Q&A: Heretic
Heretic
Question
From my impression so far, you oppose establishing principles of faith, because what matters is what is true and not what counts as heresy. So who, nevertheless, is defined as a heretic from a halakhic standpoint, and what is his status? Aren’t there certain fundamentals that any reasonable person should accept, and if not then he is a denier of the faith (or a fool?)
Answer
There is no practical implication to this at all, so there is no point in getting into such definitions. Heresy that stems from base desire has practical implications, but not heresy that comes from sincerely believing that way.
Discussion on Answer
There is no practical halakhic implication here, because in my opinion one may not speak malicious speech about someone who is not wicked. Anyone who holds some worldview because that is what he thinks is not wicked.
According to the Rabbi’s approach, then, was Hitler not wicked?
If that truly and sincerely is what he thought was the good thing to do, then in my opinion he was not wicked but coerced. Still, I find it a bit hard to accept that he really thought it was proper to torture Jews. Fine, to exterminate them because they are harmful (in his view), but why persecute and torture them?
Could you still spell out who is defined as a heretic? Is someone who is not sure that the Torah is from Heaven, or that there will be a resurrection of the dead, a heretic?
This has practical halakhic implications regarding the permissibility of speaking malicious speech about such people and hating them (as Maimonides wrote at the end of the introduction to the chapter Helek).