[Avodah] Geirut

[T613K at aol.com]

I'm sorry I don't have the learned sources to cite but I will just mention  
that in conversation with my father -- he once said that if a person converts  
and /never/ keeps the mitzvos, then his conversion is invalid and he is not  
Jewish, and if it's a woman, her children are not Jewish.  He also said  that 
if the person does become frum some time after his conversion,  then his 
conversion /is/ valid.  He added that the status  of a non-observant convert 
actually remains a gray area for his  whole life -- unresolved, in limbo -- until the 
convert's death.  
 
As long as he alive, there is always the possibility that at some  point in 
the future he will become frum and start keeping  mitzvos, which at that point 
will prove that he really is a Jew and  will retroactively validate his 
conversion.  It's only after he  dies -- at which point you know for sure whether he 
ever did or did not start  keeping mitzvos -- that you know for sure whether 
his conversion was effective  or not.  If he did keep mitzvos at some point 
but then stopped, he then  remains a Jew who is a sinner, like any non-observant 
Jew.  If he  /never/ became frum while he was alive, then you know when he 
dies that he was  never a Jew.
 
(Obviously my father held that KOM is indeed a necessary part of  geirus.)
 

--Toby  Katz
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