More on conversions from Cross-Currents, where he quotes what seems to be the source for ROB’s understanding of the halacha:
Most of us have seen the tendency in academic circles to take different but somewhat related authors/ musicians/ thinkers/ concepts and turn them into Two Opposing Conceptual Schema. Unconsciously, we absorbed the technique when we had to write research papers, particularly in the humanities. If we could uncover the inevitable borrowing and influence from some other names, we were on the way to a successful paper. We knew we hit pay dirt when we could make the argument that Schema A was influenced by X, while Schema B was influenced by Y because the respective authors/ designers of those schema were products of the special conditions of their times.
Should it surprise us when people operating within this mindset turn to Torah and do the same? Sagi and Zohar claim to have found two sources in the gemara, and turned them into two different shitos regarding conversion requirements. Alas, say the authors, halachic thought jumped ship in the late 19th century (motivated, of course, by waning rabbinic authority just as it had to confront the dizzying new choices of modernity) and opted for the more onerous set of rules.
Halachists, of course, do not approach text this way. Neither do ninth graders with serious gemara background. When they see conflict between sources, they generally endeavor to reduce the tension as much as possible, sometimes by successfully harmonizing sources, and where that is impossible, reducing the intellectual distance between the opposing viewpoints as much as possible.
My objective in this piece has nothing to do with conversion, Profs. Sagi and Zohar, or sniping at the academic world. It is, rather, an illustration of but one way of looking at halachic sources in a manner that is foreign to the traditional halachist. The real culprit will emerge in the continuation of this essay.