Maimonides and Yom Kippur Jews

Have you ever felt ambivalent about your fellow Jew who only comes to synagogue on Yom Kippur?  So did Moses Maimonides nine centuries ago.   Thought his response was truly important to share. 

One of the first lines of the Yom Kippur service, preceding Kol Nidrei, goes like this:

With the agreement of G-d and of the community,

In the heavenly council and in the council of man,

We give leave to pray with the transgressors among us.                                                                                     

The commentary by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in the Koren Mahzor gives remarkable explanation of the line “… with the transgressors…”  A formal lifting of the ban against those who had been excommunicated in the course of the year, was instituted in the thirteenth century by Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg.  The sages said that “Any fast that does not include the transgressors of Israel is not a fast” (Keritot 6b).  Judaism is the faith of the entire nation, righteous and not-yet-righteous alike. 

In the twelfth century, Moses Maimonides was asked the following question: Some Jews, under threat of death, had converted to Islam.  Were they permitted to carry on practicing Judaism in secret?  Could they be allowed to attend synagogue?  One rabbi had given a ruling, replying to both questions in the negative.  They had abandoned Judaism.  Therefore every Jewish act they did was a further sin and they had no place in a Jewish house of prayer.  Maimonides was horrified by this answer.  The converts had acted under duress, and Jewish law does not condemn someone under such circumstances.  Besides, both they and their oppressors knew that the conversion was a sham. No one means what they say under threat of death.  Such people should be welcomed, not shunned; forgiven, not condemned.

At the end of his reply, known as Iggeret HaShemad, The Epistle on Martyrdom, Maimonides writes:

It is not right to alienate, scorn, and hate people who desecrate the Sabbath.  It is our duty to befriend them, and encourage them to fulfill the commandments.  The rabbis ruled explicitly that when an evildoer who sinned by choice comes to the synagogue, he is to be welcomed, not insulted.  In this ruling they relied on King Solomon’s advice: “Do not despise a thief when he steals to appease his hunger” (Proverbs 6:30).  This means: do not despise the wrongdoer in Israel when he comes secretly to “steal” some observance.