofer (oh’c 116) and can also be inferred from the Tosphos Yeshanim (Yevamus 48b).
The Sochachover rebbe takes this even further (Avnei Nezer y’d 352), that not only may someone in this ‘quasi’ state observe Shabbos, but they must! Basing himself on the Zohar, we know that the Jews received the mitzvah of Shabbos in Marah –after mila but before the tevila of Sinai (See also shu’t Eretz Tzvi 1:41). He even goes so far as to say that even if earlier sources would seem to argue on this quasi status it may only be due to the fact that the Zohar was not yet known in their time.
In fact, the Midrash would imply (Devarim Rabba 1:20) that this prohibition on a gentile to observe Shabbos is only until “one accepts mila” clearly indicating that this ger should not have been instructed to write on Shabbos after his mila (see shu’t Divrei Yosef 3:24).
What about the rav from Yerushalaim who had this quasi convert write on Shabbos, what was his basis?
The name of this rav was Rav Asher Lemmel, who indeed rejects many of the proofs brought.
But a greater mystery has always been who this convert was. Keep in mind that this was at a time when very few became geirim.
Rabbi Milevsky took the date of the geirus found in Rav Ettlinger’s teshuvah and calculated the equivalent secular date and…lo and behold it was March 28, 1848 the exact same date that Warder Cresson converted! He was the source behind this famous debate!
As for his being called Moroccan, in Hebrew America has the exact same spelling save for one letter.
When Artscroll published their new English Midrash Rabba (Ibid. 213 note 241) they seem to have fully accept Rabbi Milevsky’s contention that the man behind the story was Warder Cresson.
One Quaker from Derby PA began to search, became a ger tzedek and had an impact still being felt today.
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