Q:
How can one convince a baal teshuva who still has some liberal views?
A:
It depends. If the baal teshuva is an akshan, he’s looking for terutzim to dodge his responsibilities, don’t bother with him.
If he’s the kind of a person who is a mevakesh, who wants to know, only he’s far away from understanding things, then get him a copy of “Rejoice O Youth” or seforim like that. Let him read it once and twice in order to convince him of the emes of the Torah and he’ll understand very many principles that are necessary for a person to know in order to become a full-fledged maamin.
You have to feed him information. If you’re not capable yourself, then make it available to him from someplace else; either tapes or whatever it is; he has to hear information.
Again if a person is looking for a teretz, just an excuse not to do the Torah, so it’s a waste of time talking to him. But there are many people who don’t know. Had they known, they would change. Yes, they would change. So it’s a mitzvah to tell them.
What do you do? Make available to them books, books like my books for instance. I don’t say they’re the only ones. Rejoice O Youth, Sing You Righteous, Awake My Glory; three hashkafah books are made for the purpose of teaching people things in order to make them convinced of the truth of the Torah. And then if he has some ehrlechkeit, some decency, he’s sure to be changed and he’ll become different.
TAPE # E-269 (March 15, 2001)