Not long ago I was trying to explain the “Sabbath elevators” in Israel to my Catholic aunt. She just kept looking at me like, “You gotta be sh/£&%g me!” Too bad she doesn’t have a computer, or I’d send her this video. It’s really crazy what observant Jews won’t do on Saturday, and the ingenious ways they invent in order to get around the system.
Which means they either think G-d is a bumpkin, or they just pretend to believe in His Omniscience in reverence to Tradition.
This goes back almost a month, but In the Moment excerpted my essay for Moment Magazine’s “Elephant in the Room” contest. The question was, “What does being Jewish mean without belief in God?” Entries are now closed. If I win, I get an iPad – so pray for me!
“In my Jewish excursions, one thing I never felt comfortable with was God. I disliked newly-learned expressions like ‘Baruch Hashem’ and the socially-driven piety I saw around me every day. (The Jews were behaving just like the Catholics, I thought.) The end came when, at Yom Kippur services one year, they brought out the Torah scrolls and the congregants began kissing them. ‘Idolaters!’ I wanted to scream. I left and never went back.
“Not long after this – and likely as a product of my voracious studying – I concluded I was an atheist. I spent some time thinking about how to reconcile my sense of Jewishness with my rejection of the Jewish God and, eventually, Judaism itself.
“I sometimes hear that a Jewish atheist is an oxymoron. In such cases I like to tell my one of my favorite jokes. A young student reveals to an elderly rabbi that he is an unbeliever. ‘And how long have you been studying Talmud?’ the rabbi asks. ‘Five years.’ ‘Only five years, and you have the nerve to call yourself apikoros!?’ (Apikoros is a rabbinical term for ‘atheist’, from the Greek philosopher Epicurus.)’
“As an atheist, my Jewishness is rooted in a shared historical identity and not belief in a popular idea called ‘God.’ If I thought for a moment that lacking this belief disqualified me as a Jew, I’d have no trouble saying goodbye to Jewishness forever. But I feel no pressure to make this choice. Jews have always been heterodox in their beliefs, despite attempts by zealots to unite them under one banner or another. It’s a bit like herding cats, or atheists.”
Sound like a guide to warfare based on the laws promulgated in the Torah? Well, that’s what it is. Rabbi Shapira explains:
“I think that people who read the plan will realize that what the Torah says is much more sincere than ‘purity of arms’ (IDF’s official doctrine of ethics). I think that calling it ‘purity of arms’ is a disgrace – it’s putting human life in risk.
“The Jews are wise people; they will come to their senses. The conscious and behavioral revolution will take place easily and pleasantly, and I hope we won’t have to experience difficult things for it to happen. We can’t go on acting like we’re acting today, because then the situation of the Jews here will be worse.”
This is a disgrace. “Jews” are not “wise people.” Individuals may have some modicum of wisdom, but no ethnic, national or religious grouping can be “wise.” Rabbi Shapira is a prime example of a Jew who is dangerously unwise, for example.
He doesn’t seem to realize that a “conscious and behavioral revolution” has already taken place in much of the world – and right there in Israel, too. That Israel practices an imperfect form of combat (often the IDF is chided for its “brutality”), yet doesn’t resort to fire-bombing wide swaths of enemy territory in order to cause maximum damage – a practice which would be rather simple given their technology – is itself an improvement over less moral ways of doing war. And it is definitely an improvement on the Torah.
…the rabbi strongly criticized Israel’s legal system and former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. According to Shapira, Barak decided to confront the Torah with all his might…
As well he fucking should have. A supreme court bound by allegiance to the Torah would fast turn Israel into the most backward nation in the Middle East. As a Jew and a liberal Zionist, all I can say is: to hell with the Torah. Fuck it. Throw it in the garbage. Don’t base your life on its teachings, and don’t let it rule your courts of law. If Israel has any advantage over its neighbors, it is to be found in its (rocky) adherence secular principles, not in the factoid that “Jews are wise.”
* h/t Ophelia Benson.
Today is the first day of Passover as well as the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. I’m sure theists of all stripes could have a field day with that.
Atheist Rabbi Jeffrey Falick has an interesting post on his blog. He has written a supplementary account of modern archaeological findings which pretty much contradict the traditional story of the Exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt. It’s written in the style of the Haggadah, the Passover story book. I first came across this thesis in Melvin Konner’s book Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews. Here’s Falick:
For the last twenty years or so the prevailing hypothesis, based on a growing number of corroborating sources, shows that the Israelites came together out of a social upheaval in Canaan. This is because, even without a shred of evidence for a conquest or massive settlement from abroad, they did find substantial growth in the Canaanite highlands in the mid-13th century C.E.
The idea is that the Jewish people were native to Canaan. They didn’t conquer it by divine command or any other way, though this became part of their national mythology over time. And it still is.
This is something I’ve been trying to bring up for years during whatever Jewish holidays I end up celebrating with friends: that the “official” versions are myths based in history. And doesn’t it make for a richer experience when we can ground an implausible escape with consequent wandering for forty years in a desert with (almost) no water in what we can actually know about those events? And the answer I almost always get is this: “Don’t ruin my Passover/Chanukah with your atheism. I like this story.”
Anyway, Hag Pesach Sameach to my Jewish friends!
I have been unofficially appointed “God columnist” for this magazine. Don’t ask me how that happened, because I don’t even believe in it. God, that is. It’s not quite right for me to use gender-specific pronouns when speaking of what, to my mind, doesn’t even exist.
I think my appointment has to do with the fact that I can’t seem to stay away from the subject of religion. Try as I might, I can’t avoid it. It’s everywhere I look. To tell you the truth, I don’t really mind it unless I’m expected to revere it, pay it “respect,” or financially support it in any way other than voluntarily.
Then there are those other itsy-bitsy issues that keep popping up like the National Day of Prayer. Some of my secular friends are bewildered as to why we atheists are upset at something so benign, so negligibly harmless as a government-sponsored prayer day. It may sound silly, but once God gets its foot in the door, all sorts of unsavory things scamper in with the breeze.
I know this because I live in Italy, where the constitution states that all religions are equal, but that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state is governed by the eighty-year old Lateran Pacts. Crucifixes are stuck to the walls of public schools, courtrooms and other buildings. There is even a Catholic religion-hour in school, with teachers handpicked by the Vatican and paid for by the state.
In the eyes of a secularist, this is a bad thing. It means that non-Catholics are put on a separate plane in public life. Where are our symbols, we ask? The answer from the religious apologists is telling, though. No longer are they mouthing off about “truth” and “salvation” in defense of their symbols; now they use more acceptable terminology like “The crucifix is an inseparable part of Italian culture,” or “It is a universal symbol of love.” As some skeptics have pointed out, that is also a working definition of pizza.
But now for my unremarkable loss of faith story. Losses of faith stories are fascinating, don’t you think? They exude an air of epiphany similar to that of religious conversion, at least on the surface. The truth is that I, apparently alone among my countrymen and women, came of age in the United States of America — the most devout developed country on earth — without so much as ever having peeked between the pages of a Bible. In fact, and I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this (but isn’t that what personal anecdotes so gingerly proffer?), but I wasn’t even aware that the Bible was about the Jews.
Of course, I knew I was Jewish. I just had no idea what that meant on a historical scale. Religion was perhaps the only subject — right next to politics — that was never addressed in our home. Years later, my sister would come to regret this omission. But it wasn’t deliberate. Our parents were simply not religious people, and the enlightened suburb of Baltimore we lived in was not Bible-drunk. In many ways it was the archetypal American secular experience.
It wasn’t until I came to Italy that I realized what I had missed. When I met my wife, she had just gone through an idol-smashing of her own, in which she had managed to break through the wall of traditionalist religion that society and her family had built around her. She had become infatuated with Judaism. That’s when I began to read the Bible, because being Jewish suddenly seemed electrifying and special. This was no longer midtown Manhattan.
I read the Bible, or “Tanakh,” as I learned to call it. I felt I needed to grasp Jewishness at its core. As I read, I tried hard to believe what I read. I began — for the first time — to employ expressions like “God willing” and “Thank God.” I tried praying, although I knew no Hebrew. I would mouth the words I read in transliterated Roman characters: “Baruch atah adonai, eloheynu melekh ha-olam…” Over time I began to make some sense of all this newness. I began to think deeply about God, observe a very personalized form of kashrut (the Jewish dietary laws), attend synagogue on holy days and fast on Yom Kippur. This lasted for about three years. Then, as quickly as it began, it ended.
Looking back, I realize I censored myself at every pass. I constructed an ad-hoc reality for myself out of holy books. I wouldn’t even read novels on shabbat because I wished to preserve some of its holiness. No matter that I worked on that day. God didn’t want me to be unemployed, did he? Then who would praise him? I’d stroll home from work, basking in the glow of the dying sunlight, then dutifully search out the first three stars which marked the beginning of the profane week ahead. It wasn’t much of a Sabbath, but I managed to make it feel special. I knew I could feel the presence of the shekhinah, the divine essence, descending on the world each week.
Or maybe it was just the smog at Largo Argentina.
– Published in The American
Corriere della Sera ran a story today on the family whose case went up to the European court in Strasbourg, resulting in a ruling unfavorable to the Vatican, yet quite favorable to all Italian passport-holders.
Sami, whose parents are at the helm of the controversy, told the Italian daily that at one point during the proceedings (which began in 2002 – seven years ago!) he was surrounded by his classmates and beaten up to the tune of “Atheist piece of s*%t!” Mighty Christian of them, eh?
So much for those “universal values” of Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. The crucifix, even at the scholasic level, encourages irrepressible division between Catholic students and those who don’t wish to see a crucified Jesus every time they turn their heads in class. Archbishop Bertone made a hilarious comment that the EU was going to take away Italy’s dearest symbols (crucifix) and replace them with Halloween pumpkins. To appreciate Bertone’s sense of humor, it’s worth noting that Halloween is not a recognized holiday by the Catholic church. It’s even considered spooky.
If they refuse to take down the crosses, I think we should begin a campaign to put up mezuzahs on every doorpost in every public structure in Italy. It’s only fair, after all, as the Jewish people have been here since before Jesus was, well…circumcised.
A few thoughts from a thoughtful reader (I’ve regularized some of the punctuation and uncapitalized the “A” in Atheist for obvious reasons):
Halacha, Jewish religious law, is the only thing that determines Jewish identity. And the issue is very clear indeed, and always has been. The Tanakh tells us that a Jew who adopts any other faith, is an ex-Jew. An Apostate. Now this does not – as in Islam – necessitate nor involve negativity towards this ex Jew. Not at all. But it’s just a statement of fact: a Jew who becomes a Christian = a Christian, just as a Jew who becomes a Muslim = a Muslim.
As for atheism:
Rabbis and Halacha are very clear on this too. Atheism doesn’t involve embracing another, conflicting faith. An atheist Jew, is simply a non practising Jew. Simple as that. Or, if the person prefers not to identity as Jewish, then the atheist is, well, an atheist, who was born into Judaism but has now left. But according to halacha, the atheist is still part of the Jewish family whereas the ex Jew turned Christian, or ex-Jew turned Muslim, is not.
Historically, Jews that converted to other faiths, and then later wished to return to Judaism, had to formally “convert” back to Judaism. I’m slightly concerned that your poll gives the impression that popular opinion can determine who is and is not Jewish. It can’t.
Also, as I’m sure you know, there is a specific Christian Evangelical movement, whose members were never Jews to start with, yet who pose fraudulently as ‘messianic Jews’ and who knowingly lie and misrepresent Judaism and Jews. This group provokes a lot of conflict between Jews and Christians.
For my part, I tend to be skeptical when any debate over Jewish identity is resolved by invoking the overriding authority of halakha. That’s part of what got us into this mess in the first place, and since non-Orthodox Jews are the majority these days (and the source of all that Jewish pride we feel when we talk about Spinoza, Freud, Einstein and Mel Brooks) I think we should have some say in the matter.
There are no easy answers. Nothing is “simple as that” about Jewish identity. Invoking the Tanakh–a collection of ancient Jewish literature otherwise known as the Hebrew Bible–as the fount of all wisdom on matters of personal or collective cultural identity is a push in the wrong direction. We all seem to agree that non-observant Jews are nonetheless Jews, and this fact alone proves the weakness of this argument.
I’m tempted to say that all of this is a matter of opinion. That we celebrate Spinoza (who was given a hearty herem, or rabbinic excommunication, for heresy from Europe’s most liberal and enlightened Jewish community) as one of our greatest sons only points to the fallability of halakhic law. It is malleable, elastic even, and all it takes is a shift in the way we think about ourselves to tame the once mighty voice of the the Law. God, in the end, is as subject to shifting cultural sands as the marketplace.
From a non-theistic point of view, this all borders on silliness. We know that the Bible was written by men (and likely even women) and believe that there is no supernatural authority whose word is eternal and unchanging. If there were, where is such a word to be found? The Talmud itself would be heretical as it meddles with the Torah on almost every page, adding and subtracting according to the wisdom and convention of the day. Wouldn’t the Torah itself have been enough without the addenda of the prophetic and hagoigraphic books that round out the Tanakh? I hope this brief gloss will suffice to convince the reader that there is nothing simple or clear-cut about Jewish identity.
The poll I posted (Are Jews Who Believe in Jesus Still Jews?) seeks opinions to what is one of the taboos of mainstream Jewish discourse. It does not seek irrefutable answers. Why can a Jew be a Buddhist and not a Christian? Perhaps there is something “conflicting” is the idea of a Jewish-Christian, though the earliest Christians were without exception Jews. So, clearly, this is another cultural-historical construct with no guidelines grounded in religious absolutism. Such is the nature of cultural identity.
We know there are Jews who have embraced Christianity throughout history for various reasons, ranging from personal belief to the threat of death. We also live in a society in which religious and cultural identities are a smorgasbord. There may indeed be excellent reasons why a modern Jew cannot believe in Jesus Christ and still be considered a Jew by fellow Jews (and I believe there are) but let’s not defer our reasoning to the divine think tank to understand why this is so.
This is the topic of much debate when Jews decide they don’t believe in God. Can’t Jews be atheists, non-theists or anti-theists? Is there a discriminatory principle according to which Jews cannot not believe in a supernatural power, just like Jews once could not own property or hold certain jobs? Don’t Jews have absolute liberty of thought like everyone else?
Most people would say yes, of course they do, but once they stop believing in God (if they ever did) they thereby stop being Jews. Baloney. Here’s an example of what I’m trying to convey:
I’m on vacation in Virginia, where I went to college. Whenever I’m in the States I watch a good amount of television in order to tap back into the lifeblood of my countrymen and women. My sister’s television has six-hundred channels, and when I get tired of giggling at Fox News and ogling the Food Network I go channel surfing until I hit the Good News stations. Every evening I watch as faith healers knock down their congregations in the spirit of Jesus, heal blindness, exorcise demons and rearrange human bones in living bodies–all on television. Of course, I don’t believe a word of it, and neither should you. Tonight I even heard a preacher tell the devil to leave his congregation’s bank accounts alone. No shit. This is unbelievable stuff–not the least bit supernatural, but still kind of incredible.
There’s even a Jewish life channel (called, imaginatively, Jewish Life). By the above-stated rule that Jews are defined by their belief in a supernatural God (curiously, not the same one that defines Christians and Muslims), one would expect Jewish Life to be full of programs about Hasidism, Kabbalah, Talmud-Torah, or whatever might interest Jewish believers. Well, tonight I jotted down what they broadcasted in the three-or-so hours I was watching while flipping back and forth between the televangelists. Here’s what I saw: a concert clip by Israeli singer Shlomo Artzi, a documentary on Birobidzhan, an endorsement for a Jewish outreach network, and some arbitrary footage of Israeli life: windsurfing on Lake Kinneret, Tel Aviv by night, Masada and people walking, praying and looking generally suspicious in Jerusalem. Add to this last night’s documentary on the Exodus (the ship, not the book), and so far not a measly mention of the man upstairs on an entirely Jewish television network.
I don’t wish to make prophecies. I don’t know if the Jewish people can survive the next three-thousand years if they were all miraculously to go secular. Then again, I don’t know if any of us will survive that long. I doubt such a scenario is possible–though it may be desirable. I am making a case in the here and now for the Jews as a people with a very complex historical identity, of which the Jewish religion plays a significant–but not dominant–role.
You don’t need God to be Jewish.
Allow me to repeat what the Bu-Jews I know tell me (there are a startling number of them): “You cannot be a Buddhist.” Apparently, Buddhism is not a faith, but more like a non-faith. (Non-) Buddhists out there, please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
I think it is this “non-faith” factor that accounts for its compatibility with Jewishness in a way that, say, Christianity is incompatible. It’s one or the other.
The Tanakh is explicit about Jews messing with other religious ideas, most likely because Jews in those days were often messing with them. Otherwise the pronouncements against Ba’al and other minor deities lose their sense. Here’s a choice prohibition, (almost) randomly stumbled upon:
Leviticus 19.19 (קדשים): Do not turn to idols or make molten gods for yourself. I the Lord am your God.
Roger Kamenetz wrote a book called The Jew in the Lotus, about his experiences of cross-pollination. It’s a book I’ve wanted to read for some time. Sooner or later I’ll get to it.
My point, if I have one, is that Jewishness is to some extent separable from Judaism. Of course, they are linked in inseparable ways, which it has been the job of modern secular Jewish culture to discover. How far can you stray before you’re no longer Jewish? Without a formal negation, an outright refusal, a trashing of Jewish identity in all its forms (and even then, there is good reason to believe one is still Jewish), it’s a tough call. And yet, we are the ever-dying people–presumably because so many of us get interested in extending our Jewishness to include forbidden territory.
The great debate is: who will win out in the end? The fact that the future of the Jews is seen as a competition between “traditionalist” and “humanistic” should tell us all something about the nature of the problem. If there is a problem. Once it was assumed that, to be Jewish, you needed to believe in the Jewish God. That is no longer the case. Even Jewish atheism is just another galaxy spinning around in the ever-widening universe of Jewishness.
You can be good without God.
Being Jewish is odd at times. For instance, one can be a BuJew (Buddhist-Jew), but a Jew for Jesus is out. Once there were Muslim Jews, but they were anomalous and eventually absorbed by Islam. The first Christians were all Jews, but then there was the decisive split and they went their separate ways.
But can one be a Muslim Christian, or a Hindu Muslim? I think as far as Abrahamic faiths go, at least, you can’t be two things at once. How about a Jewish-Christian-Muslim? “Y’know, I think they all had it right!” What a felicitous thought.
One factor that appears unique to Jewishness is the Jews-as-a-people/ Jews-as-a-faith paradigm. This is confusing not least of all to Jews. I don’t believe in YHWH, God, or supernatural authority in any guise, yet I am still Jewish. I find no contradiction there, though perhaps if all Jews were atheists Jews would eventually disappear. But one cannot force oneself to believe what one doesn’t believe simply because it may be a “historically conscious” choice. What to do?
Each must in the end follow his or her own conscience. The memes will take care of the rest.
Marc Di Martino 