Tinok She-Nishbah

The status of a non-observant Jew in the worldview of traditional Judaism is complicated by the fact that society has changed so much since the Talmud that finding the proper talmudic category for such people is a complex matter. However, when was the major point of change? Was it the turn of the modern era and the rise of secularism or earlier than that? As we shall see, R. Yehuda Henkin points to nineteenth century Germany as the turning point.

In talmudic times there were certainly Jews who seceded from the community of traditionally observant Jews. However, they were generally either apostates who adopted idolatrous practices or sectarians who actively rejected the dominant form of Judaism... (Continued here on the Sefer Ha-Hayim Blog).