AMBIVALENCE IN PROSELYTISM
As we have seen, rabbinic sages throughout the ages were extremely concerned about the insincere convert. What happens if a rabbinic court makes a mistake in accepting a candidate for conversion? R. Eliyahu Gutmacher, Av Bet Din of Graditz(17961874), said that in a case where we are in doubt whether the candidate is sincere or not, every rabbi should prefer to accept the convert rather than reject him.
"If it is not certain that the candidate is acting from an ulterior motive, we must accept him, because we would be more liable if we rejected him than if we accepted him as a convert without halakhic justification. For we shall see, if he misleads us by saying that he’s converting for the sake of Heaven and he lied, and we accepted him on this basis, what's the big fuss? We found(in the Talmud and Shulhan Arukh that there were similar cases not for the sake of heaven), and the Bet Din knew it and transgressed and accepted them as converts, so that our candidate would be a full convert, and how much the more so, if the Bet Din concluded that they relied on his lie and thought that he told the truth there’s no curse upon them."
What is it that leads decisors to advocacy or opposition, acceptance or reaction of converts? It may be the individual rabbi’s attitude toward gentiles in general. Perhaps the reason may be found in the way that a particular generation of Jews was treated. It is often the Weltanschauung (the world outlook ) of the respondent which may be open and accepting as we find in the decisions of Hoffman and Uziel or hostile and excluding like the responsa of Goldman and Breisch. It may be a sincere belief that conversion is the cause rather than the result of intermarriage. Whatever the reason may be, there is most certainly a myriad of precedents to buttress whatever conclusion the respondent reaches.