Herem (censure) - As Distinct From Catholic Church Excommunication

As Distinct From Catholic Church Excommunication

The herem may best be compared to the now-defunct excommunication vitandus. It is important to avoid confusing it with the Catholic excommunication as it is normally practiced to-day based on the word "excommunication", as the current Catholic practice favors maintaining some relationship with the excommunicant whereas the herem is more akin to "shunning" as practiced by Anabaptists and some of their descendant communities. It is likewise important to note, however, the extreme rarity of the herem in modern Jewish life. Today it is almost exclusively imposed in cases where a spouse refuses to give a divorce, which prevents remarriage and which is sufficiently grievous that Maimonides suggested beating a divorce-refusing husband into granting one). With respect to the list of offenses theoretically resulting in excommunication Max Weber emphasizes the importance of focusing on the actual results of religious belief rather than official claims. That such-and-such offense is listed in the Code of Canon Law or the Shulchan Aruch as punishable by excommunication is of some historical and perhaps theological interest but in terms of understanding actual religious life such laws are interesting only insofar as they were actually enforced.