Humanistic Jews Were Here First

The other day I got a call from a woman who wanted to know more about my congregation’s Rosh Hashana services (she correctly heard that they are free).  She was taken aback, though, when I explained what Humanistic Judaism is.  Unfortunately, the absence of prayers (we have no one to pray to) was too much for her.  Like many American Jews, she finds the idea that one can be a Jew and yet not pray to god incomprehensible (since I grew up in the Soviet Union, the idea has been very familiar to me—I didn’t know a single Jew who prayed).

It is particularly sad that most American Jews still view belief in the biblical god an essential requirement for being counted as one of the chosen people in view of recent research that seems to show that many of the first Jews to live in the new world were freethinkers, at best (or, perhaps, at worst) believing in the god of Spinoza. In fact, this is how Inquisition advised the faithful to determine who was Jewish in the New World:

If a person claims that there is no more to life than being born and dying, he is a Jew; if he says that there is no Heaven for those who are good, or Hell for those who are evil, he is a Jew; and one who declares that fornication is not a mortal sin is a Jew.

For more insight, please visit this web site.