I was grieving the death of a family member in 2005. A close friend, who sat with my family and me throughout the traditional Jewish week of mourning, suggested that my faith was sustaining me amid my sorrow.
I nodded and thought, “Yes, but not the faith you mean.”
My friend and I and our families belonged to the same Reform Jewish congregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Like my friend, some of the congregants, maybe most, believed in God.
I didn’t, and still don’t, believe in the existence of God. I attended synagogue not so much to pray as to gather with my community, learn about Jewish history and culture, and nosh on post-worship pastry.
My faith, if you want to call it that, was in my family, friends, and community. I trusted them to support me – especially during my grief – with their presence, kindness, and love. I hope that they likewise trusted me.
In those years, I worked for a series of Jewish non-profit organizations – pursuits that on a good day some might have called God’s work, but which I saw as trying to do my bit for the community and, frankly, earning a living.
I didn’t realize it then, but I was an adherent of Secular Humanistic Judaism, a movement born in the mid-1960s to practice Judaism “independent of a supernatural authority,” as the US-based Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ) puts it.
Many folks understandably wonder, as I once did, how Judaism, the first of the so-called three great monotheistic religions, can be viable without God. No doubt many Jews reject the notion.
To paraphrase the SHJ, Secular Humanistic Judaism brings “Jewish meaning and culture” to “a human-centred philosophy of life,” meaning that people are “responsible for themselves and their behavior.”
Secular Humanistic Jews approach Judaism not as a belief system, but “as the historical and cultural experience of the Jewish people.” Jewish identity is a result “of ancestry or choice,” which is also true in the other, larger branches of Judaism, though the criteria may differ for ancestry and Jewish conversion.
In most branches of Judaism, the liturgy and many of the gatherings are God-focused. Secular Humanistic Jewish “celebrations, ceremonies, and commemorations use human-centred, non-theistic language” and explore humanistic themes, explains SHJ.
For example, like all branches of Judaism, Secular Humanistic Judaism finds joy in the coming holiday of Purim (March 6-7 this year), which celebrates the exiled Jews’ quashing of a genocidal plot by the Persian vizier Haman in the 5thCentury BCE.
In telling the Purim story, the biblical Scroll of Esther never mentions God. Traditionally observant Jews see God at work in the background. Secular Humanistic Jews emphasize the heroism of Purim’s Jewish protagonists, Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai.
As for liturgical language, many traditional Jewish blessings begin, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe...” in Hebrew or the vernacular. The Secular Humanistic Jewish blessings spotlight our culture, as in: “We rejoice in our heritage, which inspires us with the tradition of...”
Secular Humanistic Judaism even recasts the Jewish prayer in memory of the dead. The traditional “Mourner’s Kaddish” sanctifies “God’s great name throughout the world” and asks God to “create peace for us and for all Israel.” SHJ’s “Humanistic Kaddish,” written by movement founder Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, resolves, “Let us work to create peace here on earth for all people.”
I wish I had known the “Humanistic Kaddish” when I needed it in 2005. It’s the version of the prayer I’ll bring with me as, like Jews across the continuum, I seek to practice what I believe.
Andrew Muchin is a member of the Victoria Jewish Culture Project and host of the weekly radio show “Sounds Jewish” on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Radio-J.com. He may be reached at [email protected].
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking at https://www.timescolonist.com/blogs/spiritually-speaking
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on Saturday, February 25th 2023
