A yungerman once told me that he was working with a potential baal teshuvah who was just starting to make strides in returning to Judaism and could not come to grips with the fact that he could not shower on Shabbos morning. This fellow has always showered every day of the week and when he doesn’t shower he just doesn’t feel like a mentsch. The yungerman wasn’t sure how to proceed.
The obvious answer is that when you’re dealing with a fresh baal teshuvah you don’t tell him that he can’t shower on Shabbos during your first session together. You allow him to become acquainted with Judaism in stages and accept each facet upon himself as he is ready for it.
The trajectory the Jewish people took upon leaving Mitzrayim is therefore astonishing. On the Fourteenth of Nissan they were at the depths of Egyptian depravity. Chazal tell us that the Jews were at the 49th level of tumah at the time of the redemption and had they stayed a moment longer they would have sunk to the 50th level from which they could not have emerged. Furthermore at Kriyas Yam Suf a week later the malachim declared “Halalu ovdei avodah zarah v’halalu ovdei avodah zarah – the Egyptians are guilty of idol worship but so are the Jews.”
I don’t think your typical baal teshuvah has come close to the 49th level of tumah and few if any were idol worshipers six weeks before their return to Judaism. Yet it is self-understood that we allow them to take things slowly. But here were the same Jews just seven weeks after the Exodus and Hashem gives them the entire Torah. How could they be expected to accept all 613 mitzvos at once?
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