CONNECTED HERESY: The Talmudic Literature’s Heretic Religiosity

“Heretic” is commonly understood as a perspectival term employed by insiders to describe a specific kind of outsider, namely, one who, not only holds to seriously objectionable positions, but having been one of us, should know better. Accordingly, “heretic religiosity” denotes for members of the mother religion a dissenting form of religiosity that deviates too sharply from their own to be contained within it. Michael Walzer’s well-known idea of connected criticism, to which this paper’s title alludes, is a person who firmly opposes his community’s way of life, but chooses to remain within the fold. The type of religious heresy I shall be looking at in the following pages not only chooses to remain within, but is contained within the fold. And not only that, but it is actually formative of the fold. But in that case, why should it be considered heretical?