The art to staying sane in a crazy world is the ability to realize that we humans cannot excise ourselves of undesired traits, but rather must learn to live with them and use them in a way that edifies life. This takes non-judgemental self-awareness, and the same in our awareness of life around us. Both atheism and theism, in attempts by each to excise the other, can cause as much harm as any perceived good within society. Just as it does immense harm to an individual to damage one hemisphere of the brain, the place of mind – whether the creative side or the rational side, rendering this human now incomplete.
In the same manner, it is a mistake to try to excise from Judaism, our ethno-religious community, creative theism or, its opposite, rational atheism. The “G-d” of our ANE inherited literature is as much a corporeal being in our literary minds, as this same “G-d” is an enigma – an enigma, that truly exists only in a tense of future actions to be unfolding. As our literature says that we are in “G-d’s” image, so it is that “G-d” is a creation in our image – both human and god imagined and redacted onto scrolls together. A god not necessarily to be worshipped, but reflected deeply upon in our desire to realize our fullest ethical humanity as a people.
This Jewish idea of a transcended King-god is the literary divine hero of our inherited ANE literatures. A conflicted literary god that cannot be idolized down into a precise and defined supernatural entity. Supernatural is really the wrong word to be using – it is a post-Greek influence upon how we read our literature – for the YHWH Elohim of our ancestral literature is as physical in our stories as the universe we perceive around us.
The very first story in our, for many Jews, sacred literature posits the belief that the unformed material universe co-existed beyond time with our literary “G-d,” until this god created light with no source for its existence within the enveloping darkness, and formed this chaotic matter into human recognizable shapes with accompanying time – all for the singular purpose to eventually be the ruler of a land and its vassal property, Israel-Judea and the Jewish people. Jewish identity – whether atheistic/humanistic secular or deistic/theistic religious – is based on a belief in the necessity of a national unity of people. A people as conflicted, even today, as the god image we created within our literary national myths. But, this is where we find our greatest strength as a people, our greatest resilience and ability to adapt through the ages. Judaism is a civil-religious community that must not excise it’s varied parts, lest we weaken our chances to fulfill our own set upon eschatology of the survival of the people, the Jewish people.
For further thought on this, and why many of us secular/atheist Jews still wrestle with and embrace halakha that is still appropriate in our age, please listen to the words of יהדות חילונית / Secular Judaism from the תמורה הומניסטית ביהדות / Tmura Humanistit b’Yahadut web site in Israel:
בצד אמונות אתאיסטיות-הומניסטיות, קיימות אמונות אתאיסטיות שהן אנטי הומניסטיות, כשם שקיימות אמונות דתיות הומניסטיות לצד דתיות אנטי הומניסטיות.
רבים מהמאמינים היהודים באתאיזם או באגנוסטיות, ממשיכים לקיים חלק ממצוות ההלכה, ללא הצדקה הגיונית או מוסרית אלא מתוך כבוד למסורת ואמונה בכוחה לאחד את העם.
כל המעשים האלה אינם עומדים בניגוד לאמונותיהם האתאיסטיות-הומניסטיות, כל עוד הם גורמים להם סיפוק ואינם מזיקים לזולת.
“Alongside atheist-humanist beliefs, there are atheistic beliefs that are anti-humanist, just as there are humanist religious beliefs alongside anti-humanist religiosity.
Many of the Jewish believers in atheism or agnosticism, continue to observe some of the commandments of Halacha – without logical or moral justification for it, but out of respect for tradition and belief in the power to unite the people.
All these acts do not stand in opposition to their atheistic-humanist beliefs, as long as these religious behaviors cause them satisfaction and do not harm others.”
– https://www.israeli-judaism.org.il/blank-8
“”For the secular there is no sovereign. The contradictions in his life have no logic, he has no God, and no one in whom to put his faith. Everything rests upon him, in all of his humility: upon him and upon his shoulders, always, even when he lays down to rest… There are many Orthodox, and even more non-religious, but the true seculars are few. Their own compliance demands too much. The courage to see and the strength to carry the responsibility” (S. Izhar, The Strength to be Secular)
I am not referring to the “non-religious” secularist who prefers not to take responsibility for his legacy and culture, choosing to leave this to the Jewish representatives who perform his ceremonies, educate his children and occasionally provide guidance in times of distress. I am also not speaking of the alienated secular Jew, who wants nothing to do with Judaism and would prefer that the Jewish state not display any Jewish symbols and for Israel’s public schools to minimize their Jewish curriculum as much as possible. There is no bravery in these choices, only resistance and submission. The courage to be secular is embodied by the secularist with the courage to take responsibility and to see themselves as a leader of Jewish culture.”
– Nir Braudo, BINA Faculty, No Miracle Befell Us – Hanukkah and the Courage to be Secular
– https://www.bina.org.il/english_articles/no-miracle-befell-us-hanukkah-and-the-courage-to-be-secular/
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