Rabbi Yitzhock Adlerstein writes on Cross Currents:
I am jealous of the scholarship of Dr Marc Shapiro – even when I often disagree with his conclusions. He never lets the reader down in amassing a huge amount of relevant material regarding the many topics he has written about. I do believe that he made a simple and perhaps understandable error in his response to Rabbi Zev Leff in the current issue of Jewish Action [not yet online]. He ignored a construct that is enormously important for the future of the community, but that he may find unattractive.
Rabbi Leff, one of the most important English language baalei machshavah in Israel, reviewed Dr Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology, which tries to demonstrate that there was significant disagreement regarding the positions that became Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith. Rabbi Leff argues that finding isolated voices who disagreed is irrelevant in the face of overwhelming acceptance of those principles over hundreds of years.
One who denies any of [the Thirteen Principles] is outside the pale of the faith community of Torah Judaism. For example, the conviction that G-d is a corporeal being is a belief that is outside the realm of Judaism, despite the fact that the Sages do not agree whether to deem one a heretic for harboring this belief.
Dr. Shapiro responds,
Which is it? Is the one who believes in a corporeal G-d (a violation of the Third Principle) a heretic, outside the faith community or simply an ignorant person who must be enlightened?…No less a figure than Rabbi Arele Roth [rejected] the Rambam’s view that such a belief turns a person into a heretic. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook also disagreed with the Rambam, and instead adopted the Ra’avad’s more tolerant approach.
It seems to me that the essence of Rabbi Leff’s argument is that one need not be adjudged to be a heretic to nonetheless stand firmly outside the boundaries of the Torah community. The answer to Dr. Shapiro’s question is that those who maintain beliefs at the margins are not to be seen as heretics, but can be seen as beyond the pale.
Rabbi Natan Slifkin responds:
I am going to surprise everyone here by essentially agreeing with Rabbi Adlerstein. But I am not at all certain that Rabbi Adlerstein is saying the same thing as Rabbi Leff. It seems to me that Rabbi Adlerstein is saying something very simple: If someone possesses beliefs that are considered unacceptable by a majority of the community, it would not be inaccurate to say that they would be living something significantly different from the rest of the community! That doesn’t need to mean that there is a flaw in their theological beliefs. (Which is one reason why Dr. Shapiro’s book is so valuable.) But it does mean that they are making a break with their community, which is no small matter. People have asked, what about believing that the world is billions of years old, or that Chazal relied on faulty science (to pick some random examples!). Some may be surprised to hear this coming from me, but I do believe that IF (and it can be debated as to whether this is the case) the chareidi community has decided that such beliefs are fundamentally wrong, then one cannot possess such beliefs openly and consider oneself a card-carrying member of the chareidi community! Of course, it is important to remember that there is no one single community in Orthodoxy. There are Litvaks and Chassidim, Sefardim and Ashkenazim, Charedi and Torah u’Madda. What is unacceptable in one community may be perfectly acceptable in another (which is another reason why Dr. Shapiro’s book is so valuable).
