Q:
Why is it that we always push away goyim from becoming geirim?
A:
The answer is because we have been disillusioned too frequently. And that’s because there are a lot of unsettled people who like to dabble in religion. You know if you would set up a geirus center in Harlem, you’d be mobbed. The truth is that even without a geirus center they already have synagogues and synagogues.
Once a man came to me from one of these places. He says he’s a Jew, a Reverend So and So, but he wants to convert properly. Well his name sounded not Jewish to me – it sounded like one of the apostles – so I said, “What’s the name of your synagogue?”
He says, “We are called The Church of the Holy Body.”
So I saw that he had some way to go before he became a ger.
So we have to be careful. We have to be very careful because once you get a fifth columnist in, there’s a great deal of harm. They can cause plenty of harm.
But when somebody is sincere then not only do we not discourage him, we take active steps to be mekarev him.
TAPE # 124 (June 1976)
