Reply To: Another Kiruv Question

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#823339
yitayningwut
Participant

cinderella –

You are presenting two points here: 1) How can you tell her that certain things aren’t proper to do when you yourself do them? and 2) How can you tell her to believe certain things which you yourself have questions about?

For the first thing, you are not a hypocrite. Make it clear to her that no one is perfect, and we are only expected to do our best, and you struggle too. The point of telling her the mitzvos and the ideas behind them is not simply to get her to do them. Because let’s face it, practically speaking, you aren’t getting her to start keeping everything overnight. But there are attitudes and ideas that you want to attune her mind too, and you want to give her a taste of what Yiddishkeit is about. So you tell her these are the mitzvos, we all struggle with them, but we all can learn from them, and we all can use them as a general framework for growth.

For the second thing, the question is how strong your own convictions are. If you have real questions, then you should ask them yourself. Not to her of course, but go find a rabbi and give him a run for his money. And if he can’t answer then go badger someone else. And if that doesn’t work then ask us here in the CR 🙂 Don’t ignore things that bother you inside. But the main thing here is that you should not try to convince someone to believe in something you don’t. That is dangerous and can be perceived as hypocritical. So if you have real questions, I suggest you ask them yourself first, before trying to convince her of the “answers.” However, if the things you are convincing her of don’t really relate to your own questions, and you do believe fully in what you are specifically telling her, then I wouldn’t worry about the fact that you have questions in other areas. That in no way makes you a hypocrite. But you should still seek answers to all your questions. And I hope you find them!