Home › Forums › Controversial Topics › What percentage of off the derech kids/teens/adults return to Yiddishkeit? › Reply To: What percentage of off the derech kids/teens/adults return to Yiddishkeit?
If someone shmadded to Christianity then the European governments put him under the Church authority and wouldn’t allow the Jewish authorities jurisdiction over him. But if he simply became “frei” or secular, as you put it, then the Beis Din still retained full jurisdiction over him and could apply their full set of punishments over him.
But this is aside from the point. In halachic reality Beis Din retains authority bzman hazeh even over a meshumad. Unfortunately in golus the goyim didn’t allow us to assert it over a meshumad. But until the enlightenment period they didn’t prevent us from asserting it over almost any other Jew. And we exercised that authority. And would today, too, if the goyim didn’t interfere with our ability.