In his second lecture on R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: Chaim Ozer Grodzinski said that even if you acknowledge you have desires and will commit certain sins, that does not void your conversion to Judaism. This is the standard approach to conversion among poskim (great rabbis) before modern times. Especially for marriage. You don’t ask many questions. Especially if they’re living together or are about to live together. You convert them and you try to keep them as religious as you can. You never had this idea of conversion classes. You don’t make it difficult to convert them.
Western Jewish intellectuals such as Louis Jacobs (see the chapter in his book A Jewish Theology) and Yeshayahu Leibowitz were attracted to the thought of R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, who showed humanistic tendencies and tried to soften some of the Biblical villains.
