Published: 4 July 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Historically, halacha (Jewish law), always held an intolerant position with relation to, and engagement with, heretics; Jews who lived lives in contravention to Jewish laws and values. These recalcitrants were often excommunicated, meaning they were excluded from being counted in a minyan, denied a Jewish burial and generally not accepted as part of the broad community.
The thinking was that these “apostates” were undermining the law of God through their actions and they might encourage others to follow suit. The rabbinate could not, and would not, tolerate their behaviour and therefore denied them recognition within the community.
By the mid-20th century, 200 years after the reformation, most non-observant Jews were oblivious to the ideological roots and history of secularism and legal reform. The average Western Jew was four generations removed from Torah scholarship, two generations removed from Torah observance and had largely developed into a habitual Jew - proudly committed to community and tradition, but textually ignorant of Judaism, for better or worse.
This transformation of the Jew from ideological apostate to culturally non-observant necessitated a new category of non-observant. The leading rabbinical sage of the era, Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, known as the Chazon Ish, popularised an approach that created a new paradigm in religious-irreligious relations.
The Talmud questions the status of a child born of Jewish parents but adopted and raised by gentiles. Does the child’s lack of religious observance define them as heretical or ignorant?
The Chazon Ish insisted that the modern Jew no longer carried the status of heretic, but rather that of a Tinuk she’nishba, literally a baby that was taken captive (by gentiles). Non-observant Jews were now to be considered ignorant rather than evil. Tolerance could now be extended without fear of strengthening the hand of the heretic.
Although the idea of being called ignorant of Judaism, rather than a heretic, may be equally offensive to the recipient of such a title, it created a workable paradigm for the Orthodox community to engage with the non-observant.
A heretic cannot be included in a minyan but an ignorant Jew can. The heretic cannot receive synagogue honours, but an ignorant Jew can be given a position of prominence within the community.
Has halacha thus formally rid itself of the title “apostate”? Are people no longer to be excluded or excommunicated?
The challenge of the answer is in attempting to qualify the parameters of a modern-day apostate. It has become standard practice across most of the Jewish world to refrain from branding any person, regardless of their religious views, as a heretic.
Can the intermarried uncle be called up to the Torah? Can the atheist cousin be given an honour? Can a convicted criminal receive a call up?
That said, Jews are not necessarily granted equal rights to synagogue honours; not because they have been disqualified but rather because they have disqualified themselves.
A contemporary dilemma would be the question of who is entitled to an aliyah to the Torah? A challenge especially pertinent when there is a simcha in Shul. Can the intermarried uncle be called up to the Torah? Can the atheist cousin be given an honour? Can an illiterate individual read from a transliteration? Can a convicted criminal receive a call up?
There are two types of honours in synagogue.
For the first, there is no explicit halachic criteria for recipients, for example, the opening and closing of the ark. Each rabbi, and community, needs to consider when a person’s behaviour is beyond communal acceptance. These honours have no significance beyond giving someone a few moments in the limelight.
The second type of honour is reciting a prayer in the synagogue. Here, there are logical disqualifiers. An anti-Zionist cannot recite the blessing for the State of Israel. An atheist cannot be asked to bless God. An intermarried person cannot proclaim that “God has chosen us from among all the nations”. Or can they?
The denying of an aliyah is not a discriminatory practice, it’s the logical extension and consequence of a person’s life choices. When people fail to recognise the difference between the two types of honours, they feel excluded and discriminated against. The first type of honour is statement about who one is, the second is the result of how one lives.
Illustration: John Kron
