|
An inquirer wrote that he did not understand Secular Humanistic Judaism,
what we believe, or why we have temples, services, seders, etc. This is an
attempt at an answer.
Jews and Judaism have probably survived for these thousands of
years because of an ability to adapt to changing circumstances. There has never
been a time when "one size fit all" and there weren't differing approaches. In
today's world, greater knowledge about the world, greater freedom of choice, and
emphasis on individuality have produced an unprecedented array of ways to
celebrate Jewish heritage. The nineteenth century introduced the choices of
Reform, Orthodox and then Conservative; but today, in addition to those three,
one can find congregations organized around either "traditional" or "modern"
Orthodoxy, Chasidic, Sephardic, Jewish Renewal, Humanistic, and even a new
movement for Crypto-Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity, but
they retained some awareness of their Jewish past and now they are trying to
recapture that connection. There may also be congregations that aren't
affiliated with any denomination or movement, experimenting with ceremony and
liturgy, forms of observance and basic beliefs, to find what is meaningful to
them. It's a rich feast, a variety of ways of doing Judaism to satisfy a
variety of people who find meaning in different ways of expressing their Jewishness. We celebrate this phenomenon as a sign of a vital, living and
growing religion or culture that invites engagement in its practice, rather than
an unquestioning, rote, and uninvolved acceptance of one way of doing or
believing.
Israeli secular Humanistic Rabbi Sivan Maas, center, with (from left) Rhea Seagull of the Jewish
Cultural School and Society of West Orange, NJ; Cary Shaw of CHJ Fairfield
County, Renee Fields of the Center
for Cultural Judaism and The City Congregation (NYC), Cecil Feldman of the
Westchester Community for Humanistic Judaism (WCHJ), Bennett Muraskin also of JCSS
NJ, and Ed Klein, of the Queens Community for Cultural Judaism.
The photo was taken at the Center
for Cultural Judaism, which was the host of the event featuring Rabbi Maas.
Only Humanistic or Secular Judaism (in its two North American varieties) does
not use this kind of language in the liturgy for our ceremonies and
celebrations. We recognize and acknowledge that there is no independently
verifiable way of proving or disproving the existence of God. But we look at
human history and see no evidence of an intervening supernatural being who is
kind, loving or just-or otherwise. That kind of god would be one with whom
people interact and
form a personal relationship, one whom they can praise and pray to, and who may
respond, one who is concerned with the fates of individuals or of humanity as a
whole. We see a world in which natural laws produce natural events that are
indifferent to the human agenda. Cruel people
do cruel things and good people do good things. A god does not decide to kill
thousands with an earthquake or to afflict some individuals with fatal diseases
or accidents, or to reward some nation with victory in war, or to comfort the
afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Therefore, we do not make any statements which assume the existence OR the
non-existence of a god, while being pretty clear that, if there is a
supernatural power, it's not something that intervenes in human affairs. (Many
of the founding fathers of America were deists, holding
this kind of god-view. Rabbi Harold Kushner says essentially the same thing in
his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And he's a Conservative
rabbi.) It may be that we differ more in our language than in our beliefs!
We are careful to use language that reflects things upon which we can all agree,
whether we're deists, agnostics or atheists. That language deals with ideals
for human behavior, the values we think of as "Jewish" (although they were
pronounced by the ancient Greeks and we share them
with most of the Western world), and appreciation of Jewish history and
culture-along with a dash of universalism to offset being too chauvinistic or
self-absorbed, to the exclusion of the rest of our fellow humans. We respect
the rights of individuals to their personal beliefs, and so do not use language
in our rituals which would put anyone in the position of saying something that
he or she doesn't believe. And some of us see human language, human intellect
and human
imagination as too limited to grasp the concept of what is ineffable and
infinite, and that therefore any god-language composed by humans only serves to
diminish such a concept.
Thus, we are able to provide a valuable service to the Jewish community: there
are many unaffiliated Jews who have avoided joining congregations, and even have
avoided their Jewish identities, because they're uncomfortable with the worship
services that have been
available. They may be glad to find a place within Humanistic Judaism, where
their Jewish identity is reinforced and that of their children is fostered,
through joyous celebrations of Judaism in a manner they find believable and
meaningful. Humanistic Judaism doesn't appeal to all
Jews, certainly, but it is the ONLY viable alternative for some of us, who would
otherwise be Unitarians or pagans. Humanistic Judaism is thus a good addition
to the "Baskin & Robbins" of modern Jewish life, offering another flavor that
attracts more Jews. We also welcome
without reservation non-Jews who are married to Jews, partners of Jews, or who
choose Judaism.
Some inquirers ask why Humanistic Judaism has services, temples,
Seders, High Holidays observances, B'nai Mitzvot, etc. The short answer is that
we have and do these things because we are Jewish congregations. A second answer is that,
stripped of theology, a functional definition of religion is that it performs
several important roles: enunciating and reinforcing ethical values, providing a
close community, celebrating life cycle events,
offering occasions that are inspiring or inspirational (some would say
spiritual), satisfying affective as well as cognitive needs, giving us a sense
of roots in a culture, and imparting all of these things to our children.
Humanistic Judaism fulfills these functions. (The remaining function is
worship, which we don't do, although we certainly have reverence and
appreciation for those things in the temporal world that are worthy of such.)
Holidays in different religions almost always have their origins in practices
that pre-dated the religion and became attached to it through the adoption of
legends that were created by and pertain to that religion. Obviously this is
true of the seasonal holidays; early man marked the changing seasons that were
of utmost importance to survival in the primitive world. Christians turned them
into Christmas and Easter, Jews adopted celebrations of Hanukkah, Passover and
Sukkot, as well as the High Holidays. So we have two reasons for celebrating
such holidays. At Passover, for instance, we can celebrate the arrival of
spring/deliverance from winter, and we can celebrate many kinds of journeys from
"narrow places' to greater degrees of freedom, using the Exodus legend as a
model for all of those journeys-which legend also forms a bond between Jews of
many stripes as we all celebrate this Jewish holiday. Pesach for us celebrates
the human courage and responsibility that moves us from our own bigotry or
dependency, and by which we resist and escape political persecution, social
stigmatization or oppression such as sexism, racism,
ageism and homophobia.
To connect us to our Jewish roots, our Seder may have the children chanting the Ma Nishtana, finding the afikomen, and opening the door for Elijah.
In our Haggadot there may be questions and answers for four types of children, although not the old
stereotypes of wicked, etc. and not the same answers. We may sing
"Eliyahu Hanevi" and "Dayenu" (it would be sufficient if the world were at
peace, there were no hunger, etc.). And there is much more that has meaning for
our lives today. Not to mention knaidlach, gefilte fish and charoset!
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are clearly occasions which prompt us to examine
our motives and behavior with a desire to improve them and be better people. We
don't use the metaphor of a divine judgment that will inscribe us-or not-in a
Book of Life, depending on whether our
repentance is good enough. WE are responsible. It is incumbent upon on us to
live rightly, because life is better that way, not because we were commanded to
act in certain ways, or fear punishment. Here again, we find the tradition
meaningful and important to our Jewish "neshama," and we often have lovely, inspiring
ceremonies with a cantor, a shofar, the Kol Nidrei, and non-theistic adaptations
of many blessings and songs. We recite a Sh'ma (Hear, O Israel, our people is
one, all humanity is one). We have a non-theistic kaddish, praising life and
honoring our deceased. We light Shabbat candles with a humanistic b'rukha
(Blessed is the light of the world, blessed is the light of humanity, blessed is
the light of peace, blessed is the light of Shabbat).
In short, we honor and appreciate Judaism and its traditions, while not being
bound by those traditions to saying things we don't believe. We want to believe
fully in what we do say. We respect the right of other Jews to practice their
Judaism in ways that are fulfilling to them, and
we expect the same consideration from others. We certainly don't have to agree
with each other, but we want others to understand where we're coming from. The
Jewish world can't afford to exclude those who aren't regarded as "kosher" in
some quarters!
Jane Goldhamer
Jane Goldhamer is a key figure in Kol Shalom Community for Humanistic
Judaism, Oregon, and the Humanistic Jewish movement generally.
|
