Excommunication
Excommunication was commonly referred to in the Torah as herem.
The biblical form of excommunicating indicates any person or thing that
was removed from the community, because it was made sacred by God or perceived as a disgrace before God. Herem in the Bible predominantly
concerns the act of an individual devoting goods to God, which was regarded
as a sacred act. However, once something had been dedicated, neither
the sanctuary could sell the item nor could the contributor retrieve
it.
After the Babylonian exile, the term herem began indicating the act of excommunicating people who disobeyed the
law or authorities. If the elders and rabbis of a community believed
a person to be disobedient, the offender was punished by being forced
into isolation, removed from the community at large. The excommunication
could last anywhere from a day to a lifetime, depending on the urgency
of the convicted act. Once the allotted time has elapse the individual
may return to the community as long as he repents for his actions. The Talmud alludes
to twenty-four offenses punishable by excommunication.
Some examples include:
• uttering the name of God in vain
• luring another person to sin
• refusing to testify before a court at the allotted time
• selling nonkosher meat as kosher meat
• marrying a non-Jewish individual
The Talmud forbids coming within six feet of a person who has been
excommunicated. During medieval times, the laws of excommunication could
be extended to the family of the person who was convicted of a crime.
Additionally, there existed a weaker form of excommunication, called niddui that was applied for only thirty days. Even the threat
of being excommunicated was employed to guarantee the acceptance and
submission of the laws.
The rituals surrounding the excommunication of an individual were
quite astounding. The act was first announced by the blowing of the shofar in front of an
open ark. The community would lament, holding black candles as if in
mourning. The congregational leader would proceed to shout Biblical
curses at the person being sentenced to herem. Finally a public
warning was decreed forbidding all to associate with the convict as
the community symbolically smothered the candles.
Examples of famous excommunications include:
• During his life, Moses
Maimonides (Rambam) often came under attack from some of the rabbinic
community due to his reluctance to acknowledge everything in the Bible
as factual certainty. After his death, rabbis of northern France placed
a herem on Maimonides’ writings,
banning the works from their communities.
Conversely, rabbis of southern France and Spain issued a herem on any opponents of Maimonides.
• In 1945, Mordecai
Kaplan founder of the Reconstructionist movement was excommunicated by the Assembly of the Union of Orthodox
Rabbis of the United States. Kaplan’s ideas of Judaism were critical of both the Orthodox and Reform movements,
and thus insulted many people. Above insults, Kaplan’s ideas
threatened conventional Jewish wisdom and further fractured Jewish
communities.
Sources: Eisenberg, Ronald L. The
JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions. PA:
Jewish Publication Society, 2004; Wigoder,
Geoffrey , Ed. The
New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia.
NY: Facts on File; 1992; Kolatch, Alfred
J. The
Jewish Book of Why/The Second Jewish Book
of Why. NY: Jonathan
David Publishers, 1989. |