Q:
What is the best way to be mikareiv, to draw close to yiddishkeit, an unmarried girl of thirty-five?
A:
So if you’re a young man, or any man for that matter, the best way is to run away as far as you can. Have no business with any girls at all. By being mikareiv a girl to yiddishkeit, you’re being mikareiv her to yourself, and you’re putting yourself in a situation where who knows what can happen.
And I speak from experience. There was man I know who was mikareiv girls, even having them over at his Shabbos table week after week, and the end was that he was mikareiv the girl so much that he and the girl eloped. He left over a frum wife with her six children. So don’t be mikareiv girls.
It says אברהם מגייר את האנשים ושרה מגיירת את הנשים – Avraham was busy being mikareiv to Hashem the men, and Sarah was in her tent being mikareiv the women (Bereishis Rabbah 39:21). Men should concentrate on men, and women should concentrate on women. Avraham wasn’t מגייר any women. That’s our principle.
And therefore הוי בורח מן העבירה כבורח מן האש. You should run away from an aveira as if running away from a fire. If there’s a fire, you won’t flirt with it. And a sin is also a fire.
TAPE # 422 (October 1982)
