Rabbi Dov Lior: When It Comes To Converts, If They Are Sinners In One Area of Torah, We Suspect Them On All Areas of Torah.
In a recent talk that Rabbi Lior gave at the White Shul in Kiryat Moshe, Rabbi Lior talked about a difference between Jews born into the Jewish religion and converts.
One difference he said that if a regular Jews sins in one area of the Torah, he is not necessarily suspected of violating the Torah in other non-related areas of Torah. However, a convert who goes bad in one area is under suspicion for all areas of Torah.
He also said that if a convert, converted on Thursday and then the next Shabbat, we see him violating Shabbat, we don’t consider that convert’s acceptance of the yoke of commandments as a serious, sincere statement.
Comment by Shlomo Moshe Scheinman: It is obvious to me that even for regular Jews, when it comes to major ideological sinners, we treat their lack of observance of one mitzva as evidence not to trust the person in other areas of Torah and Rabbi Lior didn’t feel the need to spell it out in the lecture because his audience was more aware of the obvious than the audience I deal with. I also add there are a few crimes against the Torah that are so great, that they put someone in the untrustworthy category even if done for reasons of personal benefit and not out of ideology. I believe Rabbi Lior was talking about the general rule and not about those extreme exceptions.
This blog post is located at https://vilnagaon.org/rabbi-dov-lior-when-it-comes-to-converts-if-they-are-sinners-in-one-area-of-torah-we-suspect-them-on-all-areas-of-torah/
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