On the Status of Secular Jews in Our Time (Column 721)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

Yesterday, a question arose in one of the Third Path WhatsApp groups regarding the status of secular people in our day. The brief discussion that took place there prompted me to present here a systematic conceptual analysis of the matter. There are many slogans we use in this discussion, and the sense is that they do not really capture the true state of affairs in our milieu. Moreover, here too one can see the tendency of halakhic decisors to fit situations from life into existing conceptual patterns and models, which does not always work. In short, my concern here is twofold: to present a systematic position regarding secularity, and no less to arrive at methodological insights about how such a discussion should and should not be conducted.

To begin, I will bring part of the discussion that took place there so you can get a sense of it. This is only background to what will follow.

The Course of the Discussion

The discussion was sparked by an item in Lechatchila, about remarks by Rabbi Drevkin (full disclosure: one of the heads of Yeshivat Grodna, Be’er Ya’akov, where my son studied):

A member of the Council of Torah Sages of the Degel HaTorah party, Rabbi Drevkin, on the strikes in Iran: “It was hard for me — it turns out that the Holy One, blessed be He, performs open miracles precisely through the hands of those who want to uproot the children of Torah and the Torah. Yet just as Jeroboam ben Joash was an utter evildoer, but when there is a difficult situation and no one helps Israel — then even ‘and salvation came by the hand of Jeroboam.’ That is our situation.”

Rabbi Drevkin sees those who work to draft Haredi yeshivah students as utterly wicked (one could debate whether that is exactly what is written there, but that seems to be the tenor of his words). I must say this is not a great novelty (and not really his alone). For our purposes, it was argued there against his words that he is not applying here the rule/concept of “tinok shenishba” (a “captured infant”), by which halakha itself tells us that one should judge a person in accordance with his own system. That is, even if Rabbi Drevkin himself holds otherwise (and is of course mistaken), he should nonetheless have understood that those opposite him are not wicked and should have judged them according to their own premises.

In that discussion, two responses were given to the writer: 1) As to the very claim that one should judge a person according to his own lights, it was said that he wrote this under my influence (see column 372), but that this is not necessarily the halakhic position and the accepted halakhic discourse. 2) Regarding the use of the tinok shenishba model itself, another participant wrote:

Tinok shenishba is not an entirely clear solution. Many of them are from religious worlds who crossed the lines. That was Maimonides’ solution regarding the Karaites. The transformation to today is not simple.

We are dealing with Jews who left yeshivot; even today many received a religious education…

Another participant wrote about this:

In my opinion, tinok shenishba is the only logical (from the perspective of halakhic logic!) solution that a decisor who sees halakha as the religious law of the Jewish people can give. The strict — like the Munkatch Rebbe — who see the secular person as “a gentile in all respects,” and the concept of tinok shenishba as a fiction — do not really see halakha as the law of the Jewish people, because one cannot establish that the law of the Jewish people excludes most of the Jewish people from its scope. The lenient — like the rabbis of Tzohar [he later corrected this to the rabbis of Beit Hillel] — who see the secular person as “your fellow” and “your compatriot,” and the concept of tinok shenishba as condescension and de-legitimization of the poor secular person — do not really see halakha as a legal system, because no legal system can view violators of its laws as legitimate. Otherwise it commits suicide. A legal system is supposed to apply to all its “citizens,” righteous and offenders alike, and is supposed to denounce offenders and impose sanctions on them. Once they used excommunication; today the “sanction of condescension” is the minimum that halakha can do so as not to commit suicide, and the maximum it can do in terms of sanctions. Therefore this is the only logical solution. So it seems to me. (And of course the Arukh La-Ner and the Chazon Ish do not need me and my likes.)

And a third participant answered him:

Wow, you exaggerated. There are oceans of models to define the secular person as your fellow without breaking the halakhic world as a legal system. Even in the Chazon Ish there are additional possibilities beyond tinok shenishba.

And he answered back:

a) The question is not whether tinok shenishba reflects reality or not. Clearly it is a fiction, but this fiction is the only logical move.

b) In the Chazon Ish there is (alongside other formulations) also a formulation to the effect that the present time as a whole is a “time of concealment,” in which providence is not revealed, and it emerges from his words as if we are all coerced to some degree.

This discussion reflects several very common assumptions in the halakhic discourse on this painful topic, and I wish to address them here systematically. First, it is evident that the definition of tinok shenishba for the discussants is a matter of lack of knowledge. Second, there is a claim of condescension inherent in using this model. Third, there is a reliance on halakhic sources that expand the ancient concept and adapt it to our time. Fourth, the question arises whether it is correct to apply this model to a situation in which the majority of the Jewish people fall into this category. Fifth, they asked there whether one can forgo it (the hidden assumption is that the only alternative is pluralism of multiple truths) without undermining commitment to halakha and loyalty to it (is the secular person basically like a gentile — what is the difference?). And in my view, in the background of the entire discussion stood the question whether this is the best model (even if somewhat fictional) within which to discuss secularity today. I will not bring here the response that I myself wrote in the discussion, since the purpose of this column is to detail and expand it. It will be brought at the end.

Methodological Preface: On Models and Fictions

It is quite commonly thought that everyone understands that we are dealing with a fictional model that does not really fit our time, but this is the most logical way to insert the proper attitude toward the secular into the framework of halakhic discourse and concepts. Note that it is assumed here that we actually know how one ought to relate to the secular person, and the use of the concept tinok shenishba, which of course involves expanding and changing it, is only a way to bring that into the halakhic framework. There is an impression that decisors often do this: they act as one ought to act, and the halakhic terminology (sometimes bent and distorted intentionally) serves merely as post-facto justification.

I will open my remarks here with one of the messages I wrote there in the discussion:

By the way, in general I am against rigid models into which we insert human beings. It is better simply to relate to reality as it is. Models give direction but they are not reality.

I really do not like this cynical approach, and I do not believe in it. In my opinion, a decisor who seeks to formulate a position regarding some phenomenon should examine it as it is and not force it into a conceptual framework that does not fit it. If tinok shenishba were a concept written in the Torah then perhaps we would need to conform ourselves to it, even with difficulty. But it is a concept developed by the Sages in response to a situation they encountered in their place and time. Why must we insist on using it and impose it on the reality of our time (if indeed the assumption is that it does not really fit it)?!

In general, models are very important for our thinking, especially if one wants to think systematically (as is done in lamdanut and in science). But precisely because of this, one must be very careful not to be imprisoned by them. The models give us directions for thought and distinguish between different hypothetical situations. But when we come to formulate a position about reality, we must examine carefully the application of the models and not be enslaved to them.

In my article on okimtas I addressed the Platonism so inherent in our thinking and in scientific theories. I explained there that a scientific theory does not deal with the real world but with a hypothetical-Platonic state. Our understanding of the real world is aided by theory, but that is not done by forcing it upon reality. The world is not a model nor a specific instantiation of the scientific theory. I will not go into this here, but I bring it up because my sense is that discussions like the one described above assume that reality must, as it is, enter one of the models, or at best is nothing but some combination of them. But reality is stubborn and does not necessarily agree to insert itself into our rigid conceptual frameworks. Sometimes we must expand the conceptual framework and not insist on the existing one, and in particularly complex cases perhaps we should forgo a conceptual framework in its precise logical sense entirely. My claim is that our discussion of secularity should take place just as those Sages who created the concept tinok shenishba themselves discussed their reality. They too did not use existing concepts and did not subordinate their thought to them, but tried to formulate a position toward reality as it was and, to that end, created a new conceptual system (see another example in the discussion of civil courts in Syria, in column 448).

In short, if you know how one ought to relate to secular men and women, say it directly. Why distort existing halakhic concepts so that the attitude you in any case decide to adopt toward secularity will enter specifically into them and be executed specifically through them?!

Indeed, it is true that in halakha there are fictions. At times the Sages use concepts in a fictive way, and here I will briefly explain why I think that in our case this is irrelevant. In column 95 I addressed the notion of halakhic fiction and some examples of it. Among other things, I spoke there about the rule of “shlichuteihon” (acting as their agents), by which non-ordained judges may adjudicate despite the halakhic prohibition against appointing such judges, because we view it as if the ordained judges in the Land of Israel in the past appointed them as their agents. This is a problematic argument. First, such a blanket appointment is not really halakhically valid. In addition, as a matter of fact it is quite clear there was no such appointment. I compared this there to Rousseau’s fiction regarding the “social contract,” to which ostensibly all human beings signed, thereby creating moral and legal obligation. Such a signing ceremony of course never happened. Similarly, the rule “sworn and standing from Sinai,” which bases our obligation to keep the commandments on an oath we supposedly swore at Sinai, is also likely a fiction.

But there is a great difference between all those cases and our issue. First, in those cases there is a need for a fiction. Without it we could not maintain a valid legal system, and there would be no obligation in the commandments. Beyond that, the fiction also gives us a model within which one can discuss the bounds of halakhic obligation and the scope of the “agents’” authority to adjudicate. One can even say that for our purposes there truly was such an appointment or oath implicitly. That is, clearly, by reasoning, we all in fact appoint or obligate those who must be appointed in order to manage our lives, and the novelty is that such an implicit appointment can be halakhically valid. But that is a technical novelty. By contrast, in our case, the secular people of today are flesh-and-blood human beings whom we know. They have characteristics and circumstances within which they operate, and our attitude toward them is dictated by those facts. The conceptual framework created over the generations is merely a description of types that acted in a world where other circumstances prevailed. There is no need to use specifically that framework. It is not that it has any special validity, nor that other concepts will lack validity if we do not conceptualize them by expanding the existing framework. We also do not need the old framework in order to have a model within which to address the secular. We can ourselves formulate a relevant model, one that will be faithful to the real reality and the current circumstances of our lives, and it will have no less validity than those earlier models. In short, as they say to pathological liars: don’t fall in love with the lie. Sometimes truth is also an option.

The conclusion is that here there is no need to use fictions, aside from the attempt to work on conservatives and present a pretense as if we changed nothing and are continuing fully in the path of our holy forebears. I have noted more than once (see, for example, in the series of columns 475 – 480 on Modern Orthodoxy, and also in the series on Dynamic Tradition, in columns 622 – 626) that we indeed continue in the path of our forebears, but not because we use their principles as they are and apply them to our reality, rather precisely because we do not do so. In those columns I showed that midrashic conservatism is the more authentic and correct continuation of our forebears’ path, and the notion that commitment to halakha requires “peshat-conservatism,” i.e., that tradition is necessarily static, is a mistake. We need not submit to it nor play by its rules.

Addressing Side and Tactical Considerations

Up to this point I argued that if the concept tinok shenishba does not fit the description of our reality today, then there is no reason to use it. Conversely, if the concept tinok shenishba were indeed the fitting concept, then the fact that it involves condescension does not interest me in the least. This is the truth; whoever is uncomfortable can take a pill. Moreover, I do not see any condescension here. It is a simple and clear claim: if I am correct, then someone who thinks otherwise is mistaken, and I am actually giving him credit in saying there is some reason for his mistake. He is not at fault for it. Note that I am not saying he is mistaken because he is stupid, but because he is captive to something. What is the problem with that?! Nor am I willing to take into account considerations such as: how many secular people are there today? If it turns out that most of the public is in the category of tinokot shenishbu, then so be it.

All these are considerations that are not to the point, and in my opinion this is the flip side of the same coin I described above: if one indeed does not try to hit the truth but to construct a model that will make things easier for us in various ways, then there is room for considerations of popularity, what is advantageous and what is not, condescension, and so on. I generally try, as I do here, to deal with what is right and not with what is helpful and easy. Therefore such extraneous considerations are irrelevant to the discussion.

First-Order Ruling

Thus far I have explained why you will not find in my remarks here many sources and precedents, nor a survey of existing approaches and the disputes about them. As is my way in many cases, also here I will claim that conceptual analysis and common sense bring us directly to the promised land. This is in fact another example of a first-order ruling. Enough with the prefaces; now I begin the analysis itself.

On “Tinok Shenishba” and Beyond

The concept tinok shenishba, in its literal meaning, deals with someone who grew up among gentiles and thus knew nothing of Judaism and Torah. Already in the Talmud there is reference to such types, and they are situated somewhere between the unintentional offender and the coerced (there are disputes and distinctions, and the matter surfaces in various sugyot. There are also severe contradictions in Maimonides’ rulings on the matter. But I will not enter into details here). Those who argue that someone who grew up in a secular society devoid of connection to Torah in its religious sense is a tinok shenishba are correct, even if he was not “captured” among gentiles but among Jews (in previous columns I spoke of Haredim as tinokot shenishbu by themselves. That was not a metaphor; I meant it literally). If that is what is involved, then this is a trivial expansion and there is no fiction here. The same is true even if most of our society is of that sort. In that case as well it is still justified to use this term in its essential, if not literal, meaning.

In my opinion, the fundamental problem in using this term regarding secular people today is entirely different. The assumption of the Sages and the early authorities was that such a child, when exposed to the relevant knowledge, would certainly understand that he was mistaken and “return to the firmness of Torah” (in Maimonides’ language). That is, it is a matter of lack of knowledge and educational deficiency — nothing more. And indeed, in the ancient world this was probably the reality. It was clear to all that there is religious obligation. It was clear to all that their obligation should be to the god relevant to the society to which they belong. What remained was only knowledge: which society that is, and what that society’s God wants from it. From this follows the conclusion that the moment the child is exposed to the missing information — he immediately returns to the firmness of Torah.

The indication of this is that in the distant past it was clear to all that if someone sinned or did not keep commandments, he did so either out of appetite or to provoke. Clearly it was the advice of the evil inclination, for there was no doubt that deep down he knew what was incumbent upon him (assuming he had the relevant information). That was the situation when the term tinok shenishba was coined, and when the patterns of how we should relate to this phenomenon were formed. But in our time this is simply not the case.

A person who grows up today in a gentile or secular society indeed is not exposed to relevant knowledge. That is of course still true. But someone who thinks that it is only a lack of information — that is, that the moment he fills the gap he will immediately return to us — does not live in our world. Basically we are dealing with a person who thinks differently. Even if he is exposed to all the relevant knowledge in the world, in many cases he will still remain in his position. Moreover, my claim is that it is not just the evil inclination but a different conception. This is genuinely how he thinks.

I am not ignoring the effect of upbringing on how we think. Clearly someone born into a religious home and raised in a religious society has a far greater chance of becoming a religious adult than one who grew up in a different home and society. And still, all of these shape who he is. At the end of the day, that is who he is, and these are his conceptions. Of course one can speak of influences and biases, but who among us is free of them?! In practice a person has conceptions that are also the shape of his homeland, i.e., the product of innate and acquired elements, inclinations, influences and biases, and in addition also reasoning and free choice (I add this as a libertarian). At bottom this is the person and these are his conceptions. He is secular or an atheist because, in his view, there is no God and the Torah was not given. This will not necessarily change even if you send him to thousands of seminars and stuff him with infinite information.

Despite the differences, the prevalent religious outlook sees reality this way: in its view all these are biases. The claim is that if I indeed think that faith is true and halakhic and religious obligation is binding and valid, then someone who looks at reality and the facts soberly must be religious, and anyone who is not religious is necessarily so because of inclinations and biases. That may be true, but it ignores the fact that for all of us it is so. It ignores the fact that this totality is the person. Attributing everything to inclinations and biases is an excessive flattening of reality. Two people who will look at the same factual cluster and the same considerations can reach different conclusions, and this will not necessarily be the result of the evil inclination. These are different conceptions that draw different conclusions from the same set of arguments and facts.

The flip side of the same mistake is to think that my stance represents essential pluralism. That prevalent religious outlook tends to accuse one who holds a position like mine of lack of commitment to halakha, or of seeing secularity as an option as valid as the religious one. As stated, that is the flip side of the same mistake. I am a monist, and not a pluralist at all. Therefore in my view in such a debate one side is correct and the other is mistaken, and of course in my view the religious side is correct and the secular side is mistaken. And yet I argue that we are dealing with two authentic apprehensions of people, and not necessarily with intellect versus inclination.

It is important to understand that the description I have given here hardly existed in the distant past. This is a new cultural and social situation, and we must relate to it and not to the situations that prevailed here in the past. If indeed this is the picture before us, we must now ask ourselves whether the term tinok shenishba fits it. Is it correct to use it, or to use a fictional expansion of it, as the relevant term for our current situation, which, as noted, differs essentially from what was in the past?

Note that I claim that a formerly religious person who took exams for the rabbinate and the dayyanut, who knows by heart all the Talmuds, Bavli and Yerushalmi, and today proudly serves as a leading lecturer in halakha — someone who knows all the relevant information better than I and you — can nevertheless be a tinok shenishba. He is such because after all the information it is clear to him that none of this obligates him. In his eyes it is like the study of an Indian culture, where even if he knows all the details and is a world-renowned expert on the culture of the Inca or the Apache, he will not imagine that he must dance around the fire to stop a drought. But now the question arises: is it correct to use for him the term tinok shenishba? It is more reasonable to give this a different term: “secular” or “atheist,” for example.

What has been renewed in our time compared to the distant past is that one can be equipped with all the information and still not feel obligated. The secular person of our time is not necessarily someone who lacks information but sometimes someone who simply thinks differently. What he lacks is not information but the understanding that that information obligates him. Therefore even if he is formerly religious and a towering Torah scholar, he can be a tinok shenishba.

Of course, one can insist and continue to use the term tinok shenishba, but now it truly ceases to be successful. No external party captured him. He simply thinks differently. To claim that everyone who thinks differently is a tinok shenishba implies problematic determinism or fatalism. It undermines our ability to demand that a person act correctly irrespective of circumstances. The claim is that the person’s milieu determines his conceptions deterministically, and thus the value of the person’s decisions is emptied out. He can decide whether to behave properly, but he cannot decide what is proper. That is dictated by the circumstances and the facts he holds.

Note that precisely the picture I propose here — a picture according to which a person is not deterministically driven by the circumstances of his life and upbringing nor by the information he possesses — is what enables us to demand of him that he act correctly. He has the ability to decide and to formulate a different position, even if it contradicts his upbringing. But the flip side of the coin is that if he reached a different conclusion, then indeed we have no ability to judge him and to demand something from him. I am not proposing pluralism whereby he is also correct. My claim is that his conception is indeed mistaken, but the fact that he has the information does not mean that he is acting only out of inclination and that he is culpable for his mistake.

“Baal Teshuva” and “Chozer BeTeshuva”

In column 367 I distinguished between a “baal teshuva” and a “chozer beteshuva.” A chozer beteshuva is someone who returns to his initial state. He knows what is right and always knew what is right, but his inclination swayed him. Now he returns to do what has always been right in his eyes. Such a person is a true sinner, for even when he sinned he knew that it was not right to act thus. He failed because of inclination, and now he returns and takes control back from his inclinations. His consciousness is that of one who failed until now and now undertakes not to fail further. By contrast, a baal teshuva is a person who changes his worldview. He was secular or an atheist, and now became (not “returned to become”) a believer and obligated. Such a person was not a sinner even in his past, and of course has no consciousness of failure. Until now he simply erred and thought differently. He did not know the truth, and thus was coerced. Now he recognizes the truth and adopts it, and from here on he feels obligated and adheres to this obligation.

In this terminology one could say that in the ancient world there were primarily “chozrim beteshuva.” All that could change was the degree of submission to the inclination, and a person was required not to submit to it and to do what is right (in his eyes). To return to the truth he always knew. In our world the phenomenon of “baalei teshuva” has appeared, i.e., people who change their worldview. They were secular and become religious. Consider the act of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya (Avodah Zarah 17), which serves as the archetype of a baal teshuva. R. Elazar ben Dordaya was a chozer beteshuva, not a baal teshuva. From here too comes a statement such as we find in Berakhot 17a — the prayer of Rabbi Alexandri that he would say after the prayer:

Master of the worlds, it is revealed and known before You that our will is to do Your will; and what prevents us? The leaven in the dough and the domination of kingdoms. May it be Your will before You that You save us from them, and we will return to perform the statutes of Your will with a whole heart.

He himself prays to return in repentance and to overcome his inclination. It is clear to him that sin begins with inclination. I know what is right and want to do what is right, but something prevents (the leaven in the dough). By contrast, a baal teshuva of our time does not turn to God at all, for he does not recognize His existence. He does what he truly thinks and does not see himself as one who has failed.

From here we can understand that in the distant past the phenomenon of secularity did not exist as a phenomenon. First, because there were no people without religion, only apostates and sinners. But beyond that, there were people who failed because of their inclination, to provoke or out of appetite, and they are called upon to return to the good. There were not people who simply thought differently. There were no secular people (at least not as a phenomenon). The secular person of our time does not commit transgressions to provoke nor out of appetite. In his eyes he is not committing transgressions at all. No wonder the concept “secular” is a new concept, and it is a mistake to transfer to it the attitudes and conceptual framework that were formulated in an entirely different era. The use of the conceptual framework of “apostate to provoke,” “apostate out of appetite,” “tinok shenishba,” and the halakhic consequences attributed to each type — this is a set of mistakes. We must examine the nature of this new type and formulate regarding it the correct attitude from a halakhic perspective.

You can, of course, argue that the well-known claims of the Chazon Ish, such as that in our generation there is no one who knows how to rebuke, intend to claim precisely this. I very much doubt it, for in principle it is clear to him that it is a matter of the ability to rebuke. There is still an inclination and faith exists in some way within the sinner. But even if this is correct, it is not particularly important in my eyes. This is the correct description, whether the Chazon Ish meant it or not, and it did not emerge for me from studying the writings of the Chazon Ish or other later authorities, from ancient sources, from comparisons and questions, from contradictions and resolutions, but from conceptual analysis and a sober look at the current situation. As I said, sometimes a first-order ruling suffices with conceptual analysis and a sober look at reality using common sense, and this makes superfluous all the hair-splitting and comparisons that force themselves into the ancient language. The ancient language can give us directions; we can note the similar and the different compared to our situation, but it is not correct to force the discussion into its framework. This somewhat contradicts the DNA of the halakhic discourse, but still that is what is right. Sometimes we need to free ourselves from the tradition that shackles us, because it actually distances us from doing the will of God at this time. There is no need to add epicycles and deferents to theories and conceptual frameworks to explain a phenomenon that is entirely different, as was done in Ptolemaic cosmology. Sometimes one must change the vantage point, just as Copernicus did, and then one discovers that everything suddenly looks much simpler and more convincing.

It remains for us to ask ourselves how in fact to relate to this phenomenon. If we cannot draw the answer from the existing halakhic conceptual framework, we must formulate it ourselves.

What Does This Mean Halakhically?

At first glance, anyone understands by reasoning that a person who does what he truly believes in is fully coerced. Clearly one cannot bring a claim against him if he does not know the truth. But then the claims arise: how does the Torah instruct to punish idolaters and heretics? From here it appears to follow that differing beliefs are a sin, and certainly not an argument for lack of guilt (coercion). That is, the reasoning is certainly correct, but we have halakhic evidence against it. Now it seems that the same methodological error described above appears here.

Consider the aggadah (see Sanhedrin 102b) in which King Manasseh appears to Rav Ashi in a dream and tells him that had he lived in Manasseh’s time he would have lifted the hem of his cloak and run to worship idols. Again, there is an outlook according to which circumstances and inclinations dictate sin, and not conceptions. Also the Gemara in Yoma 69 (see column 575) describes that the Men of the Great Assembly nullified the inclination for idol worship, that is, moved us to a state in which sin is the result of conception and not only of inclinations and influences. In my understanding, this is an aggadic description of a cultural process that has unfolded over the generations — the emergence of secularization. To understand this, consider that today we cannot understand the phenomenon of idol worship at all, for we have no such inclination. It is clear to us that those idol worshipers of old simply believed in it and therefore did it. And thus we wonder how they could have believed the nonsense that a stone brings rain or heals. And from here we also do not understand why they were punished. What claim is there against them? They truly believed it. The explanation of these two difficulties is that in the past it was a matter of inclination and not of belief. They did not truly believe it but did so because of the inclination. Therefore a claim is brought against them and they are punished. Think of the inclination for sexual immorality. There until today we understand that there can be a situation in which a person will act in a way that he himself understands is not worthy (committing adultery with a married woman). In the past, regarding idol worship, this too was the situation: they did it because of inclination and not because of a different belief. That is what has changed since, and that is what the Gemara describes regarding the Men of the Great Assembly. From our present perspective, when it is clear to us that a person who keeps the commandments of some religion does so because he believes in it, and someone who worships idols (when the inclination to do so has already been nullified) apparently truly believes in it, these things are not understandable to us at all. This is an anachronism that stems from our failure to take into account the change in reality that has occurred since then until our day.

Many claim that one cannot view an idolater or a heretic as coerced; that cannot exonerate the sinner, for in fact idolaters are punished severely (and it is clear they worshiped because they believed in it). From here apparently grew the known dictum of R. Chaim of Brisk that a heretic by coercion “is merely a poor heretic” (iz nebech apikores), i.e., in his view there is no claim of coercion for heresy. But this is the very same mistake. In the past idolaters and heretics were punished because they did so out of inclination. They understood they were sinning and nevertheless did so because of inclination. Therefore they were punished. Today there is a new situation, in which there are people who sin because they do not believe. Such people are indeed coerced, and there is no reason to punish them. It is not correct to learn from precedents from the past that one punishes also in such a situation. Those precedents dealt with a different situation: sin due to inclination.

We have seen that reasoning dictates that someone who truly believes in what he is doing is fully coerced. In light of what I have explained, you can understand that there is no halakhic evidence against this. Those “evidences” arise from ignoring the differences in circumstances between past and present, and from an unwillingness to free oneself from anachronistic conceptual frameworks.

One possible implication of this description is regarding liability for a sin-offering (chatat). In the Talmud there are several disputes about the status of a tinok shenishba, whether he is coerced or unintentional. The halakha rules that a tinok shenishba is not coerced but unintentional, and therefore he is liable for a sin-offering for every category of transgression he committed (according to the number of lapses; see column 441). My claim is that this ruling is based on the assumption that that child is certainly aware of his basic religious duty, and what he lacked was information about each specific transgression, and for each such lapse he becomes liable for a sin-offering. That was indeed the situation in the past. But the secular person of our time will be liable, at most, for one sin-offering — if at all. His entire matter is a single lapse: the very religious obligation itself; therefore he can be liable at most for one sin-offering. Indeed, such a fundamental lapse could also be considered coercion, and if so, he would not bring a sin-offering at all.

And indeed we find a precedent for this in the well-known words of the Radbaz in a responsum (part IV, 1155) regarding coercion in beliefs, which I cited in column 657:

One who errs about one of the fundamentals of religion due to his flawed reasoning is not considered a denier, for since he thinks that what arose in his reasoning is the truth, he is coerced and exempt.

We see here that one who errs in his reasoning is coerced. How does this align with the liability of a tinok shenishba for a sin-offering? Clearly the Radbaz understands that one who errs in his reasoning is not a tinok shenishba, and therefore he is coerced and not unintentional. The child is not erring in his reasoning but someone who lacks information, whereas one who errs in his reasoning is coerced. And that is exactly my point.

In column 372 I argued that one should judge a person by his own lights and not by ours. The assumption underlying this matter is that a person who acts according to his best understanding, even if he is mistaken, is coerced. Therefore, indeed, his action is wrong and perhaps even evil, but the person who performed the action is not wicked. The judgment about the gavra (the person) — whether he is wicked or not — should be made according to his own position. Many believe that in halakha this is not the case. There one judges people even if they acted according to their own position, and the proof is that idolaters were punished and heretics were put into a pit. But according to what we have seen here, this is not the case. Those people with whom halakha deals are not erring in their reasoning but offenders due to inclination. They know their Master and rebel against Him. At most there are tinokot shenishbu, and of course they are not punished. But none of these are erring in their reasoning, and therefore the question whether to judge them according to their own position does not arise there. But one who errs in his reasoning is coerced, and thus also halakhically one should judge him according to his own position.

Note: Repressed Faith

Many believe that halakha views all of us as believers deep inside. Every Jew is essentially, inwardly, a believer, and his heresy and transgressions are the result of inclination. This is the phenomenon of repressed or unconscious faith (in column 575 I discussed the standing of repressed beliefs; see also column 203 on false consciousness). As a rule, I do not accept this claim, neither factually nor normatively. Factually, I do not think it is true that every Jew is a believer. One who is an atheist is an atheist. Why presume that inwardly he is a believer?! Whence this assumption? Is each of us an Abraham our forefather who discovered his God on his own? But even if I accept this odd factual assumption, normatively I do not accept that repressed beliefs have significance. Even if inwardly he is a believer, it has no value. A person’s outlooks are only his conscious outlooks, those he has formulated and decided upon, and we are supposed to judge him according to his conscious position and not according to what lies in the recesses of his soul — even if we had a way to know what is there.

Many bring proof for the notion of repressed faith from the law of “we coerce him until he says ‘I desire’.” As is known, Maimonides in Laws of Divorce 2:20 (and see also Laws of the Temple Service 14:16) explains it on the basis of the assumption of repressed faith:

One whom the law requires us to coerce to divorce his wife, and he does not want to divorce — the court of Israel, everywhere and at all times, beats him until he says “I desire,” and he writes the writ and it is a valid writ; and if the gentiles beat him and said to him, “Do what Israel tells you,” and the Jews pressured him by the hands of the gentiles until he divorced — behold, this is valid; but if the gentiles themselves coerced him until he wrote — since the law does not require him to write — behold, this is a void writ. And why is this writ not void — after all he is coerced, whether by gentiles or by Jews? We do not call “coerced” except one who is pressured and forced to do something he is not obligated by the Torah to do, such as one who was beaten until he sold or gave. But one whose evil inclination has overpowered him to nullify a commandment or to commit a transgression, and he was beaten until he did something he is obligated to do, or until he distanced himself from something he is forbidden to do — such a person is not coerced, for he coerced himself with his corrupt mind. Therefore, this one who does not want to divorce — since he desires to be part of Israel — he desires to do all the commandments and to distance himself from transgressions, and it is his inclination that has overpowered him. Once he is beaten until his inclination has weakened and he says “I desire,” he has divorced willingly…

From here a clear source for the thesis of repressed faith in every Jew. But note that his assumption is that every Jew who sins does so because of his evil inclination and not because of a different conception. As I explained, in our time it is plainly evident that the situation is different. There are Jews who sin or do not keep halakha because they do not believe in it. For them this rationale of Maimonides is irrelevant, and indeed in my opinion the law of coercion does not apply in such cases. With a husband who is an atheist or who does not believe in the Sinai revelation and the obligation to it (even if factually he accepts the event), there is no way to coerce him and escape the law of a writ given under duress. See column 199 and the story of “the Hindik” there.

Maimonides’ words were said in an earlier period when the assumption was that sin is always due to error or due to inclination. But as noted, in our day the situation is different, and there are now sins and sinners who err in their reasoning. Therefore one must not infer from that Maimonides to our time that one who errs in his reasoning is a sinner and is in fact a covert believer who sins because of his inclination. It is not correct to apply to phenomena in our time the laws and concepts that were formulated in another era in which a different reality prevailed.

Conclusions

The conclusion is that the apostate (mumar) of our time — whether an apostate to another faith or an apostate to secularity — usually does not do so to provoke nor out of appetite, and is not even unintentional. He simply errs in his reasoning. A person who is a Christian or a secular Jew is not necessarily a transgressor. It may be that he is merely erring in his reasoning. Even one who converts to another religion or becomes secular (such a person certainly does not lack the relevant information, for he received it at home and in his education) is not necessarily a transgressor, but can also be one who errs in his reasoning. He reached a different conclusion.

It is, of course, true that even in our day there are those who act because of their evil inclination. I am not claiming here that that old phenomenon has vanished. For example, many traditionalists (masortim) are apostates out of appetite, for they know their Master and sometimes do not even lack the information, but for some reason do not do their duty. It follows that they are much worse than atheists and deniers, of course, for the latter err in their reasoning and are not transgressors at all. Traditionalists of this sort, by contrast, are considered halakhically wicked (not morally but religiously). They know their Master and rebel against Him. Of course there are also traditionalists of other sorts (those who are not truly believers but are merely connected to the religious Jewish folklore, or to sentiments from the home of their fathers). The same is true of types of secular people who know everything and understand their obligation and nevertheless choose not to do it. They too are certainly transgressors, and the ancient laws and concepts apply to them entirely.

For the conclusion I will bring here what I wrote in that WhatsApp discussion:

All these [= the generalizing approaches that rely on the ancient concepts] are generalizations. Tinok shenishba describes a person who makes mistaken decisions on the basis of partial information (not his fault). There are not a few secular people like this even today (and also religious ones, except that their decision happens, in this case, to be correct). The indication is that on the assumption that he is exposed to the full information he will understand he erred and will decide differently. But today there are also people who make a mistaken decision on the basis of full information. They simply think differently even though they lack no information whatsoever. The indication is that no addition of information will change their position (and not because of the evil inclination but because their conception is different). These are not at all tinokot shenishbu, unless one executes a wild expansion of the meaning of the concept. Halakha sees them as mistaken in outcome, and can still fully respect their decision in light of their own conception.

The assumption here is that there is a difference between judging the person (wicked or righteous) and judging the act (good or bad). Judgment of the person should be done according to his own position (so long as it was formulated seriously, responsibly, and reasonably). This is not tinok shenishba, and still this statement does not destroy anything in the Jewish halakhic and social structure.

I must note that despite my claim that the traditionalist is worse than the atheist, this is said regarding the judgment of the gavra (the person). At the same time, one can certainly claim that the fact that the traditionalist performs more commandments than the atheist is a blessed matter. That is a ruling about the chefza, i.e., the act, and not about the gavra, the doer. Moreover, I will now argue that there is another difference in favor of the traditionalist compared to the secular person. As background, I will recall that in my article “On Causing a Secular Person to Sin,” I argued that with one who does not believe in God and/or in the giving of the Torah, his commandments have no value and his transgressions are not transgressions. He cannot be counted for a prayer quorum (minyan), and his status is like that of a potted plant. A minyan requires ten people who understand the matter of prayer and the obligation to do it. They are in effect joining the prayer. One who cannot pray cannot be considered as praying; therefore a secular person is not counted in order to form a minyan of ten worshipers. In this respect, the status of the traditionalist is better than that of the atheist. The atheist is like a potted plant and is not counted for a minyan. By contrast, the traditionalist certainly is included, for he knows his Master and understands the matter of prayer and the obligation, even if he rebels against it. The fact that he is more wicked does not mean he is less included in the minyan. Inclusion in a minyan and the nullification of the commandments and transgressions of the atheist are not a sanction but the necessary consequence of his conceptions. Therefore the question of how wicked he is is irrelevant. The same is true regarding the traditionalist. His prayer and blessings are of course commandments in every respect, and precisely because of this the fact that he does not do them renders him wicked. By contrast, the atheist is not a subject for the performance of commandments and transgressions, and therefore non-performance does not render him wicked.

In light of comments I have received in the past, I must clarify that I do not intend to claim that an atheist is exempt from the commandments. He is a Jew and as such he is certainly obligated in them. It is also our duty to try to cause him to fulfill these obligations. My claim is only that so long as he is secular he cannot fulfill them, even if he wishes to. That is a different plane of discussion.

I concluded there with the following paragraph:

Of course these are two ideal types, and usually human beings are somewhere in between. For example, one must consider a person who, without additional information, can be freed from biases (conscious or not) and brought to a change of conception.

That is, one must also take this typological discussion with caution. It too describes ideal types, and it is not correct to cling to it when dealing with real people of flesh and blood. But the models, as noted, give direction and a framework for systematic thought on this subject. The diagnosis of each specific person before us — how to understand him and his assumptions — is of course more complex, and again I will note that one must beware here of dogmatism and excessive conceptual rigidity.