[Avodah] R' Angel & Geirus Redux

[Michael Makovi]

>  *Abarbanel**[i]* <#_edn1>*(Rosh Amana #12*): When considered carefully
>  the view of the Raavad must be rejected. According to his view even one
>  who unintentionally rejects every fundamental principle will still have
>  a portion in the World to Come. ... Furthermore, it would be possible to find a person who
> does not believe any of the fundamental principles of faith and he still would not be
>  considered a heretic—as long as his blind foolishness was the result of
>  his failure to understand the Torah properly. This view is impossible to
>  accept both from the Torah point of view and that of commonsense. That
>  is because false understanding concerning a foundation principle of
>  religion turns the soul from true spiritual success and prevents him
>  from achieving the World to Come—even though he did not intentionally
>  rebel. It is like a person who consumes a deadly poison—he will surely
>  die even though he thought he was eating healthy food. Similarly, heresy
>  and false fundamental beliefs alienate a person's soul and without doubt
>  prevent him from inheriting the World to Come.

Not that I'm any expert, and I'll say now that I haven't studied any
of the sources, and I'll say that I know most sources will disagree
with me except the Raavad and the minority that follows him (is there
one?), but I'll still say:

The Abarbanel could be challenged that receiving Olam haBa is not some
mechanistic thing that a cold machine does based on hard-wired
criteria. Rather, G-d evaluates each person one-by-one I assume. So
what would stop G-d from saying, "You didn't believe any of the 13,
but since you were 100% shogeg tinok she'nishba, I'll let you in".

Adarabba, it seems to me contrary to reason that G-d would NOT do
this! To a tinok she'nishba, we don't penalize him at all (obviously,
he can't be an eid, etc., but still, we don't villify him or punish
him by the beit din), and yet the beit din shel maala will be
*stricter* than shel mata? Since when is the shel maala stricter -
isn't it always that our courts have to go by what we see (he stole,
period) but shel maala will judge the conditions (he was poor, he was
hungry, he didn't know better...)? So why is here the opposite?

>  To turn the question around - do _*you*_ know of any **recognized**
>  Orthodox authority who characterized them as R' Berkovitz did?

Not so explicitly, no, but I've always seen R and C characterized as
tinokim she'nishbu, and never did I see the rabbis distinguished from
the lay. Now, b'vadai, sometimes you have to take practical measures
against the rabbis themselves because of the harm they'll do. But it's
never against them for their own sake - if an R/C rabbi sat and did
nothing, we'd do nothing to him, and if he does "kiruv", we'll stop
his efforts but only because of the efforts, not because of him
himself. This is all AFAIK.

> R' Daniel Eidensohn
Mikha'el Makovi