The integration into the fate and into the destiny of the chosen nation/people cannot ‎be ‎separated from the experience of belonging to knesset yisrael as an integrated ‎whole ‎whose historical existence embodies the dual ideas of loving-kindness and holiness. The ‎Covenant ‎of Sinai completed the Covenant of Egypt. Destiny joined fate; together they became a ‎distinct ‎covenantal unit. It is impossible to separate these constituent parts and formulate an ‎outlook that ‎opposes the unity of a nation of loving-kindness to that of a sanctified people. A Jew ‎who ‎participates in the suffering of his nation and its fate, but does not join in its destiny, which ‎is ‎expressed in a life of Torah and mitzvot, destroys the essence of Judaism and injures his ‎own ‎uniqueness. By the same token, a Jew who is observant but does not feel the hurt of the ‎nation, ‎and who attempts to distance himself from Jewish fate, desecrates his Jewishness.‎20

A gentile who wishes to join the nation must take upon himself both covenants. He places ‎himself ‎in the ambit of Jewish fate and sanctifies himself for the acceptance of the Jewish destiny. ‎The act ‎of conversion involves associating oneself as a member of the people of the Covenants of ‎Egypt ‎and of Sinai. Keep this important principle in mind: there is no such thing as partial ‎conversion. One ‎cannot omit one iota of either of these two Covenants. Total devotion to ‎the Jewish people ‎‎— as a nation that God took to Himself in Egypt, with all its tribulations, ‎suffering, responsibilities, ‎and actions; and as a holy people that is itself consecrated, heart and ‎soul, to the God of Israel and ‎His halakhic and moral demands — is the absolute foundation of ‎Judaism and hence is also the ‎basis of conversion.‎

For this reason, halakhah dictates that a convert who has been circumcised but has not ‎yet ‎immersed himself in a mikveh, or who has immersed himself and has not yet ‎been ‎circumcised, is not fully converted until he does both. Circumcision, which was given to ‎Abraham ‎the Hebrew, the father of Jewish fate, and which was fulfilled in Egypt prior to the ‎offering of the ‎Paschal sacrifice — the symbol of the redemption from Egypt — signifies the fateful ‎otherness of ‎the nation, its necessary isolation and uniqueness. Circumcision is a sign sculpted into ‎the very ‎physical being of the Jew. It is a constant, indelible sign between the God of the Jews and ‎His ‎people, one that cannot be erased. If the Covenant of Fate is not sealed in the flesh, then ‎the ‎singularity of peoplehood is absent and the gentile remains outside the bounds of the ‎Covenant of ‎Egypt.‎

Immersion in a mikveh, in contrast to circumcision, represents the integration of man into his ‎great ‎destiny and his entry into the Covenant of Sinai. The Jews were commanded to ‎immerse ‎themselves prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai.21 Immersion purifies and elevates from ‎the ‎profane to the holy, from life as it is to a life filled with a sublime vision. When the convert ‎emerges ‎from the waters of the mikveh, a new spiritual reality replete with destiny fills him, and ‎he is ‎endowed with the sanctity of the Jew (kedushat yisrael). It is not coincidental that the ‎act ‎of accepting the yoke of the commandments is tied to immersion.22 The entire essence ‎of ‎immersion is the re-creation of the experience of the acceptance of the Torah and the elevation ‎of ‎the people to the status of a holy nation through its freely given commitment to obey God’s ‎word. ‎If the convert is circumcised and does not immerse himself, then the association of man to ‎destiny ‎is missing, and the gentile is fenced off from the Covenant of Sinai and from a ‎halakhic ‎identification with a holy nation.‎

The formula for conversion in the Book of Ruth contains these ‎two aspects, and their essence lies ‎in the four final words of Ruth to Naomi: “Your people shall be ‎my people, and your God my ‎God” (Ruth 1:16, emphasis added).‎