Questions about geirus/witholding of one

Chickensoupprof

Sat, Nov 05 2022, 4:57 pm

Ok, in my little hometown village there was an Israeli man who married a non-Jewish woman they met in a kibbutz as it was usual in those days. She wanted to do a giur and got fed up with everything. It took her years to become Jewish she tried at the reform nad orthodox and ended up being orthodox it is quite a story with it. I only remember going to them on Pesach and that was my yiddishkeit and my mom was super bothered with her she felt like 'Ok then also have the antisemtism and the fact u don't have grandparents and have a parent with a trauma'. Anyhoo... This woman divorced her husband not even a year after her geirus and now lives a non-Jewish life.

And I know a few more who come to this shul and I hear it so much. I know geirim who are shomer torah u'miztzvos and have torah dikke homes but I'm so bothered by those who also did and now don't live a Jewish life So there is one bloke and he converted but drives on shabbos and everything and DH calls him up for torah and he finds it really bothering to do that because he learned that he has to be shomer shabbos, so here my question... IF you did geirus can the teludas giur be taken away, can u ever undo it? Because it is not fair... I mean a jew who is tinok shenishbais for me totally different but someone who had to study and everything knows better and he wanted to. I just don;t get it.

BadTichelDay

Sat, Nov 05 2022, 5:24 pm

To my best knowledge, if a ger right after the giyur does not keep mitzvot, it is obvious that the giyur was not sincere and it can be revoked. I have heard of cases where that was done.
But if the ger kept Torah and mitzvot for some time after the giyur, he/she is considered still a Jew even if later on he/she sins and stops keeping mitzvot.
It is even discussed already somewhere in the Gemara that such a person remains a Jew, just a sinful one. The context given was that it is forbidden to sell chametz to such a person during Pesach because they are still cosidered Jewish.
As far as tinok she'nishba is concerned - let's be honest, that is not the only reason even people who are born Jewish become secular. What about otd? Or sometimes people just get tired or distracted or alienated from frum life and drift away, even though they got a full Jewish education.
Gerim stopping to keep mitzvot isn't great, that's clear. But they have human weaknesses, too. And after a divorce, without a Jewish family or support network, it can be very hard to keep it going. However, people like that can do teshuva, too.
Personally, I would not play mitzvah-police or tell on people. It's between them and Hashem. Unless, of course, they openly revert to another religion, in which case one should probably pass the information on to the relevant Beit Din.

Chickensoupprof

Sat, Nov 05 2022, 5:34 pm

BadTichelDay wrote:

Thank u for the clarifications about the OTD yidden etc. And I don't want to play the mitzvah police. I'm really not the type of person in general who is telling people of. I mean if I go to my little city shul most of the visitors are not shomer in everything. I mean women come in their trousers, have their phones in their bags, men have their phones in their pockets, etc... So I would be the last person who is going to tell people off because I will get a huge problem. But I'm bothered by it time to time but I don't say anything.

I just can't understand that if someone wanted to do an orthodox giur and then leaves the fold... Why did you want to join it in the first place? I've never heard of cases that a giur has been revoked. But I know 3 people who did and now are living secular and I fidn it sad also because I know u need to pay for lessons and everything..l.

zaq

Sat, Nov 05 2022, 9:36 pm

Being an observant Jew is hard even if you were born into an observant family and socialize with all observant people. Consider, now, all that a person has to give up to become a ger, and I don't mean just real sushi and cheeseburgers. The ones whose families and friends are supportive, accommodating and happy for them are, I think, the lucky minority.

Now consider the hardships that they have to contend with after conversion. Some are the same hardships that a BT faces, such as not knowing all the little ins and outs and all the things they're "supposed to" do (how do you know whom you refer to as "zal" and whom "zatzal?" Which rabbi's wife is Mrs. Rav and which is Rebbetzin Rav? Where is it ok to wear a blue dress with pink trim and where should you be in solid black?) and the things they're not supposed to do (ask anyone how many children or grandchildren they have). Some are unique to gerim, such as having to hear people who don't know or don't remember that they're gerim making negative remarks about nonJews. Goodness knows there are sufficient posts here on imamother reminding someone who made sweeping derogatory remarks about nonJews that there are women here whose beloved parents, siblings, grandparents, and so on are not Jewish and don't deserve the kind of disparagement that so many frum people seem to think is perfectly ok.

Gerim also have other challenges that BTs may not, like ignorant people expressing the thought that they're not "really" Jews. Despite the lip service we give to loving the ger and looking out for his wellbeing and how he's on a higher level than a kohen gadol and all that, many gerim have a hard time socially. We admire gerim, yeah, yeah, but we overlook them when looking for shidduchim for our kids. This we "justify" by citing how hard it will be for our children to have nonJewish inlaws, and for our grandchildren to have nonJewish grandparents and cousins. This is true, of course, but still used more as a convenient excuse than anything else.

Furthermore, I think many gerim come into the fold fondly imagining that they'll join a society free of gossip, snark, materialism, petty jealousies, one-upmanship and similar ills, because after all this is a holy people and a light unto the nations, and when they discover that it ain't necessarily so, the disillusionment is more than they can bear. Who can blame them for wanting out?

Of course there are always people who get into the flavor of the month and jump on bandwagons without thinking about the consequences, and then discard them when they get tired of them. Given how much study is involved in an Orthodox conversion, though, I would think that most people with this nature would drop out long before they reached the point of completion. Are there some insincere people who convert for kicks just to prove they can do it, or for some other well-hidden ulterior motive? We'd be fools to imagine this never happens, but we'd be unfair to imagine that this is anything but a very rare occurrence.