heretic

Distinctions

min (מין)

Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:7) gives five: one who says there is no God running the world, one who says there are many, one who says God has a body, one who says God did not create everything, one who serves an intermediary. Avodah Zarah 26b: the min transgresses to anger Hashem, the meshumad for pleasure.

Etymologies offered, and the column presents them as theories rather than as a settled answer. Rabbi Yishaya of Trani associates min with the pagan deity Meni (Yeshayahu 65:11). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi) argues that Manes, also called Mani or Manichaeus, and Apikores were Greek philosophers who rejected conventional religion, and their followers came to be called minim and apikorsim respectively. Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto (to Shemos 20:4) works from the plain biblical sense of min, "type, species": each sectarian holds a slightly different creed, but all fall into the one broader type. Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia: the original sectarians called themselves maaminim, "believers," to bolster their religious bona fides, and the rabbis bowdlerized the word down to minim. Rabbi J. D. Eisenstein (Otzar Yisroel s.v. min, minus) cites some scholars, unnamed, who have it that the rabbis called the sectarians maaminim sarcastically and the word was then shortened to minim; he also cites a view that min was originally an acronym for maamin Yeshu Notzri, "believer in Jesus of Nazareth." Rabbi Shlomo Tzvi Shick writes that the rabbis called the Tzedukim minim because the Tzedukim denied that water pooled in a vessel is disqualified for a mikvah, so they never immersed properly and were permanently tamei, and the Greek word for an impure person is mijan.

apikores (אפיקורוס)

Never in Tanach; twice in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1, Avos 2:14). Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:8) gives three: one who denies prophecy altogether, one who denies the prophecy of Moshe Rabbeinu, one who denies that Hashem knows man's deeds. In his Mishnah commentary he adds the settled usage, anyone who denigrates the Torah or those who learn it, matching Sanhedrin 99b, which defines an apikores as one who insults a talmid chacham or insults another in his presence. Rambam there connects the word to hefker, "ownerless." Conventional wisdom, as the column has it, ties the term to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), who taught the hedonistic pursuit of physical pleasure as a way of life. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur also derives it from a man's name, and adds that since the term denotes one who insults talmidei chachamim, it makes sense to presume the historical Epicurus behind it was himself given to insulting those who learn Torah.

kofer (כופר)

Root כ-פ-ר. Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:6) gives three kofrim: one who denies the Torah, one who denies techiyas hameisim, one who denies the coming of Moshiach; and (3:8) splits the first into denying that the Torah is from Hashem, denying the Oral Torah's authority to explain the Written, and denying that the Torah is unchangeable. The root's Mishnaic sense is legal denial, a litigant denying a claim (Shevuos 4:1, 4:3-4, 5:1-2, 6:3); in the heresy sense the column notes that Hebrew kofer parallels its Arabic cognate kafir. In Biblical Hebrew the same root yields a whole family, words for redemption, atonement, covering, pitch, village and lion, and how they connect the column leaves aside. The bridge to heresy seems to be covering over: one who denies covers up the facts by insisting on the truth of something other than the truth.

meshumad (משומד)

Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:9): one notorious for deliberately transgressing any single law or the whole Torah, who has turned his back on Klal Yisrael and attached himself to another nation and its religion, uncoerced. Rashba (Responsa 3:352) rejects "renegade" and follows Avodah Zarah 26b, above.

In the berachah praying for the dissolution of heretics we call them malshinim, informers; but some argue that this is a censored version and that the original nusach had meshumadim, and some keep the custom of davening with the older wording.

Etymologies split three ways. The simplest is ש-מ-ד, to destroy. On Even-Shoshan's biblical concordance the root occurs ninety times in the Hebrew portions of Tanach and once in the Aramaic (Daniel 7:26); it also seems to stand behind the personal name Shemed, a man of the tribe of Binyamin (Divrei HaYamim I 8:12). Shmad as a noun is the Gemara's word for the destructive decrees imposed on Klal Yisrael from time to time (see the uncensored Rosh HaShanah 19a). On this root: Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi), because most such conversions happen in times of shmad; Rabbi Yair Chaim Bachrach (Mekor Chaim to Orach Chaim 118), because the apostate has been cut off and destroyed by detaching himself from the nation; Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto (to Shemos 12:43), one who converted under a decree of shmad and kept practicing once the coercion lifted. The column adds that Rabbi Ernest Klein's etymological dictionary of Hebrew cites the German Bible scholar and philologist Friedrich Delitzsch, who argued that Hebrew shmad is a metathesized form of the Akkadian mashadu, "striking," with the mem and shin trading places, a sense not far from the biblical root.

Second, Ramban (to Shemos 12:43) derives it from מ-ד-ע, the root Targum Onkelos uses for Yosef recognizing his brothers (Bereishis 42:8): the root can seemingly also carry the reverse, one who has become estranged and does not recognize, so the meshumad has estranged himself from Klal Yisrael and from their God by his evil deeds. On this reading one must assume the final ayin was simply dropped, and Ramban brings other examples of the same phenomenon.

Third, from ע-מ-ד. In Biblical Hebrew that root means standing or stopping, but in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic its declensions mean to immerse in water: the Peshitta renders the immersing of vessels in a mikvah (Bamidbar 31:23) with a verb from ע-מ-ד, and the usage is common in early Syriac Christian writing, especially of baptism; a version of the verb also appears in Gittin 67b of submerging in water, there with the initial ayin dropped. On this, Rav Hai Gaon, cited by Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra (Sefer HaIyunim VeHaDiyunim) and Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch), reads the word as originally meshuamad, with an ayin that was dropped because it grew too hard to pronounce, so that a meshumad is specifically a Christian, by his baptism. On Rav Hai Gaon's reading the shin is radical to the root, which led the philologist Avraham Even-Shoshan to suggest the word reflects the shaphel inflection, where an initial shin does grammatical work. Because of that reading, Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra holds Rabshakeh could not have been an actual meshumad, since he predated Christianity; Rabbi Shlomo Tzvi Shick similarly takes meshumad literally as "he who had hitherto immersed in waters," a reference to Christians, who baptize by sprinkling water that had stood in a vessel and so cannot stand in for a mikvah. Rashbatz (Magen Avos) keeps both forms, meshuamad for Christians and meshumad for other idolaters; the Kuzari (3:65) uses meshuamadim of Christians for their baptism. Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi (HaMadrich HaMaspik) rejects Rav Hai Gaon outright: meshumad covers any apostate, which is why Chazal (Sanhedrin 60a) call Rabshakeh one, though he obviously predated Christianity.

mumar (מומר)

Root מ-ו-ר, to switch. Introduced because Christian censors found meshumad too offensive; switching religions sounds milder than being destroyed. Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto: mumar is one who changed religion willingly, against the coerced-then-persisting meshumad. Chasam Sofer (Kovetz Teshuvos 79) inverts the severity: mumar is anyone who traded the eternal Torah for something passing, even in one mitzvah, while meshumad is reserved for one who rejects the whole Torah; he adds that the printers blurred the two in practice.

Rendering guidance

• Translating Rambam's list at Hilchos Teshuvah 3:6, keep four English words: "sectarians, scoffers, deniers and apostates." A single "heretics" destroys the taxonomy the halachah builds.
• מין: "sectarian." Avoid "heretic," the generic, and any historical identification the sources do not make.
• אפיקורוס: "scoffer" where the sense is insulting Torah and talmidei chachamim (Sanhedrin 99b, Rambam to the Mishnah); "apikores" transliterated where Rambam's three doctrinal denials are meant, since no English word covers them.
• כופר: "denier," not "unbeliever"; the root is active covering-over. In a Shevuos sugya it is plain "denial" of a claim, so keep heresy out.
• משומד / מומר: "apostate" and "convert-out," never one word for both. Where a source turns on which is graver, say which view you follow: Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto has meshumad the coerced-then-willing one and mumar the freely willing one; Chasam Sofer has them the other way about.
• Trap: the berachah against heretics. Where the text reads malshinim, render "informers," noting that some argue this is a censored form of the older nusach meshumadim, which some still say.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Korach: Of Heretics and Apostates," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 30 Sivan 5784 (2024-07-06); raw text at sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11438-korach-of-heretics-and-apostates.md. Primary loci cited: Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 3:6-3:9 and his commentary to Sanhedrin 10:1; Sanhedrin 10:1, 60a, 99b; Avos 2:14; Avodah Zarah 26b; Rashba, Responsa 3:352; Yeshayahu 65:11; Shemos 20:4 and 12:43 with Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto and Ramban; Bereishis 42:8; Shevuos 4:1, 4:3-4, 5:1-2, 6:3; Rosh HaShanah 19a (uncensored); Mekor Chaim to Orach Chaim 118; Kuzari 3:65; Chasam Sofer, Kovetz Teshuvos 79; Daniel 7:26; Divrei HaYamim I 8:12; Bamidbar 31:23 with the Peshitta; Gittin 67b. At Hilchos Teshuvah 3:8 the article prints "one who denies that the Torah does not come from God"; Rambam's category is one who denies that the Torah is from Hashem.