MARRIAGE WITH SECTARIANS

The ascension of Maimonides to leadership in Cairo in the twelfth century marked the beginning of the end of friendly half­conversions between the two sects. The Rambam ’s attitude toward his Karaite neighbors seems at times to have been ambivalent: Salo Baron points to his commentary on Mishnah Hullin 1.2, in which the Rambam refers to the corrupting influence of the“contemporary heretics” but elsewhere denies that the Karaites are heretics“in the technical meaning of the term.” As long as they refrain from speaking mockingly of rabbis and Rabbanite traditions,

One ought to inquire about their well-being even by visiting their homes, to circumcise their sons even on the Shabbat , to bury their dead, and to comfort their mourners.”

Echoing the tolerant attitude of the Genizah ketubot, Maimonides does not require that the Karaites turn from their sectarian ways before they may be treated as fellow Jews . He fur­ther writes that, although the originators of the error of Karaism are liable for their sin of rejecting the Rabbanite Oral Law,

The children of these mistaken, and their descendants, who were...born into the Karaite community and raised by them according to their beliefs; one of these is like one...who is coerced. Even though he hears afterward that he is a Jew , and he sees[Rabbanite] Jews , and their beliefs, he is as one coerced, for he was raised in the error of his Karaite ancestors. Therefore it is appropriate to bring them to feshuvah, and draw them in kindly, until they return to the true Torah .”

Maimonides permits their wine, though he will not allow them to be counted for minyan and zimmun; this was because the Karaites did not recognize these obligations. In a teshuvah he wrote: