Q:
How should we respond to the missionaries who are seeking to convert Jews?
A:
And the answer is the first is to bring in as many Jewish children into the yeshivas as possible. So many are going lost because they’re in a public school. The public school is just as bad as the missionaries. They go lost forever chas v’shalom.
If you’re able to donate money, there are certain funds in which you can donate money so that a child should be able to go to one of these Torah institutions, you’re saving a life of that child and his children forever and ever. The most important thing is to bring the children into Torah schools.
Now I was in a mesivta for years and years. Boys who learned in the mesivta, even though they didn’t learn well are not the same boys anymore. A boy who spent years in the mesivta high school when he comes out, is an entirely different person. He has a backbone. Even if he wouldn’t have a beard, even if he’s not a frum Torah Jew – he’s just a shomer Shabbos – you should know he’s not the same person anymore. The years he spent not in public school made him into an entirely different personality.
And therefore, if it’s possible for people to donate money for that cause – of course most people have plenty of schar limud to pay for their own children and that’s also a tremendous achievement. A family that brings up a big number of children, a mother and a father raising a family of children and they go b’derech hayashar, it’s a tremendous achievement.
And that’s our way of fighting. Shlomo says, חכם בני – become wise, my son, ושמח לבי – and cause joy to my heart, ואשיבה חרפי דבר – and I’ll be able to answer my enemy (Mishlei 27:11). That’s how we answer enemies. The fact that we’re frum Jews who are raising frum families, that’s one of the most important ways of answering enemies.
Of course, if you’re able – if you know Tanach well and you’re able to argue with a missionary and put him to shame, you can try. But you have to know that in most cases they’re such liars, such tricksters. I argued already with them on the street and they invent lies in order to dodge your arguments. But it’s kulo sheker. The whole building, the whole edifice of Christianity from the beginning to end is nothing but sheker v’kazav. It’s so ridiculous if you know a little bit…
But most people don’t know and therefore they shouldn’t start up. Don’t try to jump into the water to save somebody who’s drowning unless you can swim yourself. So don’t start up with a missionary.
There are good books that give you information how to answer missionaries and it’s a mitzvah דע מה שתשיב לאפיקורס but most people are not capable, so the best way to do is just forget about them and get busy raising up frum families, having children, making frum boys and girls, putting them in good yeshivas, marrying them off young, and eventually the Jewish nation will increase and multiply and we’ll push our enemies out of the way.
ואשיבה חרפי דבר. That’s how we answer our enemies.
(June 1996)
