EXOD74 "It is not right to alienate, scorn, and hate people who desecrate the Sabbath. It is our duty to befriend them and encourage them to fulfil the commandments." [Abraham S. Halkin and David Hartman, Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1985), 15-35]. In a daring stroke of interpretation, he [Maimonides] quotes the verse: "Do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving" (Prov. 6:30). The Crypto-Jews who [embrace Christianity publicly but remain Jews privately] come to the synagogue are hungry for Jewish prayer. They "steal" moments of belonging. They should not be despised, but welcomed. This is a masterly example of that most difficult of moral challenges: to combine prescription and compassion. Rambam leaves us in no doubt as to what he believes Jews should do. But at the same time he is uncompromising in his defence of those who fail to do it. He does not endorse what they have done -- but he defends who are they are. He asks us to understand their situation. He gives them grounds for self-respect. He holds the doors of the community open. The argument reaches a climax as Rambam quotes a remarkable sequence of midrashic passages whose theme is that prophets must not condemn their people, but rather defend them before God. When Moses, charged with leading the people out of Egypt, replied, "But they will not believe me" [this verse], ostensibly he was justified. The subsequent biblical narrative suggests that Moses' doubts were well-founded. The Israelites were difficult people to lead. But the Midrash says that God replied to Moses, "They are believers and the children of believers, but you [Moses] will ultimately not believe" (Shabbat 97a). Rambam cites a series of similar passages and then says: If this is the punishment meted out to the pillars of the universe, the greatest of the prophets, because they briefly criticized the people--even though they were guilty of the sins of which they were accused--Can we envisage the punishment waiting those who criticize the Crypto-Jews who are under threat of death and without abandoning their faith, confessed to another religion in which they did not believe?