Minim

Birkat haMinim

The time to which appeared Minim is unknown. They were in any case rather awkward against the Judaïsme pharisee to appear on several occasions in the Talmud, polemizing in particular with Abbahou, and so that Gamliel de Yavné institutes insertion in the prayer of the 18 blessings one 19th, the Birkat haMinim , " Bénédiction" of Minim (in fact a curse), whereas such a use went against the rule. The tradition allots it to Samuel small the, at an unknown date

the rabbis taught: Chim' one haPakkouli put in order eighteen blessings in front of Rabban Gamliel at Yavne. Rabban Gamliel called to the scholars: 'Is there somebody who can compose the Birkat haTzedoukim ? Samuel the small one rose and composed it. - TB Berakhot 28b-29a

Here translation of one of its formulations: For the apostates, that there is no hope. That the kingdom of impertinence is uprooted nowadays, and that the notsrim and the minim disappear in one moment. That they are unobtrusive book of the life and are not registered with the right ones. Blessed would be you Seigneur, Which subject the impudent ones.

Identity of Minim

The term Minim (species) was used by the Wise ones of Talmud to indicate all kinds of dissidents to orthodoxy pharisienne.

Moïse Maïmonide enumerates in its Mishneh Torah ( Hilkhot Teshouva 3:7) five kinds of Minim, which it defines as:

That which says that there is no God, and that no one does not direct the world
That which says that there is a leader of the world, but which they are two or more
That which says that there is a Master of the world, but equipped with a body and an image
That which says that It is not the Only Prime Minister and Creator of all
That which honors a divinity apart from Him, so that she serf of intermediary between him and the Master of the World.

Maïmonide also teaches (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tefilla 2:1) that the Birkat haMinim was made up against the " apikorsim ", relatively vague term whose direction first is " Jews become heretics by contact with the Philosophy hellène" , but employed indifferently against all kinds of hérétiques
Toutefois, of the manuscripts preserved at the library of Rome and the University of Cambridge (the latter coming from the Guéniza of Cairo and carrying the signature of Maïmonide itself), also carry Minim. The term Minim , included/understood like designating the first Christians, as well in Talmud as in Mishneh Torah, often was censured by the ecclesiastical authorities and was replaced by Sadducéens. For much, Minim are the Christian first .

In its comment on the quoted passage (in the not censured editions), Rachi explains it like referring to the pupils Jesus.
In its History of the Jews , Heinrich Graetz written:
In consequence of their hostility increasing to their old faith, the Judeo-Christians were regarded by the Sanhédrin of Jabné as completely separated from the Judaism; they were declared, from the religious point of view, lower than the Samaritains and, under certain reports/ratios, even than the Nice ones. It was interdict in Judéens to taste of their meat, their bread and their wine, as it had been prohibited to them, little time before the destruction of the temple, to taste food of the pagan ones. The Christian writings were treated like the books of magic, and were struck anathema; it was expressly defended to have relations with the Judeo-Christians, to render service to them, to employ the remedies of which they were useful by pronouncing the name of Jesus to cure the patients. One inserted with their intention in the prayer day laborer a formula of curse against Minéens and the informers. This formula was written, on the order of the Gamaliel patriarch, by Samuel the young person, and accepted the name of Birkat-haminim . It appears to have been used to some extent as test to make recognize those which were secretly attached to the Judeo-Christianity. Indeed, it was decided that the officiant who would pass this formula or the prayer for the restoration of the judaïque State would be constrained to cease his function immediately.

In a Jewish reading of Coran (Berg, 2005), Haï Bar-Zeev brings back a popular etymology of MYN, which would be an acronym of Maaminé Yeshou Nozri , the " Believers as a Jesus Nazoréen".

However, although activates, the sect of the proto-Christians did not constitute yet an important power at the time of Gamliel II, and if they practiced the denouncement, they were far from holding of it the monopoly, Talmud allotting this act to most famous apikorssim of this time, Elisha Ben Avouya.

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