JULY 25 • 2024 | 47 J N 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.