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To do this is to profane God’s 
name, “not exactly willingly, 
but almost so.”
These are Maimonides’ 
conclusions. But surrounding 
them and constituting the 
main thrust of his argument 
is a sustained defense of those 
who have done precisely what 
Maimonides has ruled they 
should not do. 
The letter gives Crypto-
Jews hope. They have done 
wrong. But it is a forgivable 
wrong. They acted under 
coercion and the fear of death. 
They remain Jews. The acts 
they do as Jews still win favor 
in the eyes of God. Indeed, 
doubly so, for when they fulfil 
a commandment, it cannot be 
to win favor of the eyes of oth-
ers. They know that when they 
act as Jews, they risk discovery 
and death. Their secret adher-
ence has a heroism of its own.

PRESCRIPTION AND 
COMPASSION 
What was wrong in the first 
rabbi’s ruling was his insistence 
that a Jew who yields to terror 
has forsaken his faith and is to 
be excluded from the commu-
nity. Maimonides insists that it 
is not so. 
 “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 fulfil 
the commandments.
” In a 
daring stroke of interpretation, 
he quotes the verse, “Do not 
despise a thief if he steals to 
satisfy his hunger when he 
is starving.” (Proverbs 6:30) 
The Crypto-Jews who come 
to the synagogue are hungry 
for Jewish prayer. They “steal” 
moments of belonging. They 
should not be despised but 
welcomed.
This epistle is a masterly 
example of that most difficult 
of moral challenges: to com-
bine prescription and compas-
sion. Maimonides leaves us in 

no doubt as to what he believes 
Jews should do. But at the same 
time, he is uncompromising in 
his defense of those who fail 
to do it. He does not endorse 
what they have done. But he 
defends who they are. He asks 
us to understand their situa-
tion. He gives them grounds 
for self-respect. He holds the 
doors of the community open.
The argument reaches a 
climax as Maimonides quotes 
a remarkable sequence of mid-
rashic passages whose theme 
is that prophets must not 
condemn their people, but 
rather defend them before God. 
When Moses, charged 
with leading the people out 
of Egypt, replied, “But they 
will not believe me” (Exodus 
4:1) ostensibly, he was justi-
fied. The subsequent biblical 
narrative suggests that Moses’ 
doubts were well founded. The 
Israelites were a difficult people 
to lead. But the Midrash says 
that God replied to Moses, 
“They are believers and the 
children of believers, but you 
[Moses] will ultimately not 
believe.
” (Shabbat 97a)
Maimonides cites a series 
of similar passages and then 
says: If this is the punishment 
meted out to the pillars of the 
universe, the greatest of the 
prophets, because they briefly 
criticized the people — even 
though they were guilty of 
the sins of which they were 
accused — can we envisage 
the punishment awaiting those 
who criticize the conversos, 
who under threat of death and 
without abandoning their faith, 
confessed to another religion in 
which they did not believe?

LESSONS FROM ELIJAH
In the course of his analysis, 
Maimonides turns to the 
Prophet Elijah and the text 
that usually forms this week’s 
haftarah. Under the reign of 
Ahab and Jezebel, Baal worship 
had become the official cult. 

God’s prophets were being 
killed. Those who survived 
were in hiding. Elijah respond-
ed by issuing a public challenge 
at Mount Carmel. Facing 400 
of Baal’s representatives, he was 
determined to settle the ques-
tion of religious truth once and 
for all.
He told the assembled people 
to choose one way or another: 
for God or for Baal. They must 
no longer “halt between two 
opinions.
” Truth was about to be 
decided by a test. If it lay with 
Baal, fire would consume the 
offering prepared by its priests. 
If it lay with God, fire would 
descend to Elijah’s offering.
Elijah won the confronta-
tion. The people cried out, 
“The Lord, He is God.” The 
priests of Baal were routed. But 
the story does not end there. 
Jezebel issues a warrant for his 
death. Elijah escapes to Mount 
Horeb. There he receives a 
strange vision, as seen as the 
beginning of this week’s essay. 
He is led to understand that 
God speaks only in the “still, 
small voice.”
The episode is enigmatic. 
It is made all the more so by 
a strange feature of the text. 
Immediately before the vision, 
God asks, “What are you doing 
here, Elijah?” and Elijah replies, 
“I am moved by zeal for the 
Lord, the God of Hosts….
” 
(I Kings 19:9-10). 
Immediately after the vision, 
God asks the same question, 
and Elijah gives the same 
answer (I Kings 19:13-14). The 
Midrash turns the text into a 
dialogue:
Elijah: The Israelites have 
broken God’s covenant. 
 God: Is it then your covenant? 
 Elijah: They have torn down 
Your altars. 
 God: But were they your 
altars? 
 Elijah: They have put Your 
prophets to the sword. 
 God: But you are alive. 
 Elijah: I alone am left. 

 God: Instead of hurling accu-
sations against Israel, should 
you not have pleaded their 
cause? 
The meaning of the Midrash 
is clear. The zealot takes the 
part of God. But God expects 
His prophets to be defenders, 
not accusers. The repeated 
question and answer is now 
to be understood in its tragic 
depth. Elijah declares himself 
to be zealous for God. He is 
shown that God is not dis-
closed in dramatic confronta-
tion: not in the whirlwind or 
the earthquake or the fire. 
God now asks him again, 
“What are you doing here, 
Elijah?” Elijah repeats that he 
is zealous for God. He has not 
understood that religious lead-
ership calls for another kind of 
virtue, the way of the still, small 
voice. God now indicates that 
someone else must lead. 
In turbulent times, there is 
an almost overwhelming temp-
tation for religious leaders to 
be confrontational. Not only 
must truth be proclaimed but 
falsehood must be denounced. 
Choices must be set out as 
stark divisions. Not to con-
demn is to condone. The rabbi 
who condemned the conver-
sos had faith in his heart, logic 
on his side and Elijah as his 
precedent.
But the Midrash and 
Maimonides set before us 
another model. A prophet 
hears not one imperative but 
two: guidance and compassion, 
a love of truth and an abiding 
solidarity with those for whom 
that truth has become eclipsed. 
To preserve tradition and at the 
same time defend those others 
condemn is the difficult, neces-
sary task of religious leadership 
in an unreligious age. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan 

Sacks served as the chief rabbi of 

the United Hebrew Congregations of 

the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His 

teachings can be found at rabbisacks.

org. 

