HIR / YCT / IRF

ר’ חיים דרוקמן

SPEECH

„שיר המעלות … היינו כחולמים“

פירושים:

אבן עזרא – גאולה כחלום הוא, it’s “unbelievable”
רד”ק בשם אביו – כל הגלות השייגמר יעוף כחלום רע
מאירי – למשך כל הגלות חלמנו על הגאולה

ר’ דרוקמן – כתלמיד החולם בשיעור, נס נפלא קרה ואינו מבחין בו

This is the same problem as we have with the issue of Conversion.
We live in the age in which the נבואות of קיבוץ גלויות are being realized, but we don’t see what’s going on!

Today we have a new type of גרים which never existed before.
There used to only be two types of גרים —

1. A Non-Jew who was disappointed in their previous way of life, and found truth in Judaism —these are גרי־הצדק.
2. Starting about 200 years ago, the doors of the ghettos opened and assimilation started; intermarriage started, and so some wanted to come convert and be Jews.

But the third type of גרים that we have today don’t belong to the previous two types —this third type is unique. (list of typical Ashkenazic family names)

We’re taught that when a Non-Jew comes to convert, we’re supposed to ask them why they want to be converted —but these are obvious, they want to be complete Jews! Their fathers were Jews! And the Russians were persecuted for decades; the government did everything to take away from them every detail of Jewish life.

In חנוכה we talk about how the Greeks didn’t allow us to do ברית־מילה, but the Russian government didn’t even allow any מילה (word) of Hebrew.

In those situations, Non-Jewish women who married Jews suffered for it just like the Jews did!

So we need to help these people be complete Jews.

Over 20 years before the gates of the USSR were opened, ר’ אונטרמן who was the chief rabbi of מדינת ישראל stood in Jerusalem and said that ‘we are going to expect a great aliyá from Russia; and many of them will need גיור and we must deal with them kindly after all the troubles they went through.’
We demonstrated for Russian Jews —and who demonstrated? Most of them were religious youth! And we knew that once they arrive they’ll need to be converted. So we definitely are supposed to help them become complete Jews.

We should have done it 18 years ago, when the aliyá from Russia started.
Then it would have been much simpler in all aspects.
But even now we can’t say that it’s too late —we have to do whatever we can to become complete Jews.

There are now 80,000 incomplete Jews 18 years old or younger, most of whom were born in Israel. If we don’t solve the problem now, there will be a horrible problem of intermarriage in the next generation, since these are native Israelis who are just the same as everyone else.
So we have to do whatever we can in order to help them.

QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

Are they being helped?

Part of it having been easier 18 years ago was that at this point you have to encourage them to convert —they don’t feel any need, because they’re citizens like everyone else. So those who come to convert really want to be Jews, and we need to encourage the others.

Is there concern that conversions that have already been done can be undone?

According to the הלכה, there is no such thing as ביטול גיור. Anyone who has been converted —even if they go and worship idols, they’re still considered Jews. There is a small circle in Israel that unfortunately don’t accept exactly the רמב”ם and the שולחן־ערוך, and they think you can nullify conversions.