The Atheist Rabbi

Republican Roundup: Santorum, Kennedy, Romney & Posthumous Conversions

2012-03-01T13:19:00.000-05:00

J.J. Goldberg, frequently one of the most sane voices in American Jewish journalism, has a very interesting post about Santorum and his negative effect on the Republican brand name. Basically a historical review of Jewish support for Democrats, Goldberg points out that, while never a majority, Jewish support for Republicans has seen better days and that a strong showing for Santorum will cause further alienation. I think he’s right about that. Santorum’s comments about wanting to “throw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s famous speech about separating church and state will do nothing to help him with his Jewish problem.

My own Republican informants tell me that most of the GOP’s Jews are for Romney, in part because of his higher mainstream appeal. Others, namely Orthodox Jews, are backing Santorum and Gingrich. But Orthodox Jews count for a tiny percentage of Republicans and fewer than ten percent of American Jews. So, Sheldon Adelson notwithstanding, most Republican Jews back Romney and expect him to win.

Politics being politics, Romney’s opponents from within and without are now seizing on anything to tarnish him in the eyes of the Jewish community. With news that Mormons are still baptizing Holocaust victims, they may have found their hook. Plenty of people have contacted me about my feelings about this and the fact that Romney once participated in similar rituals.

If you don’t know the whole history of this Mormon practice, Jeff Jacoby provides a good survey in the Boston Globe. I must say that I agree with his conclusions.

Frankly, as a secular humanist I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their own churches, mosques, synagogues or temples. They can perform rain dances, play with snakes or convert my dead grandparents to Mormonism. Their rituals are meaningless to me. It’s what they do to living people that interests me.

I oppose Romney and all of the others in this clown car of a GOP campaign not because of what they believe about dead people, but because of how they treat the living.

Is Romney’s religion an issue? Well every Republican in the race has made his faith an issue so it’s an issue. Where it affects their ideas for how to lead America it matters very much. But what they believe about magic wafers or magic underwear doesn’t mean a thing to me.

If we’re going to start staging contests about strange religious beliefs and rituals then we are never going to talk about anything else.

Sex

2012-02-24T15:01:00.006-05:00

All of the recent discussion by Christian theocratic types about contraception should serve as a reminder that these people are absolutely sex-obsessed, and not in a good way. While not every Christian is as psychologically tormented as Rick Santorum, conservative Christians and most of our society still cling to some very unhealthy hang-ups about the whole subject.

My own hesitancy to write about sex and sexuality (beyond political defenses of homosexuality) stems from the same kind of inhibitions. Like many people who express opinions on a range of topics, I seem to always shy away from that one. But that was all before I read “Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

Drawing upon hundreds of pieces of evidence ranging from sociological analyses to evolutionary biology, the authors explore our sexual heritage over time. What becomes very clear is that the sexual mores of our world are neither universal nor biologically inherited. They developed over time and, I would submit, are largely products of the agricultural revolution.

Most researchers do not buy into this. They persist in looking at how things are now in the western world to provide their conceptual model. The standard narrative of human sexuality views men as inherently tending toward polygamy and women to monogamy. Or as the authors describe it on their website:

Mainstream science—as well as religious and cultural institutions—has long maintained that men and women evolved in nuclear families where a man’s possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman’s fertility and fidelity.

The authors dismantle this approach. And while much of their evidence comes from academic research, some of it simply references what any normal person knows to be true. For example, one of their pieces of evidence is drawn from a simple survey of pornography. (I assume that if you are on the internet, you might have been exposed to some pornography in your life.) Like any business, it reflects its consumers. The authors ask why, if men evolved to be so "worried" about paternity, there are so many adult movies that feature multiple men with one woman and so few with depictions that go the other way around? Why would men find that stimulating if they have a built-in aversion to it? (Hint: It’s called sperm competition.) This is just one of the sacred cows that the authors skewer.

One of the main components of their thesis is that pre-modern humans, much like bonobos, “lived in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and often, sexual partners.” If you know anything about bonobos, you know that sexual activities fill a lot of their time. They use sex for social bonding. And so do we. This idea, by the way, also contributes to their reasoning for the evolutionary survival of homosexuality and bisexuality.

The book does not make an argument for or against monogamy or any other modern arrangement. It does, however, ground them in their proper place as cultural inventions, not a product of biological evolution. And this has profound implications for our definitions of sexual ethics.

Humanists have an obligation to take on this subject in a serious and meaningful way. We must be the ones who ask these questions outside of the theological, spiritual context in which they are usually framed.

Should people be monogamous? Are there better definitions of what it means for a couple to remain faithful? What, if any, are the red lines and who decides? How should humanists relate to the sex industry? To “kinky” lifestyles?

In recent years many people have been attracted to the “sex-positive” movement. While this is a laudable attempt to de-stigmatize human sexuality, it is also fraught with all kinds of silliness (see the provocative article by Chris Hall in “SF Weekly,” “Why Sex Is Not Spiritual”).

Secular humanism, as an all-encompassing life-stance, must be willing to take on these issues. And without sufficient information we will not be able to offer suggestions that make sense.

I will try to address some of these issues on this blog, particularly those that involve ethical sexual behavior. And for anyone who is curious about the real history of human sexuality, I highly recommend the Ryan-Jetha book.

Haters: Same Sex Marriage Is "Fake Marriage"

2012-02-24T14:02:00.001-05:00

Over at the Family Research Council, bastion of theologically grounded hatred, Tony Perkins has launched a new campaign against “fake marriage,” better known to sane people as same sex marriage.

I’m not going to embed or link the video because the slime might leak onto this site and it’s expensive to clean up. Their argument is threefold:

If same-sex “marriage” is legalized, sex-ed classes from K-12 will be required to teach that same-sex relationships are virtuous, and that anyone who disagrees "such as parents or pastors" are bigots.

This from an organization that warmly embraces Newt Gingrich. Here’s number two:

If same-sex marriage is imposed nationally, church facilities, family ministries, Christian officials "like county clerks and justices of the peace" and Christian-run wedding businesses and more will be pressured to compromise their views or face crushing legal consequences.

Oh my goodness! They’re going to feel “pressured” to act like human beings. In truth I don’t give a damn if some Christian wedding planner is uninterested in my business. I’m happy to go elsewhere. As for the county clerks and justices of the peace, perhaps they should go into another line of work if they can’t treat the entire public with equality. I seem to recall a recent case where a justice of the peace refused to perform an “interracial” marriage, too. Number three:

Decades of social science research shows that same-sex relationships do not have the same level of commitment as traditional marriages. Promiscuity, mental and physical health problems, and other turmoil in same-sex relationships vastly exceed that of heterosexual relationships. That is not message of hate, as homosexual activists claim. Ours is a message of fact-based, loving concern for all, including those trapped in homosexuality.

The mental health problems supposedly caused by homosexuality are actually caused by homophobia. Their message is fact-free and hatred filled. It is, however, consistent with their primitive theology.

When I was a kid I was taught that this was the land of the free. So why did I have to go to Canada to get married?

Not So Fast There, Mr. Neutrino

2012-02-23T15:57:00.000-05:00

Back in September the science world was quite excited when researchers at CERN announced the discovery of a faster-than-light neutrino.

One thing that I do know about the scientific enterprise is that no matter how much an idea may be revered, it is always subject to revision by new evidence. So I was very excited to hear about the little neutrino that could. Unfortunately, we have now been told that it couldn’t:

...according to the [CERN] receivers, the neutrinos did go faster — not by much, just by 60 nanoseconds, or .0025% of the time it would have taken a light beam to make the trip. But being a little faster than light is like being a little dead; even a tiny bit changes everything. In this case, what the experiment would have changed is the very foundation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which is itself the foundation of more than a century of physics, and fundamental to our entire understanding of the universe. So people were concerned.

The culprit was a loose cable. The special theory of relativity is safe for now.

Yet even as I read about this, I couldn’t help but compare the scientific process to the theological one. In science nothing is sacred. If an experiment overturns a time-honored principle, so be it. But just as crucially, no experiment or observation can establish or overturn anything, no matter how cool, until the results are replicated.

With religion, the opposite is true. You can present all kinds of empirical evidence, but if a time-honored principle is contradicted, good luck getting it reversed. In fact, the more that the new evidence is reinforced, the deeper the theologians dig in. And if they were ever to discover that the evidence that contradicted their beloved idea was just the result of a loose cable, you can bet that loose cable would be viewed as the work of Satan. I'm looking at you, Rick Santorum.

Visit Coin Laundry - Even If You Already Own A Washing Machine

2012-02-22T15:39:00.003-05:00

Coin Laundry is a new blog that I have recommended in the past. One of the things that I enjoy about it is that it comes from a lay person’s perspective and yet hits the nail squarely on the head. Plus she seems to find a lot of very interesting things to write about that I somehow miss.

As an active member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, I more than appreciate her advocacy for that point of view. Check out her post about whether Secular Humanistic Judaism is really Judaism. Like me - and I believe few others in our small movement - she is surrounded by Orthodox Jewish family and acquaintances. This provides her with a strong basis for contrasting and comparing.

Since this post is nothing more than an unabashed effort to promote her blog, I’ll close with this great TED video that she found and posted. In it, philosopher Alain de Botton speaks about what atheists can learn from religion which is also the subject of his new book, “Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion”

Buses On Shabbat? Haredim Serving In The IDF? Perish The Thought!

2012-02-22T14:22:00.001-05:00

There have been two interesting developments in the battle of religion versus secular society in Israel. One is of monumental importance, the other is minor. First the minor story.

You may have heard about the Tel Aviv city council’s decision to begin limited public transportation on Shabbat. As they say in New York, fuhgeddaboudit. It’s not going to happen because the municipality, as it is fully aware, has no power to authorize it. Only the national government can do it and it won’t. From Haaretz:

In all probability, the decision will reach the desk of Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who will not authorize the use of public buses on Shabbat; possibly Katz will refer the matter to the cabinet. The disposition of the Netanyahu on the government on the issue is not open to doubt − the buses are likely to remain in their garages.

Personally, I like the atmosphere in Tel Aviv on Shabbat. It’s quieter than most days. Kind of like Sunday in Manhattan.

But that doesn’t mean that the buses shouldn’t run. Why should private cars be the only means for people to get to the beach or places of entertainment. Plenty of people would dump their cars if they could get to the clubs and beaches some other way. Drunk driving would be reduced. Traffic would be calmer.

Religious parties in the coalition will never let this happen. A usual, they don't care to see the bigger picture.

What the religious parties have less control over is the shocking, but totally fair ruling of the Supreme Court overturning the Tal Law.

Ten years ago this law went into effect in order to create an “arrangement” whereby Haredi men would be offered a path to employment via voluntary military enlistment or to permanent, life-long study via a non-expiring exemption. It’s goal was to recruit thousands of Haredim to serve in special units that met their religious needs. Very few joined up.

The law was set to expire, but the government had pledged to renew it, even in the face of growing opposition, including that of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Now the high court, which previously gave the law a chance to work, has ordered abandonment of the program. This will have consequences for the current coalition:

In theory, the ruling should require the state to draft around 62,000 yeshiva students and ultra-Orthodox youths this August, on top of 7,000 yeshiva students who serve according to the Tal Law’s stipulations. But a more likely scenario is that the ruling will force the Knesset to recraft the law, or the Defense Ministry will offer a new deal to Haredi men. In any case, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition may be rocked by the ruling.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is not only a case of the secular versus the religious (though it is that, too). In fact, it’s also about the legitimacy of the state. Haredim have been given the opportunity to perform national service - even in their own communities - and they have refused this, as well. They don’t want to serve the Zionist government in any way. They prefer just to take its money.

Many in the Likud Party supported the Court’s ruling:

MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said the decision was morally correct. “It would have been preferable if the political establishment had reached the decision. Due to the consecutive failure of Israeli governments to guarantee mutual responsibility within Israeli society it was the High Court’s duty to stand firm and guard social consolidation, especially in such fateful times,” said Hotovely.

Hotovely is a religious woman and a hard-liner on security and settlements.

Here is an opportunity for the Israeli government to establish one clear and equal standard for all citizens, regardless of their “religious” inclinations. Clearly Haredi opposition is not rooted in halakhic (Jewish legal) observance, but in its lack of willingness to accept and support the Jewish state.

I’m no prophet, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet there will be new elections very, very soon.

I'm Going To Harvard

2012-02-20T15:00:00.006-05:00

My blogging empire is expanding.

I will now be regularly blogging on the site of the new Humanist Community Project. This venture was founded by Harvard’s humanist chaplain (and my colleague in the Association of Humanistic Rabbis), Greg Epstein.

The vision of the project is to focus on ideas for humanist community building, so I will be writing with that in mind, carefully avoiding my usual snarky judgmentalism. I am very grateful to Greg and all of the great folks at the Humanist Chaplaincy of Harvard for the opportunity.

Snarky judgmentalism will still be available at this site.

Rick Santorum, Theologus Bibliae

2012-02-20T14:47:00.000-05:00

Rick “Man on Dog Sex” Santorum will never be elected president, but if it’s the role of Tea Party chief inquisitor he’s bucking for, then he should be hired immediately. This is Santorum at a speech late last week as reported by Reuters:

Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," Santorum told supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement at a Columbus hotel.

Where does one even begin with such foolishness? Would it do any good to point out to his followers that the bible has no consistent theology? Or that the United States should not be governed by theology?

What country are these people living in? Why is it okay for a Santorum to utter this drivel but not okay when it’s the policy of Islamic regimes? And how is what he advocates any different, except for the details of some legends?

Here’s more:

"He [Obama] is imposing his values on the Christian church. He can categorize those values anyway he wants. I'm not going to," Santorum told reporters.

There are tens of thousands of Christian denominations. That’s because they break into pieces all the time. But Santorum, latter-day Torquemada that he is, now speaks for them all.

I am fascinated by how so many fundamentalist Protestants have fallen in love with him. It seems like just yesterday when they regarded all Catholics as papist antichrists.

Breaking Away Is Expensive To Do

2012-02-18T15:16:00.004-05:00

Here’s a good use of the money that usually goes to Israeli Haredi Jews so that they can sit on their asses all day and "study." Let’s give the study money to some people who could really use it, like ex-Haredi Jews. One Israeli legislator has proposed a program to help them integrate into modern life:

The bill being advanced by Zehava Gal-On would provide a financial aid package similar to one given to a new immigrant to the country, Haaretz reported.

Hundreds of youth who leave haredi Orthodoxy each year face financial hardship and difficulty in getting a higher education because their schools do not teach all the core subjects required for a matriculation certificate, according to Haaretz.

The aid would amount to more than $13,000, according to the report.

There are organizations that are helping them, but they are woefully under-funded. One group is preparing to sue the Department of Education for denying them a proper education. Haredi school systems are funded, but not regulated by the government. This makes it complicit in denying them access to crucial subject matter such as math, history, English and civics.

Coupled with the extreme price that such people must pay when they are cut off from family and community, this amounts to a dangerous level of religious oppression. Despite these obstacles, many still choose to leave.

I am unaware of any North American organization to help ex-Orthodox Jews. Israel has one that has been steadily growing and you can find the site at this link: Hillel: The Right To Choose.

Homosexual: Repress Yourself!

2012-02-18T14:58:00.002-05:00

If conservative Orthodox Jews and other religious extremists would just practice their religious prejudices among their own, they would not be worthy of our time or comment. But they don’t. They constantly work to subvert the rights and freedoms of others.

Last summer the Agudath Israel of America worked vigorously to prevent the legalization of gay marriage in New York. This week, their public apologist, Avi Shafran, wrote in the Forward about Orthodoxy’s “Stance on Homosexuality.” It’s important to read articles like this in order to fully understand their warped view of reality.

It includes recommending psychological intervention:

Mainstream medical professionals deem psychological counseling aimed at helping people modify their sexual orientations pointless, at best, and counterproductive, at worst. There have even been reports of abusive behavior in the guise of such therapy.

But other mental health care professionals insist that such interventions, conducted responsibly, are not only safe, but also (at least for the highly motivated) effective. And then there are the inconvenient numbers of actual human beings who testify that the therapy has helped them realize their goal to live exclusively heterosexual lives. I have met one such individual — an intelligent, sensitive and even-keeled man — and have corresponded with therapists who have helped dozens of patients control homosexual inclinations and, as a result, live happy, fulfilled, Torah-faithful lives.

There’s a reason that “mainstream medical professionals” decry the futility and dangers of these therapies. They are futile and dangerous.

Shafran and company advocate this approach instead:

...[I]f there are in fact avenues to explore that might lead to the fulfillment (both emotional fulfillment and fulfillment of the mitzvot) of marriage and to normal procreation, doing the exploring is a worthy choice, if not a moral mandate.

At this moment in history, most married homosexuals are married to the opposite sex. At best, this leads to lives of repression and self-loathing. At worst, it results in abuse and degradation of the straight partner in the relationship.

Following through logically, Shafran can only believe that this is what makes God happy.

I’m glad there is no God. They make him out to be such an uncaring putz.

Halacha Vs. Democracy: Which Will Israelis Choose?

2012-02-10T13:16:00.002-05:00

Over the past few days I have dug a little deeper into the implications of the Avi Chai survey. In my previous post I tried to look on the bright side. But this has not been the approach of many liberal commentators in Israel who are quite concerned about some of the responses.

Among the most worrisome is the answer to a question posed about halacha versus democracy. Fully 44% of respondents indicated that if there were a contradiction between halachic values and democratic values, they would favor the halachic position. This is coming from the nation that we rightly present as the only working democracy in the region. But for how long?

The vision of the first Zionists (at least the ones that I like!) was a Jewish state in which Jewish culture would flourish and evolve. While Jewish culture is definitely flourishing, I’m not sure that it’s evolving in the way that many of us have hoped.

Many halachic values and rules are in complete contradiction to modern values as we see them evolving. Among these are the treatment of women and gays. If Israel is to move forward as a 21st century nation, there must be more education for democracy. I shudder to imagine a non-democratic, halachic state emerging. It would certainly be the death knell of any strong connection between Israelis and Jewish communities located in modern, western democracies.

Israel By The Numbers

2012-02-06T14:40:00.001-05:00

The Avi Chai Foundation is an Israeli organization that works to promote cross-group understanding, particularly between Israeli Jewish religious and non-religious groups. They have just released the results of an extensive survey of religious beliefs and practices in Israel conducted in 2009. The entire report and a shorter profile report are available online. Similar surveys have been administered three times since 1991.

In terms of self-definition, there has been modest growth in the religious sector. Haredim account for seven percent of the population, up from five percent in 1999. Considering their birthrate, this is not a large bump and it would seem to provide support for those who claim that the number of people leaving Orthodox is quite large, but that was not specifically measured. The number of those who describe themselves as simply Orthodox has risen from 11% to 15%. Taken together, this means that 22% are self-described as Haredi or Orthodox, yet interestingly, only 14% say that they “observe meticulously.”

Thirty-two percent of the Jewish population considers itself “traditional.” In Hebrew this is called “masorti.” The Israeli Conservative movement is also called “Masorti,” but lacking capital letters, the Hebrew language does not differentiate the two. Israelis, however, know the difference. These “masorti” Jews are people who like and participate in lots of traditional behaviors but are not Orthodox...or “religious” as they would say in Israel.

Those who say they are secular constitute 49% of the population, down from 52% ten years earlier. However, 59% of those with a university education are secular Jews. Identifying as secular Jews doesn translate to disengagement from Jewish cultural practices, at least on Shabbat when a whopping 84% of all Israelis set aside family time and 69% gather for a special Friday night dinner. Afterward (and this has been my experience with many of my Israeli friends), many gather around the tube. The survey shows that 65% of all Jewish Israelis watches television on Shabbat. A majority also favors allowing retail to remain open, though only 16% go shopping on Shabbat. Sixty-eight percent favor allowing theaters, cinemas and restaurants/cafes to be open on Shabbat.

As for beliefs, it turns out that 80% of Israeli Jews believe that God exists. (On the first copy of the report it said that 80% believe that God “exits.” This was the best typo ever.) There were also high, but decreasing percentages who believe in divine reward and punishment, the power of prayer, life after death, and that the Torah was God-given. A high number also believes that the Jews are the chosen people. This would be more worrisome to me, but they didn’t really clarify what “chosen” means and I have no clue whether this is the unhealthy kind or just people parroting the Jewish mythos. As Tevye lamented, “Once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?”

I’m not really surprised that 80% believe in God, though I wish the number was lower. Still, the fact that 20% of Israeli Jews say that they do not believe in God at all is a most interesting statistic. It’s lower than in many European nations, but still twice as high as the number of Americans willing to admit to atheism.

Jewish Values: Left-Wing, Right-Wing & Everything In Between

2012-02-02T18:37:00.000-05:00

One of the most interesting Jewish writers around these days is Jay Michaelson. His regular columns in “The Forward” are always provocative even when - perhaps especially when - I disagree with him. This week he’s written an important column in which he lays out something that too few politically liberal Jews understand:

Well-meaning Jewish liberals...speak innocently of “living out Jewish values” in the pursuit of liberal politics, as if ignorant that our political opponents think they are doing the same thing. Without more articulation, to say we are applying our Jewish values to issues of social justice or human rights is just a sound bite. The other side can say the same thing.

Indeed, the other side says the same thing all the time. And the other side is just as entitled to do so:

But what is the criterion by which the “real” is to be determined? Is the (right-wing, dominance-obsessed) Book of Joshua any less real than the more peaceful teachings of Isaiah? Are the Torah’s stringent death penalties less real than the talmudic rabbis’ ameliorations of them? Once again, without more articulation, this is just public relations.

...“Jewish” includes too wide a range to let any political ideology claim its mantle, and we have to be sophisticated and clear-eyed in our relationships with a complicated tradition that has as many sexist, ethnocentric, superstitious, nationalistic and cruel aspects as it does egalitarian, just, compassionate and uplifting ones. What is “Jewish” is not necessarily what is right or good. How could it be, since Judaism often espouses diametrically opposed views of the same issue?

I seem to be surrounded by conservative (little “c”) Jews. Some of them are good friends. I think they’re more willing to open up to me because I’m an independent, although I’m definitely more left of center on most issues. And Michaelson is 100% correct. Republican Jews honestly - and rightly - believe that they’re carrying out Jewish values just as Democratic Jews rightly believe the same thing.

As a Secular Humanistic Jew, I never look to Jewish tradition to find my values. I think this makes it easier for me to realize that one can articulate almost any political position and argue that it’s Jewishly kosher. Humanists prefer to look elsewhere for universal values, even if we do feel very comfortable using any available Jewish texts or traditions to articulate them. We try to do so honestly while acknowledging that the same Torah that argues for the care of widows and orphans also calls for the murder of little children.

Michaelson develops his argument well and I highly recommend reading the entire column. He closes with this:

Judaism is not the answer key; it’s the question key. It sets the stage for the important questions to be asked, but accommodates contradictory answers to them. Thus, rather than inquire as to whether liberals or conservatives are “really Jewish,” we are invited to more interesting explorations. Like which ideology promotes a healthy Jewish people, a saner world, a safer world, or more compassion. Or which ideology leads to more holiness, more connection and more truthfulness with the experiences of all people. These are not the only Jewish values in existence. But they are the ones worth keeping.

Leaving aside my discomfort with “holiness,” he is quite right. I would only add that the historical experience of the Jewish people (the real one, not the mythologized version) is also a vital source of questions. Those are the ones that led me to becoming an atheist rabbi.

The Plight Of Orthodox Gays

2012-02-02T17:59:00.002-05:00

I can think of no worse situation for a gay person than to belong to a traditional religious community. For some the negativity and self-loathing is so internalized that they turn on themselves and other gays, exhibiting intensely homophobic attitudes and behaviors. Others suffer in silence.

In the Orthodox Jewish community there has been a very low level of discussion about this for a number of years. It began with Rabbi Steve Greenberg’s pseudonymous article about his own homosexuality in a 1993 issue of “Tikkun Magazine.” It has been explored in the film “Trembling Before G-d.” Some empathetic Orthodox rabbis signed onto a “Statement of Principles” that attempts to emphasize the importance of treating gay Orthodox Jews with dignity and understanding.

Needless to say, the vast majority of Orthodox Jews are not on board with this. One such individual was moved to pen an op-ed in the Orthodox American newspaper, The Jewish Press, back in June when he happened upon a YouTube “It Gets Better” video by someone he knew:

Seeing him speak shamelessly as a homosexual on YouTube pained me. "Why?" I asked [his] image on my computer screen, as if he could somehow hear me. "Why must you publicize your orientation for the whole world to know?"

Being attracted to other men while growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community must be difficult for any young male. And keeping one's struggles private can be lonely and depressing. But are closeted homosexuals the only ones who struggle in solitude and silence? Don't tens of thousands of Orthodox teenagers and young adults - to say nothing of older men and women who never married - struggle silently with their attraction to the opposite sex?

For so many issues, one can attend lectures that offer chizuk and advice. Hardly any for this issue. In so many areas of life one can discuss personal difficulties with friends. Not in this area. Some individuals hint at their struggles to a particular rebbe to whom they feel close, and here and there one may also encounter allusions to this topic in various sefarim. By and large, though, unmarried heterosexual Orthodox Jews suffer in solitude.

But do those Jews complain? Do Catholic priests, the overwhelming majority of whom remain celibate their entire lives, complain? No. They wage their internal battles quietly, recognizing that not every topic need be discussed openly and not every feeling need be publicized and validated.

Why, then, can't Orthodox homosexuals do the same? Why can't they struggle silently and heroically as do so many others?

...But openly homosexual Orthodox Jews apparently care little about the very essence of what it means to be a servant of God and demand that everyone accept them as they are. Their needs, their wants, their desires are what matters.

This, I am told, is the prevalent attitude of Orthodox Jews to the gays among them. They should shut up and suffer in silence like those good Catholic priests do. Insert your own joke about that one here.

Well, the boy in the video, Chaim Levin, did not keep silent. The Jewish Press printed something that he wrote, too:

In the YouTube video I talk about the endless bullying in my childhood, the trauma of reparative therapy and my suicide attempt as a result of a frum community that seemed to not want me to exist simply because I was gay.

My message was that, with time, with understanding friends and with self-acceptance, it gets better. I hoped to tell other kids who may be on the brink of suicide to stick it out, because life gets better; even for gay Jews growing up in the Orthodox community. This video never talks about private behavior, never mentions any assur activity, and certainly does not divulge anything about what I do behind closed doors. However, simply because I talk about how I was bullied for being gay, the author tried to make me feel horrible for simply sending a message of hope. He succeeded in embarrassing me and making me feel unwanted by this community.

He goes on to reveal the humiliating abuse that he suffered at the hands of an Orthodox “reparative therapy” process. He also laments another declaration by Orthodox rabbis about homosexuality with its own extensive website that explicitly mandates that discredited approach in shocking terms:

We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. Behaviors are changeable. The Torah does not forbid something which is impossible to avoid. Abandoning people to lifelong loneliness and despair by denying all hope of overcoming and healing their same-sex attraction is heartlessly cruel.

...The only viable course of action that is consistent with the Torah is therapy and teshuvah [repentance]. The therapy consists of reinforcing the natural gender-identity of the individual by helping him or her understand and repair the emotional wounds that led to its disorientation and weakening, thus enabling the resumption and completion of the individual’s emotional development...

These processes are typically facilitated and coordinated with the help of a specially trained counselor or therapist working in conjunction with a qualified spiritual teacher or guide. There is no other practical, Torah-sanctioned solution for this issue.

The site also features various quotes from the American Psychological Association taken out of context and a number of attacks on its integrity. The whole thing is just dreadful.

“The Jewish Press” found itself under attack for having the nerve to publish Chaim Levin’s article. Advertisers were threatened and the usual crap ensued. To their credit, they did not take it lying down:

...The Torah itself is very clear on where it stands on homosexual acts.

But the Torah is also very clear on how one should treat one’s fellow Jew, and certainly one who tries to be religious — whether he or she succeeds or not — should not be driven by fellow Jews to contemplate suicide.

A situation where religious Jews are provoking children and adults who are different to consider suicide is unthinkable and unacceptable.

Following the publication of this op-ed, a number of Jewish Press advertisers were approached and threatened. They were told to stop advertising with The Jewish Press.

The Jewish Press won’t give in to threats and we won’t be silenced.

We thank our advertisers who have notified us that they plan to continue with us despite the threatening letters and that they won’t give into threats either, particularly when an article like this one may have very well have saved a Jewish life.

It’s very easy for someone like me to scratch his head in bewilderment about why anyone would remain in a community with these attitudes. Yet I can also fully understand - though never agree with - the reasons he would stay.

Certainly, the traditional religious world is enslaved to a set of values and assumptions created for another era. By the same token, I appreciate and respect the efforts of those traditional believers, few though they may be, who demonstrate some level of empathy. Empathy is the root of true human morality.

Now that I’ve said something nice, allow me to be blunt. Religion can be a force for good when it wears its liberal guise. But when it does not, when it remains mired in ancient values and ideas unsuited to our time, and when it is unmoored from true morality, it is a powerful force for repression and evil.

How Could God Have Allowed The Holocaust And Other Meaningless Questions

2012-01-31T15:48:00.004-05:00

Back in September I wrote a response to Rabbi Alan Lurie’s HuffPost blog about how God is only hiding because we don’t know what to look for. Lurie is a liberal “non-denominational” rabbi who is actually a very successful businessman and architect. I am certain he applies sounder thinking to his business interests than to his teaching about God.

Last week he took up the topic of “How Could God Have Allowed the Holocaust?” He began in the expected way:

All Rabbis hear variations on the following questions: "How can anyone believe in God after the Holocaust? How can a supposedly loving God stand back and let such a horrible thing happen? How can you reconcile the death of even one innocent child with the existence of a just God?" For many, these questions are proof that a personal God does not exist.

In the paragraphs that follow, Lurie explains that there is a field of theology known as “theodicy” that deals with God and the presence of evil. Then this:

...the very question of "How could God have allowed the Holocaust?" represents a profound misunderstanding of the nature of God, creation, and the spiritual dimension, because it is based on very faulty assumptions. It posits God as a being who is totally separate from us, who observes our behavior, preventing harm from coming to those who follow certain rules (usually written in books), and punishing those who do not.

...But God is much more than that, and we are much more than that. This image of God and humans, frankly, is childish and primitive, and from this perspective there is no God....

He then walks us through his arguments for the existence of God, featuring the ACTUALLY childish and primitive assumptions that “some thing” cannot come from “no thing.” This is followed by a pre-emptive attack on asking who created God, calling this “a misunderstanding of the nature of God.”

So who is his God? He finally offers a definition. Sort of.

...prior to creation there was only God; undifferentiated, timeless, pure consciousness, irrevocably alone. And yet God's greatest yearning is for connection - for something in which to be in relationship and to experience love. But there was no possibility of anything to connect to because no thing could exist, as the only existence was the completely indivisible God. This yearning, though, led to the paradox of creation, as God removed "His" presence from a point, making physicality possible. This was the Big Bang, and long before it was discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929 it was seen by mystics from many traditions, especially by those in northern Israel in the 16th century.

Where do I even begin with this nonsense? First of all, how does he know what God was feeling or yearning for? The human behavior of yearning for love or companionship is an accident of evolution. Its roots are evident in the social behavior of other animals, too. As for supposed ancient precursors of the Big Bang theory, I’m pretty sure that the mystics of ancient Tz’fat were not sitting around measuring cosmic background radiation or they would have been awarded the Nobel.

He continues:

The Universe was therefore set in motion with the purpose of developing creatures who would arrive at self-consciousness - the awareness of being aware -, see the obvious design in creation, feel the presence of a loving Designer, and reach out in gratitude. This connection in love is both ours and God's greatest pleasure and delight (and, I believe, also for countless beings on planets scattered throughout the Universe).

The purpose of creation, then, is to be in a loving relationship with its Creator.

There is NO obvious design or purpose in any part of nature. And this includes biological organisms, except to the extent that they are “designed” by the process of natural selection. What kind of “loving Designer” would rig the urethra right through the prostate?

And how does he know what God’s “greatest delight and pleasure” are? Maybe what God really likes is smelling animal fat burning on an altar. That’s what ancient Jews thought. While we’re at it, we can just say anything we want to about him. Maybe he really gets the greatest pleasure and delight by watching suns explode. That happens all the time in the universe so he must really love it.

All of this is typical of sloppy theology - and there is no other kind. It makes evidence-free assertions about the nature of God based on poor understandings of scientific discoveries and wishful thinking.

Here’s another great example:

This does not mean that God is not omniscient. God does know the choices that we will make because our consciousness is in constant connection to God, and for God time is not a limitation, so our future choices are not hidden. Yet God deliberately does not interfere - not out of indifference, but out of great love. God must "watch" in pain as we commit atrocities, because to interfere would negate free will, terminating the relationship and hence the very purpose of creation. This is the reconciliation of Rabbi Akiva's famous paradox, "All is foreseen, yet free will is given".

Rabbi Akiva’s paradox and the mounds of commentary it yielded are the very epitome of the “childish and primitive” understandings of God that Lurie so abhors. Here God is a parent who loves us very much. However, as a loving parent he won’t interfere, even though this causes him pain.

By now I hope you can quite easily spot all of the problems with these claims. For example, who says that the Jewish God doesn’t interfere? In the big book about him and much of the commentary that accompanies it, he interferes all the freaking time. We can’t move right or left (or even eat shrimp for that matter) without him interfering. And a lot of what he tells us to do, in the bible anyway, is to commit the very atrocities that he supposedly watches in so much pain (see here for a partial list of God’s terrific biblical role modeling).

As for the Holocaust, Lurie states:

Where was God in the Holocaust? As God knew the terrible choices made by too many, and wept at the horrific consequences, those who chose love and service in the face of this horror were strengthened and consoled. Good eventually did win over evil, by our own hands.

I’m sure he needed a really big imaginary tissue. Seriously, the last sentence is starting to approach the truth. Good did win (and some evil won, too, given that Stalin was among the winners). But God had nothing to do with it. When people accomplish anything in this world, good or evil, it is always “by our own hands.”

Why do I harp on liberal rabbis the way that I do? Because liberal Judaism was born of a need to create a spiritual approach to life that was based upon reason and rational thinking. This is a promise that is now lost. Modern liberal rabbis are leading their followers down a path that ignores modern scientific discoveries and their implications. While they posit a God who is much more palatable to modern morality, he is no less imaginary. When will they finally cease this silly prattle? Making up newer and improved versions of God isn’t fooling anyone who bothers to really think about it.

I want to close on a positive note. Allow me to take a stab at the question, “How could God have allowed the Holocaust?” Try this on for size...

When people once lacked sufficient evidence-based paths to understanding our presence in the universe, they posited supernatural causes. They imagined that these supernatural “gods” made claims upon them because the gods created them and provided for their needs. Over time, the Jews consolidated these many gods into one. We’ll just call him God (he was generally described and addressed as a male). All of our questions and theories about humanity and nature were answered by what we came to believe God said and did.

Jewish history proceeded and it was not a ball of laughs. We endured a lot of crap and we luckily managed to overcome it. We often ascribed both the crap and our survival to God, but it was always we who were enduring it. When the absolute worst crap hit us, we always asked ourselves why he would allow it. We came up with a bunch of answers. Some said it was to punish us. Others said that we had somehow turned away from him so he was powerless to prevent it. Still others posited that he just wasn’t in a position to help.

A small group of people realized that we were looking in the wrong direction. Science was already explaining our presence without recourse to him. So shouldn’t we explain human behavior, both good and evil, in the same way?

The faithful like to assert that non-believers are angry at God. How can we be angry at a non-existent being? If we are angry at all - and everyone should be able to get their hackles up about some injustice in this world - it’s that some people keep waiting for God to make the big difference. Notably and to their credit, Lurie and most liberal rabbis have had the good sense to drop that part of our ancient fiction. They now rightfully place all of the burden on human beings, reducing God to no more than a moral inspiration. Why they continue to waste their time on that is beyond me.

No matter how much we are drawn to ascribe it to an outside source, morality comes from within us. It is an evolved behavior. And in ITS absence, holocausts occur.

That's An Awful Lot Of Lettuce For That Lettuce

2012-01-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

The last time I wrote about some of what I considered to be the, how shall I put it?...more minute rules of kashrut, I got into some trouble with my snarky remarks. So I hesitated to even link this article that was sent to me by a reader about the kosher vegetable business.

“What could possibly be non-kosher about vegetables?” you may ask. Well, it has more to do with the minute creepy crawlies found in so many of them. They’re as forbidden as pork.

Now the truth is that we eat microscopic organisms all of the time. Moreover, it’s always advisable to clean your veggies before you accidentally consume the visible, easily eradicated ones. But it has come as some surprise to Orthodox Jews over the past 15-20 years that even the tiniest, most minuscule insects should be a problem. As reported by Jonah Lowenfeld on JewishJournal.com:

In the last 20 years, Orthodox rabbis in general, and those involved in kosher certification in particular, have been working hard to introduce — reintroduce, they say — practices of checking fresh vegetables for bugs in observance of the laws of kashrut.

Blanket bans have been issued on the most bug-friendly and hardest-to-check produce: raspberries, blackberries, whole artichokes and more are entirely forbidden because they’re too complex and fragile in form (the berries) or too tightly closed (artichokes) to inspect.

The other day I was asked by a kosher restaurateur with whom I’m friendly about an order for an observant family member. He wanted to know if she would eat broccoli. It’s another food that many Orthodox Jews are doing without altogether.

This newfound concern has turned into a profitable industry for growers who can convert vegetables into gold:

In late January, Glatt Mart, an RCC [Rabbinical Council of California]-certified supermarket on Pico Boulevard [in L.A.], was selling an ordinary head of romaine lettuce (1 pound, 6 ounces) for $1.19, while a much smaller head of romaine from Asyag’s [kosher] farm (10.3 ounces) was priced at $3.59, seven times as much per ounce. By comparison, a pre-washed — but not kosher-certified — 10-ounce bag of romaine lettuce packaged by Ready Pac sold for $2.99, just under six times the price per ounce of the ordinary head of lettuce.

That’s a lot of money for a mitzva that no one ever heard of before:

Although Orthodox officials today present the bug rules as rooted in the Bible and a centuries-old tradition of Jewish law, [David] Kraemer [a professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary] said the sanctioning of certain fruits and vegetables is actually a recent phenomenon. It is, Kraemer said, one more step in a long process in which Jews throughout history have adopted ever-stricter regulations on their eating, a process he calls “humratization,” derived from humra, the Hebrew word for a stricture that goes above and beyond what is required under halachah — Jewish law.

Orthodox rabbis dispute this characterization.

“This is not a humra,” [Rabbi Elazar] Muskin [of Young Israel of Century City, a large Modern Orthodox synagogue] said. “This is real halachah. You’re not allowed to eat these insects. If you’re a kosher-observant Jew, this means something to you. Just like you have to worry about other kosher laws, this is part of the kosher laws.”

Many years ago, Rabbi Marc Angel, one-time president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, visited my Hillel and addressed the issue. He told us at the time that he does eat broccoli and all of the rest because his mother did and her mother before her and so forth. It made good sense to me at the time.

Of course, you can pay top dollar for your kosher lettuce, but it comes with no guarantees:

Randy Fried, a co-owner of R House Foods, a catering company that began providing the food at the Modern Orthodox Shalhevet School at the beginning of the current school year, remembers exactly when the change happened. He was working at another RCC-certified catering company when the first package of RCC-certified romaine lettuce arrived.

“We open it up, we pull back the first leaf and there’s a slug sitting on the leaf,” Fried said. “And we all started laughing. This is what we’re paying two and half times [as much] for?”

So they called the RCC. “The answer we got is,” Fried said, “That’s not the bug we’re worried about.”

Getting rid of slugs is going to cost you extra.

(P.S. Extra points for the Broadway fan who can decipher the reference in the headline of this post!)

Leviticus 30:1: Verily Shalt Thou Shun The Internet

2012-01-27T08:46:00.001-05:00

Israeli Sephardic leader Rav Ovadia Yosef, patron of the Shas Party, has joined with others, including Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, in calling for religious Jews to disconnect from the internet. With this he joins the ranks of the many Ashkenazi rabbis who long ago forbade access to the internet (or, for that matter, secular education).

From Ynet (Hebrew only):

In a “holy call” to the wider community, the rabbis warned about technological developments: “We’ve arrived at a situation where within a telephone found in anyone’s hand people can be taken to images that are difficult and dangerous to a person’s soul, that the viewing of them is forbidden by the Torah without doubt, and their results are extremely destructive. And it is known that many have failed and their world has been lost, God forbid. And there are those who arrive there out of curiosity about the world and with no evil intention, God forbid.”

...According to Rav Yosef and the rabbis who signed [the statement], disconnection from the internet is an obligation from the Torah. Rav Moshe Shapir added that the internet is “an evil satan” endangering its users with very serious religious sins which every Jew is commanded “to die rather than transgress them.”

I’ve read the Torah many times and I can’t recall anything in there about the internet.

Also, could someone please explain to me why, if it’s so bad and so forbidden there are so many religious Jews on the internet? Shas, of course, has its own website: www.shasnet.org.il.

As the many Israeli talkbacks rightly pointed out, this isn’t about the really sketchy stuff on the internet. This is about closing down avenues to secular knowledge. No wonder so many Israelis call these rabbis the Jewish ayatollahs.

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...Onto The Ark We Go!

2012-01-25T15:11:00.002-05:00

I just took a few days off to go to Walt Disney World with my daughter and we had a great time.

Speaking of Fantasyland, there is another legend that’s getting its own theme park, but this time it’s in Kentucky and called “Ark Encounter.” It’s a production of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, the people who brought you the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky.

Ark Encounter is intended to be a genuine, full-scale replica of Noah’s actual, real-life ark! Having just seen Cinderella’s castle, a genuine, full-scale replica of Cinderella’s actual real-life castle, I’m stoked. Like Cinderella’s castle, Noah’s ark will be the hub of related fun like a replica of the Tower of Babel, a walled city and other attractions.

All joking aside, unlike the Disney parks, Ark Encounter regards its legends as the unmitigated truth - science, logic and common sense be damned. If anything, its visitors will leave the new park even more scientifically literate than when they entered.

What is even sadder than the fact that millions of dollars are being wasted to build this inanity is that while Kentucky is cutting $50 million from its education budget, the governor has managed to find $43 million in tax incentives and infrastructure improvements to benefit the Ark Encounter:

In one of the most spectacularly mis-prioritized state budgets in recent memory, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (D), is suggesting over $50 million in cuts to education – while preserving $43 million in tax breaks for the Ark Encounter, a creationist amusement park centered around a life-sized Noah’s Ark. The park is sponsored by Answers In Genesis, a non-profit organization that promotes a “literalist” interpretation of the Book of Genesis while promoting an anti-evolution (and other sciences) agenda.

Despite the protests of many of my fellow secular advocates, there’s probably nothing illegal about this. The state might even eventually see some return on its investment. This should not comfort us because in the long run it is just one more example of how real educational needs are de-prioritized while religion continues to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.

Disney also received lots of tax incentives and cushy deals to build its parks in Florida. But at least Disney never tried to teach us that Cinderella was a real person.

Tuesday Link-A-Palooza

2012-01-17T08:27:00.004-05:00

It’s Tuesday, the most disrespected day of the week. Too far from the weekend and still feeling more like Monday.

But to brighten it up, I received some great links to share. Here’s one from my friend and great new blogger, Coin Laundry, who gave me a shout out and left some very nice comments here.

ScentedNectar video blogs on her own YouTube channel and sent me this link to her latest. She describes her first defianc "activism" as a very young child in a traditional synagogue. She touched a Torah scroll! I feel like there a song in there just waiting to be composed.

Finally, I’m now reading Prof. Lawrence Krauss’s book, “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.” He decided to write the book after seeing the incredible response to his YouTube video which has well over one million views and counting.

It is a science-y book that purposely seeks to deal a body blow to theistic thinking. Grabbing a line from the late Carl Saga, Krauss says, “Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born.” Luckily for the mathematically challenged, formulas are expressed in every day language, making this a highly accessible work.

Here is the YouTube video that inspired the book:

Why "Atheist Rabbi"?

2012-01-15T19:22:00.007-05:00

In the wake of the attack on my blog, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about how and why I apply the term atheist to my blog and myself. Atheism is a word that evokes so much emotion, yet carries only the kernel of one idea. Since I have a few new readers, and no doubt some who are not atheists, I will do my best to explain myself and the reasons I started this blog.

As a kid I was fascinated with magic and the paranormal. My fascination was not because I believed in it, but because I could not understand why anyone else would. In college I majored in experimental psychology, specifically in what is now called cognitive psychology. What I learned there began to answer my questions about how and why we humans hold superstitious beliefs.

My other major was Hebrew literature, and that was the path I ultimately followed. Raised as a nominally Reform but really secular Jew, most of my exposure to the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writing came as an adult. Having more aptitude for literature than for science, combined with the fact that I was raised with a deep attachment to the Jewish community which blossomed in my college years, I entered the Reform rabbinate.

At the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, one of the goals was to promulgate a reasoned and rational approach to Jewish religion. Yet other than in official texts such as prayer books, there was little inclination to articulate a modern understanding of God. In point of fact, we mostly learned about Judaism through historical or literary methodologies. And when we did broach the subject of reconciling our texts with science, the approach was what Steven Jay Gould later called non-overlapping magisteria. Science and religion were two completely separate endeavors. The former was interested in “how” and the latter in “why.”

For me, this became a problem. Working in a religious milieu, I found that in the real world, beyond the doors of rabbinical school, “how” was as important a question as “why.” For most people I encountered, one question made no sense without the other. My first eleven years, spent on university campuses, drew me close to many people who were working endlessly on the questions of “how” and, inevitably, crossing into “why” territory as a result. Neither could I separate the two. Each made claims that contradicted the other.

I tried to lose myself in observance. I took comfort in one biblical passage in particular: “All that God has spoken, we will do and we will hear (Exodus 24:3-7).” This is a passage that is often interpreted for Jews in doubt to teach that observance will lead to belief. And there is some sound folk psychology in the idea that if you repeat an act or set of acts enough, you will come to adopt the justifications for performing them.

So I davened (prayed) and observed Shabbat and kashrut and so forth. As a closeted gay man, I could only hope that God would take note that I was married to a woman and doing all of this. But deep inside I suspected, just as I had about magic, superstition and the paranormal, that there was no one there to take such note.

And, unfortunately for God, as it were, I kept digging into the origins of, well, just about everything. I learned more about archeology’s findings, more about what literary critics of the bible were discovering, more about what biologists had revealed and more about the findings of cosmologists and physicists.

And then the damn burst. At the age of 38, I gave up on the notion of the supernatural once and for all. I buried it in the same grave that I had long ago laid to rest magic, superstition and the paranormal. I decided to embrace reality. Thankfully, I discovered Mordecai Kaplan.

Rabbi Kaplan, whose philosophy of God is nearly extinct today, posited that Jews were just one nation among others and that God was a human invention. But God still had power! The enormity of the idea alone gave God life as the “Power that makes for salvation.” Kaplan’s God was entirely a functional process lacking any metaphysical reality. This was a powerful idea for me. It allowed me to speak about and “to” God while understanding that I was really just talking to myself, a fact of which I was already quite aware.

Time, however, has not been kind to Rabbi Kaplan’s ideology of God. His Reconstructionist movement did not adhere to his ideas. His prayer books addressed God in familiar traditional theistic ways. As my colleague, Rabbi Eva Goldfinger, pointed out to me, this created a cognitive dissonance. Most people will eventually reconcile such a dissonance and, echoing that passage in Exodus, it will usually lead to belief.

But not always. In my case it did not. It did, however, lead to headaches. Surely, I thought, there must be a better way to preserve what is meaningful and life-affirming in Jewish practice while not surrendering to supernatural, metaphysical fantasies. Thankfully, there is. This is how I discovered Humanistic Judaism.

It provided me with a home where I could finally say two things that for many - and I quite understand this - are incompatible. One is that I am a rabbi who is educated in my people’s historical experiences and writings. The other is that I am a secular humanist who is an atheist, acutely aware that there is nothing “out there.” As a Jew and a rabbi, I feel the tug of my history and culture. I am drawn to the characters and plot lines of my people’s mythos. As a secular humanist, I am interested in what is true and what is moral.

The two need not be in tension if we acknowledge that humans evolve, both biologically and culturally. Our need for answers was once met by tales and rituals and rules that we ascribed to gods who, ancient logic suggested, simply must exist or otherwise how did we get here? Today, those answers are available through less naive means, more challenging and certainly more incomplete.

As for morality, like most modern Jews I never asked Judaism to direct my inner compass. I understand the difference between right and wrong because I (usually) can foresee the consequences of my actions and because I possess the human quality of empathy. Like all human beings, I have done things that were wrong. But like all moral human beings, I recognized these mis-deeds as mistakes caused by my own vanity, hubris or fear, but never by evil or the pleasure of watching another suffer.

One need only take a look at the world to quickly grasp that there is no guaranteed correspondence between morality and religion. Clearly religions’s illiberal varieties are much more concerned with rewards and punishments and appeasing and pleasing gods.

In the Jewish community we hear frequent talk about “Jewish values.” If these are defined as personal or communal practices - such as lighting Shabbat candles - then there is no need for the quotation marks. But if they are defined as some special unique Jewish way to be a good person, then those quotation marks must remain. For while there may be Jewishly unique vocabulary for moral behaviors, truly moral behavior cannot be the sole province of one small, ancient group.

People must be judged by their deeds, not their beliefs. If I had a problem with all people who believed in God - as many who call themselves atheists do - I would have left the rabbinate. As I have said before and will say again, the idea of God - irrespective of its truth - does provide comfort and inspiration to many, many highly moral people. Who could morally deprive them of such a thing? On the other hand, the idea of God also inspires too many highly immoral people to do very bad things in God’s name, believing that they have his approval. (And if his will is so clear, why do they so frequently battle about it?)

I’ve said that I do love and respect the morally religious and that I do not desire to rid them of their beliefs, even though I believe that they are not true. So why do I sometimes weigh in about more moderate forms of Judaism or Christianity? In our modern world, more and more people are leaving God behind just as I did. When I debate morally religious leaders I do so because I desire for those in doubt, so often unexposed to the secular humanistic and scientific views of faith, to hear our side. I do not hope to sway the faithful, but to attract others like me.

However, and this is a big however, when I criticize the immoral acts of religious people who use God as an excuse for every bad behavior, I do not hold back. If those people think that I hate them for their beliefs, they are wrong. It is only their hurtful actions that I hate. No human beings should victimize others because of whom they love or due to their gender. No human beings should become an unreasonable burden on others when there is a way to be self-sufficient. No human beings should deprive others of rights that they themselves freely enjoy. No human beings should allow others to protect them while they themselves stand by. These are just some immoral things that people do in the name of God.

When challenged, these particular believers make excuses for their bad behaviors that are steeped in the supernatural, the metaphysical and the magical. Because all truth is known to them from their ancient sources, they argue that their behavior is approved by traditional authorities whose power is bequeathed by the almighty creator and maker of everything.

For all of these reasons, I made the decision to publicly proclaim and struggle with the reality that I am both an atheist and a rabbi. But more significantly, I am a human being attempting to live a moral life, not because I was told to by supernatural, metaphysical, and magical forces, but because I’m just an average person, who knows right from wrong, trying to make my way through the world while doing more good than harm.

That’s what an atheist rabbi, or any good person, should do.

My Open Letter To Jacob Stein, "The Jewish Philosopher"

2012-01-14T18:39:00.004-05:00

SCREEN SHOT FROM JACOB STEIN'S CALL FOR EXECUTION OF GAYS

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A few days ago I was hit by an infamous blog troller named Jacob Stein. He runs a blog called "The Jewish Philosopher" that has, among other things, called for the death penalty for gays (pictured above) and blamed Jewish disobedience to God for the Holocaust.

Last week he posted some taunting comments on my blog that I deleted. Then he sent an e-mail to my employers telling tham that I have a hate blog. Finally, he decided to feature my blog in a post in which he placed my home and employer’s address, phone, and e-mail. There was also a link to my domestic partnership certificate, some vague information about my family, and plenty of choice words about me and this blog.

You can see all of it here: http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2012/01/atheist-rabbi.html. Feel free to leave comments there. Like here -- since this all began -- comments are moderated.

I have posted what will be my one and only response in the comment section of his blog (I had to post it in two parts). It is reproduced in its entirety below:

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Dear Jacob,

I’m writing to thank you for taking note of my blog and to make a few corrections and comments. Just so you know, I’m cross-posting this on my blog just in case people at yours don’t have the opportunity to read it.

First of all, since you left those comments on my blog and wrote your post about me I have never had so much traffic on my blog. I guess what they say is true, any publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name correctly, which you thoughtfully did. I also appreciate the link to the information about Humanistic Judaism. Between that and the link to my blog our readers will have ample opportunity to contrast your beliefs with mine.

As for my being a homosexual in a committed relationship, that is no secret. You posted a link to our Miami Beach domestic partnership certificate. That will be helpful if I ever need to get a copy in a hurry. Just to set the record straight, we are also registered with Miami-Dade County. And most wonderfully, we were legally married in Montreal a little over two years ago. I know that this differs slightly from your view of gays, er, homosexuals, but we’ve been in this monogamous relationship for quite a while.

I was taken aback when you said I was around fifty. I don’t turn fifty until June, but I guess I need to start getting used to it. They say it’s the new thirty. As for the picture, I’ve been losing weight recently so there are better ones I could have provided, but that one is okay too, even if it was a little low resolution.

I won’t say much about my kids except that I have them - more than the one you seem to know about. My ex-wife became Orthodox after our marriage and she raised them that way. I wasn’t thrilled, but I love them dearly, met all of my financial obligations and then some, and even helped send them to Orthodox study programs in Israel (but Zionist ones that I know you don’t approve of).

As for my employers, whose details you also published and to whom you sent an e-mail about me, they are fully aware of my blog and I have a disclaimer on it. They also know that when you employ over one hundred people, you’re going to have many with different opinions. I guess they chalk it all up to living in America. By the way, my employers are very pluralistic and welcome people from all walks of life, Jews and non-Jews, regardless of race or creed.

Of course, I do live in a very tolerant community. In fact, the University of Miami’s Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies is bringing in my colleague, Rabbi Adam Chalom, North American dean of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (www.iishj.org) this Thursday evening to speak about non-theistic Judaism.

Speaking of Miami, allow me to address your publication of my home address and phone number. I just want to remind anyone who now realizes that I live in the heart of South Beach’s Art Deco District that it is the height of tourist season, so please call before dropping by! Just don’t use the home number listed. We don’t answer it. We really just kept the land line in case a hurricane blows down the cell towers.

I want to respond to just a few things that you wrote. You make mention of those who have sought my guidance. You may rest assured that they were all fully aware of my point of view and either shared it or were quite respectful of it. You also stated that I don’t publish comments that I don’t agree with. Actually, there are many such comments and they’re searchable, too. Sadly, since I received yours, I am now moderating them. Exactly the way that you do. You characterize me as being “openly anti-religious,” but I’ve written enough posts about that, including one I just published, that I can leave it to my readers to judge.

And again, thank you for all the new readers. It appears you have quite the following of people who are interested in what I have to say. For over a year I’ve been writing this little blog that only a handful of people were reading and now traffic is really picking up! I notice in comments to your blog that you seem to have many people who take issue with your points of view. Now I know they’ll have an outlet to learn more about Humanistic Judaism and that’s thanks to you. And in case you or any of our readers were unaware, I’m not the only Humanistic Rabbi. There are others, all non-theistic, here and in Israel (www.humanisticrabbis.org and www.tmuraisrael.org.il).

Now I want to say something to you, man to man. This will be my final communication to you. I will not answer your taunting questions and I will not engage you any further or publish you on my blog. As a child I was bullied quite often and frequently called a “faggot” and other names. So I recognize a bully when I see one.

Go ahead and call me every single name you can come up with. I am not a child any more. Like most adults, I have learned that when someone taunts or engages in name calling, it reflects only upon himself.

By the way, I am also not alone. Since you started this on my blog, I have received expressions of affection and support from so many people. So thank you for that, too.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Falick

The Atheist Rabbi...and not the only one

Reasonable Religion

2012-01-13T16:00:00.002-05:00

Am I anti-religious?

Many atheists are proudly so. They see all religion as dangerous and harmful and they seek its eradication. That’s not my emphasis. In fact, I generally view liberal religion as my ally. (I'm what the other atheists call an accomodationist.)

In my profile (over there on the right) I state this:

I believe in the centrality of ceremony and ritual in human life, but I also believe that it must be de-coupled from the supernatural. I believe that the scientific method is the only way to understand ourselves and reality. I believe that dogmatic religion is one of the most destructive forces in the world and that we humans need to create non-theistic alternatives to it.

What I tried to make clear there - within Blogger’s word limit - is that my opposition is not to religion, per se, but to its highly dogmatic variety. Inflexible authoritarian doctrines of many kinds (Communism comes to mind) are the enemy of freedom. They bind human possibility and creativity in chains. The religious version values a specific - and highly questionable - supernatural authority, which they alone authentically interpret, over reason.

But not all modern religion is dogmatic.

Liberal religions, the product of reformative processes, are generally non-dogmatic (or "dogma-lite"). I do not oppose these kinds of religions. To do so would be a waste of time and an insult to people who find in them comfort, solace and inspiration to do good deeds. I appreciate their efforts to reconcile what we have discovered about the world with their various traditions.

However, appreciation does not indicate agreement. For instance, I appreciate that liberal religious thinkers have made great efforts to reconcile the theory of evolution with their faith narratives. I do not, however, agree with the reasoning that gets them there.

The Clergy Letter Project, for example, is a laudable effort by Michael Zimmerman to round up support by liberal clergy for the teaching of evolution in public schools. He’s collected well over 12,000 signatures. This is a significant example of a non-dogmatic, much-appreciated liberal religious position.

But do I agree with the reasoning of Zimmerman and the 12,000 who signed on?

Here is what Zimmerman recently wrote on HuffPost:

...evolutionary theory has absolutely nothing to do with religion and it certainly makes no statements about the viability of atheism. As I've said so many times before, the very existence of The Clergy Letter Project demonstrates that thousands of religious leaders have absolutely no trouble embracing evolution while remaining true to their faith. Yes, one narrow view of religion...has a problem with modern science, but we should recognize it for the narrow perspective that it is.

Even with my appreciation for their goal of battling creationism, I can’t get on board with this assertion. Evolutionary theory may not have anything specifically to say about atheism, but fundamentalists are not entirely wrong about the challenge it presents to the faithful. The more one truly grasps evolution, the less one needs to posit a supernatural source of creation. Correcting my own understanding of evolution certainly put the last nail in the coffin of my faith.

I work in the Jewish community and it is filled with liberally religious people. I also participate in all kinds of “inter-faith” activities (though I’d prefer another term for them) with churches and other groups. I admire all of the many good deeds done by liberally religious people. They perform acts of righteousness for others regardless of creed. I do not aim to eradicate their religious faith. It’s simply not part of my agenda.

Nevertheless, I’m also interested in what is true and I think that they believe some things that are not. So when they make assertions about God, I feel free to challenge them. And I will continue to debate and critique their reasoning and their supernatural pronouncements.

In sharp contrast to their dogmatic, fundamentalist counterparts, they rarely take offense and usually enjoy the debate. And at the end of the day, they not only do not seek to impose their world view on me, they usually thank me for clarifying mine. More than once I have even been invited to speak in their congregations.

It was a series of religious reformations that ultimately gave birth to Humanistic Judaism. We promote a lifestyle of gathering and celebrating, on Shabbat, holidays or for life cycle events, that evolved in a theistic context among faithful Jews. We may break faith with those Jews of the past, but we do not pretend that our needs for identity or community have been eradicated by our liberation from their supernatural concerns.

I do hope for the day when liberal religious leaders will transform their traditions even more than they have already done. The key to this is patience and engagement. Appreciating them as I do empowers me to challenge them as well. In sharp contrast to how that debate plays out with dogmatic believers, ours is a healthy dialogue among allies.

So no, I am not anti-religious.

Richard Dawkins Interviews Humanistic Rabbi Tamara Kolton

2012-01-13T13:18:00.002-05:00

Once again, thank you to all of you who sent me words of encouragement. I’m happy that this blog is of interest to so many people.

Now back to business!

One of the things that I really benefit from as a member of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis is the collegiality of wonderful colleagues like Tamara Kolton, rabbi of the Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit. When Prof. Richard Dawkins was on his most recent book tour, he stopped there and, in addition to delivering his lecture, he found time to interview Rabbi Kolton.

It’s a wonderful conversation between two rationalists who both encourage critical thinking and reason in their disparate fields. Though I might have answered his questions a little differently, I love the poetry of her answers. Her congregation is very fortunate to have her.

Troll Attack

2012-01-11T17:29:00.003-05:00

This morning I received an e-mail from someone named Jacob Stein who calls himself the “Jewish Philosopher” and has a blog by that name. I asked him to not write to me and to use the comments section of this blog instead. He then left a comment on a topic unrelated to anything in the post he commented upon. I am given to understand that this is called “trolling.”

When I asked him to please go trolling elsewhere, he proceeded to post six more comments about my job, my sexual orientation and even my ex-wife (whose name he used and who absolutely has a right to privacy since she has no connection to my point of view or this blog). I was really taken aback by his tone and the personal nature of his attacks.

I am new to blogging. I know that many, many people will not agree with me and I’m not really writing for them. I do hope that those who disagree and choose to read my posts will learn from my point of view as I have from other blogs.

I have seen this man’s comments on other blogs and I know that he has targeted other bloggers, too. I’m really sorry that I got on his radar and I will delete every comment that he leaves. I hope this will dissuade him from wasting his time by writing them.

I’m sure he has better things to do. I know that I do.
___

UPDATE: As I indicated in my comment below, I am now moderating all comments.

Haredi Power Could One Day Spell Doom For Israel

2012-01-10T13:48:00.001-05:00

I realize that I’ve been somewhat single-mindedly focused on Israeli Haredim over the last several posts. It’s difficult to ignore the situation. It’s upsetting and it has implications for the State of Israel and, therefore, world Jewry.

Joshua Hersh, writing in HuffPost, has done a praiseworthy job of summing up the issues:

The Haredim do not work, and they refuse to serve in the Army -- indeed, the most extreme of them reject the legitimacy of the state of Israel itself.

At the same time, they are largely dependent on nationally-provided welfare to feed and clothe their families; their education system, which does not include most of the core Israeli curriculum of math and sciences, is also funded by the state.

"The Haredim are guilty of three violations," Yossi Klein Halevi, a prominent Israeli essayist and fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, said. "First, they are separate from us, and they don't share in the burden of defense or taxes. Second, they demand that we subsidize them. Third, they propose to force their religious beliefs on us. It's a level of chutzpah that I don't think any minority in the world would allow for itself."

Is there, indeed, any other minority in the entire world that fits the pattern of the Haredim? This is an important question that I’ve been asking myself for a long time.

The Haredim like to portray themselves as a helpless minority in Israel, but the reality is quite different:

As it is, the Haredim compose only a small fraction of the national population -- around 10 percent, experts say. But their birthrates are much higher than the general population, and by mid-century, according to some estimates, Haredim could make up between a quarter and 40 percent of Israeli society.

Meanwhile, Haredim members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, have also long-held important roles in governing coalitions, and have lately begun aggressively pushing legislation that would codify some religious rules.

"The Haredim love to say that they're a minority," said Shahar Ilan, a former religion correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz. "But they have been part of our political majority for 35 years -- and a brutal part. This is how they have to be understood."

It is highly unlikely that Israel could survive as a modern state with Haredi power of this magnitude. And I’ll go on record right now. If Haredi power and influence continue to re-define the state to the point that I no longer recognize it, I will renounce my Zionism. And my Zionism goes back generations to when my family befriended and supported Naftali Herz Imber, who wrote “Hatikvah.”

Everyone already knows that there is a way to turn this around. Cut the handouts. Force them to go to work and integrate with society and into the army. That’s it.

For the very reason that Haredim are not a powerless minority, this is unlikely to happen again for a long time. Ironically, it was Netanyahu, who in 2003 as finance minister in a government with no Haredim, made the last cuts. And they worked. The birthrate went down.

This is not just an Israeli issue. This is a Jewish issue. Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world and what happens there affects the future of us all. At a time when Diaspora Jewish leaders are concerned for the future of our own communities, an Israel transformed into a Haredi state will be the harbinger of doom for non-Orthodox world Jewry.

We have been warned.

Israel's Great Secular Hope

2012-01-08T18:43:00.000-05:00

There is breaking news from Israel that I have been awaiting for a very, very long time. Yair Lapid, perhaps one of Israel’s most trusted journalists, is leaving Channel 2 for a career in politics.

Yair’s father, Tommy Lapid, followed a similar trajectory much later in life when he joined the Shinui (Change) Party in 1999 and led them to ultimately win 15 seats in 2003. Tommy Lapid, who was a Holocaust survivor and an atheist, was one of the most articulate antagonists of the Haredi camp. Yair wrote a biography of his father, framed as Tommy’s posthumous “autobiography,” just after his father’s death, called Memories After My Death. I highly recommend it.

Yair is expected to form his own party. From Haaretz:

Several recent surveys forecasted that a Lapid-led party could garner between 15 and 20 mandates in the Knesset.

A recent poll stated that a party headed by Lapid would become the second largest party in the Knesset.

According to the poll, if Lapid chooses to set up a new party, it would receive 15 Knesset seats in Israel’s next elections, as opposed to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, which would receive 14 seats. Likud would remain the largest party in the Knesset, with 24 seats, and the Labor Party would tie in second place with Lapid’s party with 15 seats.

Some Israeli politicians are so worried about him that they have already proposed (ridiculous) legislation calling for a “cooling off” period of two years before a journalist may enter electoral politics. Such legislation has almost no chance of passing.

As Israel’s culture war heats up, as it often does in the face of stalemates with the Palestinians, Yair Lapid may represent a great hope for secular Israelis to take their country back. Or, like so many before him, he may fall victim to the atrocious coalition compromising that is so prevalent in Israel.

Inside The Primitive Ideology Of Haredi Judaism

2012-01-06T17:59:00.005-05:00

Behind the growing conflict between Haredim and the rest of the Jewish community is a primitive theology that most of us do not begin understand. These people live in a world in which God metes out punishment upon the Jewish people and the world for the tiniest of “offenses.”

In the video below, broadcast a few weeks ago on Israel’s Channel 10, you will learn about a movie intended for Haredim. You will see how these people blame their own wives, mothers and daughters who wear wigs (rather than headscarves) for the rampant poverty in their community. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until you see what else they blame on this so-called immodesty.

Israeli Haredi birthrates indicate that their population will increase by 580% in the next twenty years. They will become the majority in Israel. Can such an Israel survive?

Lest you think that this is just an Israeli issue, keep in mind that they are the fastest growing group of Jews in the Diaspora, too. If this is the future of Judaism, I will opt out.

As for Israel, it has a clear choice to make. Each time the government cuts handouts to these people, their birthrate goes down. The time to act is now. They must go to work. They must serve in the army. They must teach their children something besides “Toirah.”

Now that I’ve got iMovie figured out, I’m going to keep bringing these clips from Israeli television.

Romney's & Santorum's Ron Paul Problem

2012-01-05T18:20:00.001-05:00

As you’re undoubtedly aware, most of the Republican candidates have been falling all over each other to prove that they’re bigger Zionists than Herzl. Support for Israel is undoubtedly the number one issue for most of the Jewish Republicans whom I know. They are convinced that Obama is dangerous for Israel.

So here comes Ron Paul, with his background of support for REAL antisemites, anti-Zionists and assorted racists, and what is the attitude of the Republican field? Both Santorum and Romney have said that if he does receive the nomination (as unlikely as that is) they would vote for him.

Gal Beckerman at Forward.com underscores Paul’s Jewish problem and asks a pointed question:

Here’s how his senior aide for over a decade, Eric Dondero, characterized Paul’s views: “He is… most certainly anti-Israel, and anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.”

Dondero also said Paul didn’t think the United States should have entered World War II simply for “saving the Jews.”

For all these reasons, Paul has been condemned by the Republican Jewish Coalition and was not invited to its candidate forum in early December. Matthew Brooks, RJC’s executive director, said Paul had been rejected for his “misguided and extreme views.”

But why has the RJC stopped short of condemning Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the other big winners in Iowa and the front-runners going forward?

Why indeed?

How can anyone who loves Israel support this man? Beckerman continues:

This is a problem. The party that makes a point of wearing its pro-Israel bona fides on its sleeve and that has a strategy of gaining Jewish votes by targeting Barack Obama’s supposedly destructive policies toward Israel now has this albatross around its neck. Paul himself might not come close to the White House, but he has now tainted candidates like Romney and Santorum and the rest of the Republican establishment who refused to repudiate him.

I think it’s fair to call upon Romney and Santorum to condemn Ron Paul. As for the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has seen fit to do so, how can they possibly give a pass to anyone who would vote for him?

Homohater Fosser Fram

2012-01-05T10:46:00.004-05:00

Once again Iowa has held its ridiculous caucuses allowing a microscopic number of people to determine the trajectory of our presidential primaries. This year only 5.4% of registered Republicans showed up and most of them were from the most fundamentalist evangelical communities.

I guess Romney’s pandering worked, though those eight (!) votes that put him over the top cost him a bucketload of money.

The big story that drew all of the headlines was Santorum. He will never be president and when all is said and done, Mr. “Gay Sex = Man on Dog Sex” will go down in history as one big punchline. But narrow-minded Iowa Republicans made his week.

I don’t speak a word of Norwegian, but this headline from the website dagbladet.no pretty much sums up my opinion of Santorum:

A Rabbi And A Quarterback Walk Into A Political Mess...

2012-01-03T13:34:00.001-05:00

Not being much of a follower of the NFL any more, I have not had the pleasure of enjoying the antics of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. He is a fundamentalist Christian who sparks deep emotions among many people, pro and con. He’s also famous for his much-parodied special prayer pose on the field.

One of his critics is Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Stamford, Connecticut who blogs at joshuahammerman.blogspot.com and writes for the New York Jewish Week. Rabbi Hammerman decided to write about Quarterback Tebow and the shit flew off the fan mighty fast:

People are always looking for signs of God’s beneficence, and a victory by the Orange Crush over the blue-clad Patriots, from the bluest of blue states, will give fodder to a Christian revivalism that has already turned the Republican presidential race into a pander-thon to social conservatives....

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Having once been a big sports follower, I remember how fans would stupidly infer earth shattering consequences from the results of big wins. Though I probably have no reason, I expect more from a liberal rabbi with a national reputation. Does he really think football is THAT important? And could he possibly really believe that “buoyed” Tebow fans were going to run out and burn mosques? History teaches us that fans wait until a championship win and then they burn everything!

Here’s more of the rabbi’s “thinking” on the importance of Tebow:

His story is so improbable that if he were to win it all, a part of me would be wondering whether there is a Purpose behind it, just as I saw a divine hand in the equally unbelievable Red Sox victory of 2004. And it makes me wonder whether other Jews, the ones who don’t happen to have advanced degrees in religion and a few decades of rabbinic experience, might be even more seduced by this unfolding drama. Will legions of Southern Baptist missionaries hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim? Already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page.

I hope Rabbi Hammerman is kidding about the “divine hand” involved in the Red Sox’s victory. I don’t think he is. This is the problem with superstitious, magical thinking. It clogs up your brain with fantasy scenarios like this one about Baptist missionaries leveraging a Broncos victory to convert the Jews.

Hammerman was roundly condemned for his article. Apologies were issued and the column was scrubbed from the internet. (It took a lot of patience to find an intact version.) There were all kinds of charges of “bigotry” against Christians and so forth from all of the usual places (I’m looking at you, Fox News).

I happened upon another article about Tebow on the ESPN site Grantland, written by Charles Pierce. There certainly is legitimate criticism that could be leveled at Tebow:

Tim Tebow became "compelling" because he became a character in the great national dumbshow that is our culture war. And we should be very clear about one thing — he wasn't dragooned into this. Nobody drafted him. He walked into this role with his eyes open. Before he ever took a snap in the NFL, he appeared in an anti-choice television ad with his mother that was sponsored by Focus on the Family, an influential anti-choice, anti-gay-rights organization founded by the Rev. James Dobson. He knew what he was doing.

This is why Tebow’s views are open to criticism. He put them in the public sphere.

It has been argued paradoxically that his faith is both vital to his success and off-limits to criticism. This is, of course, nonsense. He put his business in the street that way, and he did so by allying himself with the softer side of a movement that contains other organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which knows about this stuff, recently designated as hate groups. There was considerable thumb-sucking about the propriety of criticizing — or, gloriosky, perhaps even mocking — Tebow's conspicuous religiosity. This was an ironical moment in that it came in the week that journalist Christopher Hitchens died, and it was Hitchens whom I first heard say...that the only proper answer a journalist can give to the question "Is nothing sacred?" is "Yes."

Now back to Rabbi Hammerman’s inane article. Seeking to remind people that he is a RELIGIOUS rabbi, he states:

...I do not fear people of faith. I fear people of certainty. The worldwide struggle going on right now is not between good and evil, but between certainty and doubt. It cuts across denominational lines: Progressive and Modern Orthodox Jews lie on one side of the divide, joining mainline Christians and moderate Muslims; and those on the other side are also Jews, Christians and Muslims; the people of certainty.

The rabbi loves faith. He simply thinks that the liberally religious are superior because of their doubts.

He misses the point completely. He’s just as certain that HIS god is mysterious and unknowable and really loves gays as the other side is certain that their god wrote a best-selling book and isn’t crazy about same-sex relationships.

They’re both certain that they have access to the mind of this deity and they both engage in ridiculous behaviors that indicate their certainty. That’s the whole point of their “faith.” It’s anything they want it to be and it still carries divine authority.

And while Tebow is praying in the end zone, is he really so different from Hammerman? The rabbi concluded his column with this:

For me, only one thing is certain. On Sunday, I’ll be praying for the Patriots.

Well, they won, so I guess Yahweh likes the gays.

Tone Deaf Haredim Protest In Concentration Camp Garb

2012-01-02T19:03:00.003-05:00

Last night Haredim gathered in Jerusalem to protest against the crackdown on their thuggish behavior toward women and girls. Living as they do in the Jewish State (which this group does not recognize) they chose what they deemed an appropriate analogy to their situation: Nazi Germany.

To do this they dressed themselves and their kids up as concentration camp victims, replete with striped uniforms and yellow badges. The event was covered extensively on ynet.com, including this reaction from Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni:

There is no protest in the world that can justify this. Even within the debate we are holding there are boundaries that cannot be crossed. I hope that haredi leaders will condemn these acts.

Did they? Not so much.

Weirdly, some of these geniuses recently praised Hitler’s Germany for its understanding of the importance of gender separation. Believe it or not, this little tidbit appeared in Yated Ne’eman, the “yeshivish” (i.e., Haredi, but not Hasidic) newspaper. Failedmessiah.com reported this a few weeks ago following Hillary Clinton’s remarks about gender issues in Israel:

Mrs. Clinton, let me remind you of one more thing. Even during the Holocaust when the Germans, damn them and their memory, death machine ran at full speed - the Jews were held in concentration camps in [separate] blocks for men and women. [Gender] separation is natural to every living person. [Therefore] men were sent [by the Nazis] to reside in the men’s block, and women [were sent by the Nazis] to the women’s block.

Since they don’t study history or psychology or anything that’s not “Toirah,” they can’t be expected to know that the Nazis did this with precisely the intention of de-humanizing the Jews.

More Shattering Examples Of Haredi Immorality

2012-01-02T18:54:00.000-05:00

Below is a piece by Israel’s Channel 2 evening broadcast of December 27. It shows two other stories of Haredi immorality against two different families, both of them non-Haredi religious. The stories are shocking.

I received some good feedback about the Israeli news clip that I linked to. Then I saw this and wanted to post it but could not find a translated version. So I have become an iMovie user and captioned this piece.

I tried to put the captions at the bottom, but that doesn’t seem to be an iMovie option for longer caps. If anyone knows a way around this, please contact me.

More examples of how these thuggish extremist Haredim treat people with different beliefs. It’s what my grandparents called a “shande”:

Haredi Misogyny Is Nothing New

2011-12-27T17:38:00.001-05:00

If you have not had the opportunity to watch the YouTube video in the previous post, now would be a good time. Tonight, in a tribute to sanity, several thousand protestors arrived - on one day’s notice - for a rally in Beit Shemesh. Secular and religious Jews, including a few moderate Haredim, joined together to express their outrage.

It’s terrific and I’m the first to applaud this demonstration of sensibility. But before we start celebrating the end of Haredi misogyny, let’s remember that negativity about women - if not the violence - is widespread in Haredi Judaism.

In yesterday’s “Judaism” section of ynet, Nehemia Rosenfeld had a great piece with a few examples of how Haredi Jews are educated and acculturated. The full article is available only in Hebrew, but here are some highlights:

The newspaper “HaModia” brands itself as “the daily newspaper of Haredi Judaism,” and it is indeed the most widespread paper in that sector. The newspaper belongs to the Agudat Yisrael faction which is part of the Torah Judaism Party [and sits in the government coalition]. Many in the Haredi public view “HaModia” as the organ of the Gur Hasidim and the newspaper makes no effort to conceal this.

Now no one would think to call MK Yaakov Litzman - the Gur Hasidic representative in Agudat Yisrael - a radical. [He is Israel’s Deputy Minister of Health, but is actually the acting minister, choosing the “deputy” title to minimize the appearance of being Zionist.] And moreover, no one would ever call the Gur Hasidim, one of the largest and most dominant Hasidic groups in Israel, a marginal group or a minority voice.

And yet, as anyone who’s ever thumbed through “HaModia” knows too well, women’s pictures are forbidden in its pages. In the past they have edited out pictures of female politicians even in large group photos of the government. There are also other very bizarre editorial decisions made by this most “mainstream” of Haredi newspapers and Rosenfeld reproduces them.

You will laugh, but try not to laugh too hard. As funny as these are, they represent something very ugly and very dangerous. Just ask poor little Na’ama Margolis.

Here is a picture of a wedding. Notice anything funny about the bride and her mother?
Apparently this poor groom is marrying a woman with a severe case of pixelaton.

This must have been a female doll. Can't have that.

An advertisement for Pampers. On the left is how it appeared in the secular press. On the right the baby's butt is no longer sticking up in the air (maybe that's too provocative) and her (his?) socks are now knee-high.

Notice the difference between the two? The one from "HaModia" (left) has sleeves! Because without sleeves it's a pretty provocative house (or phone or whatever).

Israeli Haredim Are Losing It

2011-12-26T10:24:00.003-05:00

It should come as no surprise that The Atheist Rabbi would have an issue or two with Haredi Jews, especially when it comes to the matter of “exclusion of women” that has come to dominate Israeli discourse. I have this in common with millions of secular Jews in Israel and around the world.

What is surprising is the large number of Orthodox Jews who are also at the end of their ropes with these people. Because they come into more frequent contact with them, traditional and moderate Orthodox Jews have witnessed their behavior up close.

The latest symbol of this is a seven year old girl named Na’ama Margolis. She was spit upon for her “immodest” dress as she made her way to her modern, Zionist Orthodox girls’ school wearing her long skirt, long sleeves and high collar.

I have been very concerned about this situation for years. Some theorize that the extremism has increased because of the increasing contacts between Haredim and wider society. Others suggest that they’re feeling empowered by their demographic successes and the weaknesses of Israeli authorities in dealing with them.

This video was broadcast last Friday night on “Ulpan Shishi” (Friday Studio), the major Channel Two news program of the week, hosted by the very popular Yair Lapid. It was in response to this piece that Netanyahu made his strongest statements about increased law enforcement and taking down signs that require women to stay off men’s sidewalks.

One of the most chilling parts of the item is the Haredi who promises that they are the future of Israel. This is not an Israel that I would be interested in. But I don’t believe him. Not when videos like this are being passed along with translation by Israeli Orthodox women. Hannah Katsman, author of the blog AMotherlnIsrael.com, is hardly an anti-religious radical. But she, like many other moderately religious Israelis, is concerned about this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the Israeli press is reporting on fresh violence today against a Channel Ten news crew.

It is true that the story of the Haredim is not new. But is it possible that with these new twists the government of Israel may begin to take some real action against these people? They are a huge socio-economic drain on the nation, they refuse to serve in the army and they are treated with kid gloves.

Maybe it’s time to take off those gloves.

Hitchens, Wolpe And The Dear Leader

2011-12-22T13:25:00.004-05:00

I miss Christopher Hitchens.

Rabbi David Wolpe, in his really lousy book, Why Faith Matters, talks about how Hitchens described North Korea as one of the most religiously authoritarian states that he’s ever experienced. Wolpe’s non-answer to this is to blame North Korea’s problems on its atheism and to praise South Korea for its Christianity. That’s why North Koreans flee there.

I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that North Korea is a horrendous place to live and that, if you’re a North Korean with a way out, you’re going to run to South Korea, a free country that shares your language and history. Wolpe asserts that it is North Korea’s official atheism that makes it the nightmare that it is and that it is South Korea’s Christianity that makes it free and so attractive to refugees.

Hitch tried to point out in debates with Wolpe that it is North Korea that is the more religious country. Sure, North Koreans are atheistic about the western God, but they are subject to round the clock veneration of their various Dear and Great leaders.

Now that the Dear one has died, just look at how North Koreans described his death:

Sudden cracking ice, glowing mountains and glorious sunsets have all been reported after the death of the leader was reported on Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on its website that "peculiar natural wonders were observed on Mt Paektu, Jong Il Peak and Tonghung Hill in Hamhung City".

Ice covering Lake Chon was said to have cracked so loudly that the entire lake trembled with noise.

A nearby lake exploration group reported that a bitterly cold storm suddenly stopped and the clouds cleared across the lake.

Then "the sky began turning red with sunrise on the horizon" KCNA reported. "The peaks looked like a picture for wide and thick glow".

KCNA also noted that Kim's "autographic writings" were seen carved on the edge of a mountain, glowing in sorrow for the leader whose brutal 20-year dictatorship resulted in

famine and economic catastrophe.

The state-controlled news service also reported how a crane flew around a statue of the president on Tonghung Hill and bowed its head before flying away.

"Even the crane seemed to mourn the demise of Kim Jong Il born of Heaven after flying down there at dead of cold night, unable to forget him," the news service said.

This reminds me of nothing more than the descriptions of the moments after Jesus’ death when earthquakes shook the land and the Temple’s curtain was ripped in two. It’s so obviously religious that, short of self-delusion, I can’t grasp how Wolpe could claim that the country is atheist. Like so many westerners, he refuses to recognize as religion any faith without Yahweh and Co. (aka Adonai, aka Jesus, aka Allah) at its core.

I miss Christopher Hitchens.

Happy Chanukah!

2011-12-22T12:38:00.000-05:00

Here is my Chanukah gift to readers of TheAtheistRabbi.com. It’s the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus singing that old chestnut, “Chanukah in Santa Monica.”

Chag Chanukah Sameach (Happy Chanukah). Enjoy!

Romney's Mormonism Is Worse Than Newt's Scumbagism?

2011-12-22T12:23:00.006-05:00

It seems to me that Mitt Romney is a pretty decent sort of guy. Of all the Republican candidates, he’s the only one whom I could remotely imagine voting for in a general election. (Yes, I am an independent and have even voted for Republicans as I have admitted on this blog in the past.)

What turns me off about him is that he doesn’t seem to commit to anything. I’m also very angry about how, like most of the Republican candidates, he so easily throws the gays under the bus. But that’s politics, I guess.

Now contrast him to Newt Gingrich who is so slimy that if you tried to put a sticker on him that said “decent,” it would burst into flames. I won’t go on and on about him because pretty much everyone knows everything there is to know about this scumbag.

And because of that you would think that the “family values” and “morals” crowd would stay away from the guy like termites avoid an Orkin factory. You would be wrong. It seems that when pitting Romney against Gingrich, the real important factor is what fairy tale each subscribes to:

The new president of the [South Carolina] Baptist Convention, a part of the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest religious group in the state with nearly 1,900 churches and 900,000 adherents in 2000), says the choice is clear.

The Rev. Brad Atkins, tabbed in November to lead the group for the coming year, told Patch on Friday that while Gingrich's infidelities may represent a major obstacle for some Christian voters, it isn't an issue that necessarily excludes the former speaker from consideration. Rather, it's an issue that calls for prayerful consideration of Gingrich's numerous public confessions to his wrongdoings.

The issue presented by Romney's faith may be more deeply rooted to South Carolinians.

"In South Carolina, Romney's Mormonism will be more of a cause of concern than Gingrich's infidelity," said Atkins, the pastor at Powdersville First Baptist Church in the Upstate.

"Conservatives can process and pray their way through the issue of forgiveness toward a Christian that has had infidelity in their life, but will struggle to understand how anyone could be a Mormon and call themselves 'Christian.'"

Rick Perry’s pastor has already called Mormonism a cult. Now this is technically true, but so are all of the other dogmatic religions. Christianity is the Cult of Jesus. Mormonism is the Cult of Whatever the Hell it is that they believe. Haredi Judaism is the Cult of the Rabbis.

But when Perry’s pastor said it, he meant that HIS religion was a cool, totally God-approved, 100% right way of life and that Romney’s was a horrific heresy. You just have to know how to translate these people accurately.

What can we learn from this?

According to fundamentalist Christians, as long as you subscribe to the correct fairy tale, you can be as big an ass as you want thanks to the out clause called “forgiveness” provided by Jesus. (And Newt’s Catholicism, whose popes were once vilified by Protestants as the antichrist, is part of the Christian family again. Someone please tell Martin Luther.)

The silliness of all this is overshadowed by the dangers of allowing our country to be led by seriously immoral men who rely upon magic tricks to clear their consciences and their records.

I'm Back And Talking Smack About The Exclusion Of Women

2011-12-22T11:54:00.002-05:00

For all of my well-wishers out there (I know there’s at least a couple of you) I do apologize for my neglect of this blog. One of my new year’s resolutions is to do a better job of updating it. Thank you to those who have been encouraging me to get it going again.

As my first order of business, I want to address the latest, greatest issue coming out of the Jewish State, the exclusion of women in the public sphere.

You’re probably already familiar with the gender segregation on some buses. Surprisingly I have actually heard defenses of this coming from the enablers of the Haredi primitives who promote this kind of behavior. They say that it’s the women’s choice. In fact, there have been so many documented incidents of coercion on these buses that they can hardly be called a matter of choice.

My latest outrage was kindled by an incident that I have not seen widely reported in the English language press. It took place at an awards ceremony for medical researchers sponsored by Israel’s Ministry of Health.

Now first let me point out that the Ministry of Health is led by DEPUTY Minister Ya’akov Litzman. Why is the Ministry of Health led by a deputy minister? Because the Haredim who elected him are not really Zionists. They’re not exactly anti-Zionists, either. They like to be thought of as non-Zionists. They’re all too happy to receive all of the goodies that the state has to offer, they just don’t want to look too jolly about receiving them. They just do it for the sake of Torah, you see. Thus the deputy title for a guy who's really the minister. It makes him look less invested in the Jewish State.

Anyway, according to the Hebrew language site, www.doctorsonly.co.il, two female medical researchers were asked to sit in the balcony during the presentation of their awards. Accepting on their behalf were male family members. The men who won awards were in the first row as is typical at such ceremonies. Litzman, by the way, pointed out that the women agreed. There were rabbis on the stage, after all, and the awards were for medical-halakhic breakthroughs, whatever those are.

A few days ago I heard a Haredi woman defend the segregation of buses by citing the fact that the holy men in their community, who are otherwise thinking about Torah all the time, are distracted by the women. Therefore, the women see it as a big mitzvah to help them out by being invisible.

It seems that whether on a bus or at an awards ceremony, Haredi men are constantly at the mercy of unwanted erections caused by any and all women.

Perhaps the next generation of medical researchers in Israel can find a cure for that.

Some Thoughts About Islam (And The Israeli-Arab Conflict)

2011-11-10T15:41:00.014-05:00

These days, it seems that most critiques of the Islamic world come from American and European wingnuts. Pamela Geller literally makes my skin crawl with her imbecilic bombast about a Sharia takeover of the U.S. and the dangers of a mosque near Ground Zero. David Horowitz hypocritically names his anti-Islamic organization “The Freedom Center” while he endorses a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. And don’t get me started on the fundamentalist Christian right and their ongoing religious war with Islam. Up until now it is these folks and their knuckle-dragging followers who have shouted the loudest about the problems with Islam.

And that’s a damn shame. Because in their own clumsy and inept ways, they are actually circling around the truth.

I say it’s time to wrest this issue away from these cartoon characters and hand it over to more enlightened spokespeople. Fortunately, there is a reasonable and educated group of thinkers that is also quite critical of the current trends in Islam: Atheists.

Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens have been particularly vocal about the rising danger of Islam. For their efforts, they have often been tagged as “Islamaphobic,” a charge of irrational hatred of Islam.

There is no question that Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones and the above-mentioned Ms. Geller can look pretty irrational when they take on Islam. But as my mom used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The Islamic world is, indeed, a real threat to peace and progress.

Whether it’s women, Jews, freedom of expression, science, alternative sexualities or pretty much any modern enlightened western value, Muslims around the world are increasingly against it. Against it in the sense that they’ll burn it down, stone it, repress it and slaughter it.

And yet many of my fellow liberals who are quick to join me in blasting American Christian religious extremists like Pat Robertson or Michele Bachmann, somehow draw the line when it comes to the far scarier, far more incendiary Islamic religious extremists who rule the Muslim world.

This is never more true than in the case of Israel. On campuses and at protests around the world, pro-Palestinian leftists have no compunctions about making common cause with Hamas. HAMAS! If ever there was a repressive, homophobic, misogynist, antisemitic, anti-liberal regime, it is Hamas. And it's just one example in a vast and rising Islamic sea that, with very few exceptions, turns its back on human rights.

When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have long realized that the core of the problem is Arab/Muslim antisemitism. The Islamic belief that all land that has ever been under Muslim rule is theirs forever and ever and ever is certainly a big part of this. However, it is grossly aggravated by the fact that in Israel’s case, it is the Jews (“apes and pigs”) who are living there. I don’t think I overstate the case when I point out that Palestinians, like most Arab (and other) Muslims, really, really, really hate the Jews. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a still a great bestseller in Arabic and Farsi. Not too long ago, televised “dramatizations” of that horrid book were produced in Egypt and Lebanon and screened throughout the Arab world.

This is no mere spinoff of the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is one of its root causes. The founder of modern Palestinian identity, Haj Amin Al-Husseini was an admirer of Hitler. When the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the Nazis received thousands of letters of congratulations from Arab Muslim admirers.

Hitler Meets With Al-Husseini

This rabid Jew-hatred continues today. Consider a tiny handful of examples. The official press of numerous Islamic nations frequently declare the Holocaust to be a fraud. This includes Israel’s peace partners in Egypt and Jordan. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ own Ph.D. dissertation was a work of devastating Holocaust denial and anti-Jewish accusations of Nazi collaboration. A few years ago Raed Salah, head of the “Islamic Movement” in northern Israel, invoked the ancient blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of non-Jewish children to make matzas. A Saudi Arabian academic begged to differ. He said that the blood is for Purim pastries. I’ve barely scratched the surface. For more information, see here and here and here and here and even here.

And please don’t compare any of this to the anti-Arab antics of some Israeli extremists. Israelis have condemned them, arrested them and pulled their writings from circulation. In cases where officials have not interceded, the Israeli press and public have been up in arms. That’s because most Israelis possess basic human decency, something rarely displayed by Muslim antisemites.

If the past half decade of Islamic rule in Gaza has taught us anything, it is that Israel is up against a monstrous enemy that wants nothing more than its complete destruction.

I began this post by pointing out how we need to take leadership on this issue away from the histrionic right-wing clowns. Too many liberals are slaves to political correctness, even when it’s not justified. In the case of the Islamic world, it most certainly is not.

I’m going to be writing about Islamic hatred and intolerance more frequently. Another atheist who is already speaking out is famous YouTube monologuist Pat Condell.

Here are two of his best videos. Both are about Israel and the Palestinians. I agree with every word. Like him, I'll probably also receive a lot of flack about this post.

Prayer Is Indeed Powerful

2011-10-26T12:46:00.002-04:00

In case you thought that there was nothing to the power of prayer, think again. Prayer can be very, very powerful. And if you substitute your meds with prayer, there’s a very good chance that the power of prayer will help to kill you.

At least that’s what happened in one evangelical Christian community when a preacher told HIV-positive congregants that prayer would cure them (as reported by the BBC):

At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.

The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said.

I usually have a quip at the end of a post like this. Out of respect for the dead I will refrain.

The Clergy Project

2011-10-20T17:33:00.003-04:00

For a few months now I have been a member of an online group called The Clergy Project.

This group was founded by leaders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Its originators included Daniel Dennett, Linda LaScola, Richard Dawkins, Robin Cornwell and Dan Barker.

The Clergy Project is a private forum with about 100 members who are either active or former clergy and who have lost any belief in the supernatural. Many of them come from pretty fundamentalist backgrounds, including some who are still preaching in those kinds of churches.

Most of the active clergy members need to keep their identities very private. As far as I can tell, there aren’t any who aren’t trying to get out of the clergy. That’s a tall order, though, for people whose training and skill sets are difficult to transfer. Not every pastor or priest has the privilege of signing on with a humanistic version of their religion as I was fortunate enough to do. With the exception of joining the Unitarian Universalists, who do count theists among their members, I’m not sure that’s an option for my ex-Christian friends.

I’m writing about it now because The Clergy Project has just gone quasi-public. We’re not opening up the private forum, but there are now a website and Facebook page with public faces that explain what’s happening behind the scenes while protecting the privacy of our group.

ClergyProject.org has a wealth of resources that we all hope will garner a great deal of attention to our cause. Our Facebook page is also up and running. I think we would all like to see this become a national movement to guide non-theistic clergy out of traditional religion and into something more productive. Perhaps a few will even be drawn to humanistic chaplaincy, a career path that is in its infancy. (Okay, it’s in its gestation.)

Take a moment to visit the site and read the testimonials and press coverage. You can also leave comments on the Facebook page. I'm encouraged to see that, as of this writing, all of the comments are quite positive.

Gorilla Errata

2011-10-20T17:11:00.000-04:00

A reader has written to me to correct a couple of mistakes in my post about the “invisible gorilla” and perception.

The book, “The Invisible Gorilla,” was actually co-written by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (and not just by Simons as previously stated). And the book is not about to be released, it’s out now!

I highly recommend a visit to their website. I plan to buy the book immediately now that I realize I don’t have to wait.

A Resource Guide To The "Intactivist" (No Circumcision) Movement

2011-10-11T17:39:00.004-04:00

I have received so many e-mails in response to my recent post about circumcision. This is obviously a big issue for many people. One of the greatest barriers to changing the mindset about it is that rabbis (and others) make people feel quite guilty and isolated as a result of their desire to avoid harming their newborn child.

Well, there's not much we can do about guilt except to point out that there's absolutely no reason for otherwise modern, liberal Jews to observe this dubious "mitzvah." Most of us have no problem dropping superstitious Jewish rituals that have no meaning in our time. Avoiding this one should give them no cause for additional concern.

As for the isolation, here's a helping hand. It's a complete resource, sent to me for publication on this blog. I am pleased to oblige:

------------------------------------------------------------

Judaism, The Foreskin, and Human Rights

“There are tens of thousands of intact Jewish boys and men around the world who thank their lucky stars they were not circumcised.”

- Brian Levitt, Jewish Intactivist and co-founder of Jews for the Rights of the Child

Testimony at the California Senate Judiciary Committee Public Hearing on Circumcision

"…As a progressive Reform Jew I was raised to believe that any conflict between human rights and Jewish law and/or tradition, is always resolved in favor of human rights, and that this does not diminish Judaism, but in fact makes it stronger… So when does circumcision become a bad idea? If a single child suffers from it directly, or indirectly from complications, or ... a single child should die (which is not common but does happen) isn't that enough warrant a re-evaluation? ... I believe it is time for the Reform movement to consider how contemporary medical and ethical studies on circumcision put the practice at odds with its cherished values of human rights and social justice -- values which, in my opinion, are truly what defines and are central to Judaism."

- Thomas Wolfe, Why do we need an alternative Brit Milah (Bris) ceremony?

"It's not a parental choice. There's an ethical problem with making this a parental choice, namely that you're not taking into account the wishes upon whom the surgery is being performed."

- Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, Jewish Intactivist, Georgetown University, September 22, 2011.
Q&A with Ryan McAllister & Rabbi Binyamin Biber Podcast

Jewish Intactivist Groups in the USA:
● Jews Against Circumcision ● Jews For the Rights of the Child ● Beyond the Bris Milah ● Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, Orthodox Intactivist ● Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective

Intactivist Groups in Israel:
● Kahal ● Gonnen ● the Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation ● Af-Mila: An Israeli Magazine for Jewish Intactivists ●

Jewish Intactivist Media:
● BeyondtheBris.com A blog for Jewish parents opposed to circumcision for moral reasons.
● Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision A Film by Orthodox Intactivist, Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon ● Worldwide list of Rabbis who lead covenant without cutting ceremonies

Example Peaceful Covenant Texts for New Parents:
● Worldwide list of Rabbis who lead covenant without cutting ceremonies

● A Brit Shalom (Intact Jewish Baby Welcoming) Ceremony
● Song for an Intact Jewish Boy’s Welcoming Ceremony
● Brit B'lee Milah (Covenant Without Cutting) Ceremony
● Norm Cohen: A Brit B’lee Milah (Intact Jewish Baby Welcoming) Ceremony

The Ethical and Moral Problems of Circumcision: Jewish Arguments for Intactivism:
● Circumcision Questions (letter from uncircumcised Jew) . Published in the Northern California Jewish Bulletin.
● Moshe Rothenberg: Being Rational About Circumcision and Jewish Observance
● Lisa Braver Moss: The Jewish Roots of Anti-Circumcision Arguments
● Eli Ungar-Sargon Outlawing Circumcision Good for the Jews? Published in the Jewish Daily Forward.
● Defying Convention: An Interview With Miriam Pollack Published on Beyond the Bris.
● Judaism, the Foreskin, and Human Rights Part 1.
● Judaism, the Foreskin, and Human Rights Part 2.
● Judaism, the Foreskin, and Human Rights Part 3.
● Jenny Goodman, MD: An Alternative Perspective A Jewish doctor in the UK chooses intact.
● The Measure of His Grief by Lisa Braver Moss A novel exploring Jewish intactivism.
● Hebrew Scholar Vadim Cherny: How Judaic is circumcision? It’s not at all, he finds.
● Profile of Orthodox Intactivist Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon
● Brit Milah: Inconsistent with Jewish Ethics? Written by a Jewish parent.
● A Progressive Case for Bris without Milah.
● Rabbi Nathan Segal Calls for an End to Circumcision A Progressive Rabbi urges us to move to peaceful covenants.
● Lisa Braver Moss: Evolving Jewish Practices Published on Beyond the Bris.
● Eli Ungar-Sargon & Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on the Ethical Problems of Circumcision At the Manhattan Jewish Experience.
● Miriam Pollack: Circumcision : A Jewish Feminist Perspective Published in Jewish Women Speak Out.

Quicktime Audio: Q&A with Jewish Intactivist Leaders:
● Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon with Ryan McAllister & Rabbi Binyamin Biber
● Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon with Rabbi Steven Blane & Laurie Evans
● The Psychological Consequences of Circumcision with Ronald Goldman Ph.D.

This History of Circumcision: Voices of Progressive Jews who Oppose Circumcision:
● Howard Stern: Jewish Intactivist Published on Beyond the Bris.
● The History of Circumcision: Leonard Glick , MD, PhD. explains how he came to write Marked In Your Flesh.
● Progressive, Moral Jews speak out in Favor of Banning Circumcision on Minors. Intactivism and Human Rights.
● Women’s Perspectives Published on Dr. Ron Goldman’s site.
● Jewish mom: Circumcision spiritually wounds, breaks bonds and trust Published in the East Valley Tribune.
● Jonathan Friedman: On Circumcision Authority, and the Perpetuation of Abuse Published on Beyond the Bris.
● Jewish Scholar and Intactivist, Leonard Glick, MD, PhD. A Jewish history of circumcision.
● Lisa Braver Moss: The Measure of his Grief A novel on the subject of Jewish Intactivism.
● Shea Levy: To the Mohel Who Cut Me Published on Beyond the Bris.

Examples of Young Jewish Parents who Choose Peaceful Covenant Ceremonies:
● Dear Elijah: A Conservative Jewish Father's Letter to His Intact Son Published on Peaceful Parenting.
● Diane Targovnik: How "Cut" Saved My Son's Foreskin : A Movie Review Published on Beyond the Bris.
● Jewish Mamma: Today’s Jews Reject Circumcision and Choose Peaceful Welcoming Covenants An Intactivist Midwife.
● The Naming Published on Very, Very Fine.
● Sarah Rockwell: Lucking Into Bris Shalom Published on Beyond the Bris.
● Laura Shanley: A Jewish Woman Denounces Circumcision A Childbirth educator chooses intact.
● Michael S. Kimmel: The Kindest Un-Cut: Feminism, Judaism, and My Son's Foreskin Published in Tikkun.
● Stacey Greenberg: My Son: The Little Jew with a Foreskin Published in Mothering Magazine.
● Intact and Jewish Published on the Natural Parents Network.
● Moshe Rothenberg: Ending Circumcision in the Jewish Community? Envisioning an Intactivist Judaism.

Indoctrination Is Not Thinking For Yourself

2011-10-06T15:42:00.000-04:00

Over at Religion Dispatches, Paul Wallace has taken notice of Richard Dawkins’ idea for a “Think for Yourself Academy” for children. Dawkins said in a NY Times interview that this academy “would not be a school for atheists.”

The idea horrifies him. A child should skip down an idiosyncratic intellectual path. “I am almost pathologically afraid of indoctrinating children,” he says.

Wallace can’t understand this at all:

And really, why not an atheist school? As Chris Mooney wrote over at Science Progress in response to the same Times profile: “Dawkins really, really, really thinks he’s right about things.” Assuming that’s the case, why not teach children the truth? I mean, if it’s true? Isn’t it good to know the truth, and isn’t it our duty to pass the truth on to our kids?

Yes, but apparently the greatest virtue—that children should not be indoctrinated—now trumps even the truth. This seems somehow wrong to me, and very un-Dawkins. What’s going on here?

He recalls his own indoctrination and the wonderfully open Catholic priest who supposedly invited him to think for himself about God. He can’t fathom why Dawkins would oppose the same approach for atheism:

Dawkins’ distaste for an officially atheist academy may be mere iconoclasm. But maybe not. Maybe it’s closer to the truth to say he could never allow the kind of intellectual openness found routinely in parochial schools around the world.

...What many Catholics know, and what Richard Dawkins appears not to, is that the idea of children moving through life without serious intellectual and moral direction—in this insane world, of all places—is a terrible joke and a recipe for social catastrophe.

My wife and I are raising three Christian children. We take them to church at least twice a week. There, as at home, they are told exactly who they are, what exactly is expected of them, and why. We expect them to internalize this and come to see themselves as part of a story, a big beautiful story grounded in the reality and love of God.

He concludes by noting that his children can make up their own minds when they grow up, though he would be “saddened” if they left Christianity.

There are many so ways that Wallace just doesn’t get it.

First of all, his Catholic indoctrination was not about teaching him to think for himself. He writes of “intellectual openness found routinely in parochial schools around the world”? Really? I’ve been intimately involved with quite a few parochial schools. If I had to make a list of their qualities, “intellectual openness” wouldn’t even make the list. If indeed, as he imagines, he was invited to deny the existence of God, it was only to open the door to more indoctrination. And it clearly worked.

Secondly, no atheist (especially those who, like Dawkins, espouses secular humanism) believes in allowing children to go without “serious intellectual and moral direction.” What we object to is attributing that direction to a supernatural force rather than to the application of sound, modern scientific and ethical thinking.

Finally, his expectations are that his children will internalize his “big beautiful” fairy tale about the origin of the world, the place of humanity and our responsibilities. They are growing up knowing “what exactly is expected of them.” That leaves very little room for rebellion. And even if they should have their eyes opened, the pressure to conform will be overwhelming.

What Dawkins understands is that once children are exposed to what his new book call “the magic of reality,” it is very difficult for them to backslide into supernatural explanations. I know something about indoctrination, having witnessed up close its effects on people I love. Indoctrination places a premium on faith - even in the absurd - over and above any and all evidence to the contrary.

I am certain that Wallace’s children will be good Catholics. They’ll probably be too scared, or too ignorant, not to be.

Haredi Jews Vs. Orthodox Jews?

2011-10-06T15:13:00.000-04:00

Many people do not understand the difference between Modern Orthodox and Haredi Jews. Well, here’s a case study. From JTA:

This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb.

The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood across the street.

It was the latest battle in the clash between haredi zealots and Modern Orthodox Jews in Beit Shemesh, a heavily American suburb of 80,000 about 25 minutes from Jerusalem.

The newest flashpoint is the recently opened Banot Orot school.

This is just the latest in the ongoing tension in Beit Shemesh between the city’s modern residents and their neighbors who live about 400 years in the past. There has been a great deal of violence, including acid attacks on girls deemed to be dressed with insufficient modesty. Now this school, founded by some pretty religious folks, is under assault.

This is a scenario that repeats itself throughout Israel. Lately, the Modern Orthodox have been joining forces with secular Jews to put an end to Haredi intimidation. Famed Israeli author Naomi Regan has been one of the leaders, particularly with respect to forced gender segregation on buses.

I’ve made this observation before, but I think it bears repeating. I cannot for the life of me think of any other country where an unpatriotic minority, intensely disloyal to its own nation and living off the welfare of that nation, asserts so much power. It is beyond chutzpah. It’s so chutzpadik that it almost demands a new word!

If enlightened Israelis from all the camps do not build a consensus to end this, they’re going to find themselves living in a quite unenlightened place, ruled by ignorant men still living in the 16th century.

Eliminating The Cruelest Cut

2011-10-04T18:14:00.003-04:00

I was very pleased to be contacted recently by Dr. Mark Reiss, who maintains the website, cirumstitions.com. His site is committed to providing accurate information about the dangers of infant circumcision. It also promotes b’rit shalom (covenant of peace) ceremonies over the traditional b’rit or b’ris milah (covenant of circumcision). I hope to soon be added to his list of those who perform these circumcision-free ceremonies.

I have already written about my opposition to infant circumcision. Now, with the release of a new film and a new website, there is finally some momentum building among Jews to do away with this antiquated and barbaric custom. The film is called Cut. I am very anxious to see it. The filmmaker's website provides a link to an article he wrote and some other information.

The new website, beyondthebris.com, is maintained by Rebecca Wald, who it seems is a lantsman (i.e., she lives in South Florida). It’s full of excellent information and I highly recommend it.

While I’ve said before that the effort to criminalize infant circumcision is probably a bridge too far, at least for the present, I’m glad that these efforts have expanded this conversation. The liberal movements have never really been engaged by this issue. Even the nineteenth century reformers, who opposed so many ancient rituals, never properly discussed it.

I cannot imagine why any sane person would put their baby boy through an unnecessary and painful surgery without even the benefit of anesthesia. Yet, until recently, no one in Jewish leadership has challenged this obsolete and primitive ritual.

On a personal note...it’s another reason I’m happy that I only have daughters.

UPDATE: Dr. Reiss contacted me with a correction. The website circumstitions was actually created by Hugh Young, an "intactivist" from New Zealand. He hosts the celbrants page for Dr. Reiss.

Angels Among Us

2011-10-04T17:47:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, in the nineteenth century when Reform Judaism was on the road to rational thinking, the editors of its prayer books took a big red pen to the “angelology.” This was their term for the sections in the traditional siddur (prayer book) that talked about the angels. It’s big in the K’dushah prayer (“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts...”) for example.

Well that rational trend was reversed in the 1970s with the release of Gates of Prayer. Its just published replacement, Mishkan T’filah, also sports angel imagery.

Now consider the effect such nonsense is having on the lay people.

In the most recent issue of Reform Judaism, there is an article by a lay person entitled “Encounters of the Angelic Kind.” He learned from a student rabbi about a character in the Joseph story who is taken by interpreters to be an angel. This led him to all kinds of wildly supernatural connections about his own life and how he had been led by a [sic] melakh elohim (angel of God). Every little coincidence or decision is described by him to be a signal of the presence of these “messengers.” As he writes:

So, the next time you are thinking about the twists and turns your life has taken, why not stop for a moment to consider the melakh elohim in your life. The answer may surprise.

This is just silly magical thinking. It’s demonstrative of how people are unable or unwilling to accept a natural world devoid of presences or ghosts or angels. There are perfectly good psychological reasons to feel these presences, but that doesn’t make them real.

The fact that such silliness takes up a whole page in their namesake magazine just shows how intellectually bankrupt Reform Judaism has become.

A Very Dawkins Rosh Hashanah

2011-10-01T10:25:00.002-04:00

What better way to spend the second day of Rosh Hashanah than to attend a lecture by Richard Dawkins? That’s what I did early last evening at my old stomping grounds, the University of Miami. It was wonderful.

Dawkins deserves a great deal of responsibility for my final leap to Secular Humanistic Judaism. One of the last things that held me back was my terrible understanding of evolution. I really just could not understand how a supposedly random process (it’s not random) could result in intelligent life. I was also misled by ridiculous interpretations of evolution offered by writers like Arthur Green in his Radical Judaism.

When I read Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth, my eyes were finally opened to the real story. The walls of my ignorance crumbled. I have since read many more of his books and plenty of others on biological evolution, physics and related topics.

Dawkins has now published The Magic of Reality, aimed at children but appropriate for all ages. It is fully and beautifully illustrated by the famed graphic novel artist Dave McKean (famous for his partnership with Neil Gaiman).

The talk was excellent. Dawkins was preceded by Sean Faircloth, formerly of the Secular Coalition for America and now with the Richard Dawkins Foundation. He, too, has a new book coming out that looks quite good, Attack of the Theocrats.

All in all it was a fantastic way to enjoy my holiday free time after two great services at Congregation Beth Adam in Boca Raton.

Here’s the video. It starts slow, so you might need to fast forward:

Watch live streaming video from umsbaav at livestream.com

Blessed Art Thou, Mr. Deity

2011-09-30T11:42:00.002-04:00

I am a long-time fan of the Mr. Deity YouTube series. If you aren’t familiar with this hysterical creation, here’s a great episode to start with. It’s called Mr. Deity and the Philosopher.

At this time of year, when Jews are pounding their chests and begging forgiveness, this is a humorous and honest look at how religious traditions determine and judge good and evil. Anyone who watches this is going to have a hard time walking into a mainstream synagogue on Yom Kippur and uttering the inanities of the traditional prayers.

Well, if Rosh Hashanah services were just too much for you and you’re dreading Yom Kippur, why not find a Humanistic congregation in your area? Here’s a link to a directory.

Why waste a whole day telling Mr. Deity how sorry YOU are? He’s such a schmuck.

Who You Gonna Believe? Science Or Your Lyin' Eyes?

2011-09-30T11:28:00.001-04:00

First of all, L’shana Tova! Happy 5772! Which by no means should be taken to indicate my belief that the world is 5,772 years old.

On to the topic at hand...

There is a widespread misconception that we can always trust our senses to tell us the truth about the world. But human beings don’t work like that. We possess very complex, pattern-seeking cognition mechanisms. Our brain is constantly taking in an enormous amount of information that needs to be interpreted and classified. I’m currently reading Michael Shermer’s new book, The Believing Brain, in which he presents a solid account of why and how our brains function with regard to beliefs and assumptions about the world. He also talks about the kinds of evidence that are presented by believers as proof for the existence of God. They are inevitably based upon personal experiences or revelations recorded by so called eye-witnesses.

Now to the fun part of this post.

Many of you have undoubtedly heard about the famous video experiment in which several basketball players pass a ball around and the subject is asked to count the passes. Before you read the rest of this, take a look at an updated version, even if you’ve seen or participated in this before.

This video and its predecessor were created by Prof. Daniel Simons of the Visual Cognition Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His forthcoming book is called The Invisible Gorilla. I first learned of it from Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion where he used it as an example of how memory works and why eyewitness testimony concerning religious miracles is irrelevant. This is no optical illusion, but an obvious occurrence (or set of occurrences) that is not recorded by the brain because it is busy doing something else.

Some rabbis I know tell me that this is not applicable to the Jewish revelation because what happened at Sinai was public and occurred in front of a large number of people. Yehudah Ha-Levi made similar arguments in the Kuzari. Of course, we have absolutely no evidence of any such mass revelation other than a story in the Torah, which is the very source of its claims.

Putting aside specific religious claims, the fact is that most erroneous human beliefs are based on some kind of personal experience. As the invisible gorilla video demonstrates, we cannot always trust our senses. Or our belief systems.

Ho Ho No

2011-09-22T18:52:00.002-04:00

I accidentally ran into this strange advertisement from the Israeli Department of Immigration and Absorption. It’s meant to encourage Israelis to return to Israel. The tagline of the campaign is "They'll always remain Israelis, but what about their children?" This piece is titled “Before Chanukah turns into Christmas...it’s time to return to Israel.” Even if you don’t speak Hebrew, you’ll get the gist:

Now I’m all in favor of encouraging Jews, whether Israelis or others, to consider making aliya. I once aspired to live in Israel myself. But this is ridiculous.

Obviously these are supposed to be Israelis living here. The last I noticed we had a pretty vibrant Jewish community with several million Jews. Part of my job involves working with our JCC’s Jewish preschool. The Jewish kids, and most especially the ones who speak fluent Hebrew (!), certainly celebrate Chanukah.

I’m pretty sure the Department of Immigration and Absorption can come up with a way to entice Israelis to return without insulting the entire North American Jewish community.

And Morons Give Birth To Morons

2011-09-22T18:38:00.000-04:00

Here’s a picture from a protest set up in Manhattan yesterday (from FailedMessiah.com). Typical of most creationists, this bozo does not have a clue about what the theory of evolution teaches:

I have no idea what life on other planets has to do with evolution.

Another Haredi Love Note For The State Of Israel

2011-09-22T18:20:00.003-04:00

Here’s a great example of the two-faced nature of many Israeli Haredim. In addition to having their hands out to the state all the time, while not serving in the military, they also spread horrific lies about the Zionist movement.

In a report from Israel’s Channel 10, a high school yeshivah rabbi, Reuven Yaakov Sokolover, took his class to an IDF Memorial and said the following:

They caused the Holocaust. They helped the Germans with the Holocaust because they wanted to establish a state here. They said, “Let as many Jews as possible die and then we’ll have an excuse that we deserve a state.”

Here those same sinners took over, spilled blood and now they want us to stand for the siren [sounded on Memorial Day]? We will not stand for the siren.

He went on to call President Obama a Palestinian, Iran-loving Muslim. I don’t know what he’s got against Obama. I thought opposition to him was mainly a right-wing Zionist thing.

Despite his antagonism toward the Jewish state, his yeshiva has not turned down funding from the government.

Unemployed? It's All Part Of God's Plan For You

2011-09-20T12:20:00.000-04:00

Another survey about religiosity in America has been released by Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco, Texas. As Christian universities go, it’s always had a halfway decent reputation in some areas. I won’t go into the details of the research, which you can see at their site. However, Jaweed Kaleem, writing on HuffPost, took a look at what the study reveals about the relationship between fundamentalism and attitudes toward the unemployment situation:

...Americans who believe God has a plan for their lives are more likely to think the government "does too much," more likely to oppose unemployment benefits for healthy people and more likely to believe in the "American dream" that anything is possible for those who work hard.

Interestingly, the study also revealed that those who held such beliefs made less money than strong disbelievers. And that they tended to be less educated than disbelievers. That last finding isn’t a surprise.

I have long wondered about how it is possible that so many fundamentalists defy the supposedly compassionate teachings of their religion. These findings go a way toward explaining just how wrong it is to assume that they’re learning about compassion from their faith. As far as they’re concerned, God loves them more than those unemployed slobs. And if, by chance, they should find themselves in that sad situation, then they accept it as God’s plan for them.

Somehow the Republican Party has been able to exploit this weakness in the faith of so many under-educated fundamentalists. Rich Republican corporate interests throw religious raw meat at these folks who, no matter how they are screwed over by Wall Street, will attribute anything that comes at them as “God’s plan.” Of course, Dems also play footsie with the corporate interests, but they don’t generally play the religion card. Republicans have cornered the market on that particular tactic.

Haredim Fight Modesty...You Read That Correctly

2011-09-19T18:13:00.000-04:00

Over the past few years there is a weirder than usual phenomenon that’s been developing in some Israeli Haredi circles. It’s the case of the “Taliban women.”

This is a group of women, not more than a few hundred, who cover up every inch of themselves from head to toe. It’s basically a Jewish burqa, only less Muslim looking. Tellingly, the practice is mostly found among newly-religious women. The trend gained infamy when one prominent “Taliban woman” was convicted of horribly abusing her children and gained the moniker “Taliban Mother.”

Now some Haredi rabbis have had enough. I find it difficult to believe, but for reasons of their own, they’ve started to come out against it. There have been reports in the press that these women, in addition to raising their children in twisted and violent ways, are also denying certain pleasures to their husbands. This inability to control these women might explain why some rabbis are suddenly so concerned with this.

At this time it involves so few women that it can hardly be a cause for panic. But it is interesting to note that it is a practice that is encouraged solely by women and that it is associated with child abuse. What internalized self-hatred could lead to something like this? It would take a team of psychologists working on them full time to untwist it all.

Pat Robertson Doesn't Want Any Guilt Trips

2011-09-19T17:56:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows that Pat Robertson is a paragon of biblical righteousness. This, after all, is a man who knows that hurricanes strike in order to punish people for their iniquity. It seems that Robertson is softening up on his call for complete adherence to the bible, even if it means defying Jesus himself.

In a recent episode of “The 700 Club” Robertson was replied to a man whose wife had Alzheimer’s Disease about the permissibility of divorcing her and going back out on the dating scene. As reported by the Washington Post “Under God” blog:

“I know it sounds cruel,” Robertson said in answers to a viewer’s question, adding that although Christian marriage vows are binding “to death do us part” ... “this is a kind of a death.”

“I certainly wouldn’t put a guilt trip on you if you decided that you had to have companionship, you’re lonely, and you’re asking for some companionship,” Robertson said, clarifying that the spouse would have to ensure that his wife would have “somebody looking after her.”

Now I’m no great New Testament scholar, though for a Jew I have studied more than my fair share, but it was not all that difficult to find this in Matthew 19:9, straight from the man himself:

And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

This in itself is a pretty hard-hearted view of divorce, given that the Hebrew Scriptures permit it. Of course, according to rabbinical interpretation, the woman must willingly accept the bill of divorcement (get). In the case of Robertson’s inquiry, this would not be the case.

As a humanist, I find it distressing that someone would divorce a spouse for this reason. I have been around people who have been in this situation and I’ve never heard a single one entertain that idea. Perhaps Robertson would point out that times have changed. Today we have the ability to take care of someone outside of the framework of the traditional family. We can now ensure that someone is looking after the no longer wanted or functioning family member.

Wow, Pat. Your morality is characterized by so much...what’s the word I’m searching for? Relativism.

Blame It On The Rain

2011-09-15T17:40:00.001-04:00

Given the state of the economy and job market, we should perhaps begin to ready ourselves for President Rick Perry. I don’t know whether he’ll win or not, but if he does we can rest assured that our country will be in the hands of God. This is because not only is Perry a good evangelical Christian, he has also been the recipient of supernatural guideposts throughout his life.

Here, courtesy of rightwingwatch.org, you can hear for yourself about one of the great supernatural miracles that led Perry on his path in life.

It rained. Thirty inches.

Well that is a lot of rain.

However, I’m a little unsure about whether Perry really understands the definition of “supernatural.” As I understand it, and maybe I’m wrong here, if water falls out of the sky it is what we generally call a natural phenomenon. If, say, it rains ping pong balls, that could be a supernatural occurrence. Or Mr. Moose.

If the economy doesn’t improve soon, we’re going to be in for a whole lot more of this.

Warning! This Religion Will Require A God Upgrade!

2011-09-14T20:58:00.000-04:00

Here’s a book review I’ve been working on. The post is a little longer than usual....

Rabbi Jamie S. Korngold has written a book called “The God Upgrade: Finding Your 21st-Century Spirituality in Judaism’s 5,000-Year-Old Tradition.” Korngold, who is also known as “The Adventure Rabbi,” puts forth a theology of a non-interventionist God who is basically just an experience, and certainly not a being of any kind. In this she is typical of many of the liberal rabbis whom I know. They do not believe in a theistic deity, but they still claim a relationship with God. Ask them what they mean and they give non-sensical answers such as this one in the book:

“I do not pray to God when I pray,” I explained [to a participant in one of her seminars]. “I experience God through my prayers [emphasis in original]. Through my voice and yours joining together, and through the timeless echoes of those who came before me, I imagine my prayers joining those of my ancestors as I speak the same words they did, layer upon layer.”

How does this work? Sometimes prayer is like a meditation. I repeat a Hebrew phrase over and over and suddenly find myself descending below the tumult of my life....

Other times I experience God through the communal encounter. ...The shared language of prayer even (or perhaps especially) saying words in a language we do not understand, enables us to connect with each other in a unique way. Saying the same exact words that I know my grandmother said when she lit the Shabbat candles...is another type of God experience. (pp. 108-109)

Such attempts to salvage God for modern Jewish purposes are responsible for the absurdity of most current Jewish theology.

What does it mean to say that you “do not pray to God” when you’re praying to God? What is it you’re doing when every utterance is addressed to God? Every siddur (prayer book) is filled with prayers that were written by pre-modern people. It is true that attempts have been made by liberals to remove the most extreme irrelevancies. In early prayer books, the Reconstructionists whittled away references to the chosen-ness of Israel. Reform Jews put an end to praising God’s power to resurrect and to petitions for restoration of sacrifices. However, today’s Reconstructionist siddur has reinstated the Jews as God’s chosen. The new Reform book has revived prayers for the resurrection of the dead (though translated poetically). Everywhere you look, liberal Jews are returning to traditional language and behavior.

As for “saying the same exact words that I know my grandmother said,” Korngold’s rationalist approach flies out the window every time she states, “Praised are you, Lord our God, sovereign of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to light Shabbat candles.” If she’s not talking to God, to whom is she talking? Herself? Then why recite this formula? Why say things that she doesn’t mean?

I suppose it’s related to her parenthetical comment that it may be “especially” good to say prayers in a language we don’t understand. As a lover of Hebrew, I’m a little irritated that killing it off might be the key to true prayer. What would she say to Israelis who can’t unlearn their mother tongue? Perhaps they could recite their non-prayers to the un-god in some ancient forgotten language so they can be like the lucky Hebrew-illiterate diaspora Jews who really experience God. She is on to something, of course. The more people understand these prayers, the less they are interested in reciting them.

Korngold also addresses the doubts we have that anything is out there at all. Ultimately, she believes in the experience of God, even if she can’t say what the heck it is we’re supposed to be experiencing. In one of the sillier passages in her book, she cites that great philosopher, Morgan Freeman, who hosted a Science Channel series about physics and cosmology:

Having immersed himself in this world of scientific exploration and worked with hundreds of scientists, Freeman explains that scientists reach different conclusions about the origins of the universe. But there is one element in which they are consistent; when the scientists reach the part of cosmology that they don’t understand and that is beyond their knowledge, they credit the hand of God. (p. 47)

Don’t get me wrong, Morgan Freeman is one hell of an actor, but this statement proves nothing. The “God of the gaps” theory is nonsensical whether it comes from a scientist, a theologian or an actor. Based upon the scientists I am familiar with, I also don’t think his conclusion is accurate. We all should know by now that when Einstein said “God,” he wasn’t advocating prayer.

All in all, this book is yet another attempt by an unclear thinker to address the reasonable concerns of non-theists. She accomplishes it by patiently explaining that prayer isn’t prayer and God isn’t God. I understand this game because I played it very well for a long time.

In preparing for my upcoming holiday talks, I went back to look at the sermons I delivered before I became a humanistic rabbi. I was pleasantly relieved to find that I had aggressively rejected supernaturalism. I was not at all surprised to see that I had engaged in the same game as Korngold. It was in those passages that I found myself most unconvincing. I bet those who heard me felt the same way.

Here is my challenge to those rabbis who continue to bow and shuckle and praise and petition a god in whom they don’t believe. Look into the idea of cognitive dissonance. Think about how we are affected by expressing (or chanting) ideas that we do not hold. Reconstructionist Judaism comes to mind. Founded by the brilliant non-supernaturalist Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, neither he nor his movement gave up theistic language. As a result, for all of the writing and teaching that he did, his own movement no longer shares his philosophy. If speech and conviction do not match, one or the other will take over. (I thank my colleague, Rabbi Eva Goldfinger, for that insight.)

I appreciate that Korngold and others like her are trying to preserve a connection to Judaism. But they are going about it the wrong way. The key is not to say one thing while believing another. It is to say what we mean and to mean what we say. If we don’t believe in a God who is an Actor in history, stop talking to and about him that way.

I can also appreciate the desire to feel connected to our grandmothers when we light candles. It’s a ritual that Jews have performed for a long time. But we can preserve the meaningful rituals without parroting fossilized statements and beliefs that accompanied them. Our grandparents believed many things that we now understand to be superstitious nonsense. We’re advanced enough to know that no god commanded us to light candles. So let’s stop saying blessings written by people who had not yet arrived at that realization.

In closing, I ask you to imagine for a moment that you have an infection. You go to your doctor who prescribes antibiotics. But before you leave, your physician asks that you bare your arm so that she can perform the ritual ~~bloodletting~~ cupping to balance your humors. It’s not that she believes in it, but it’s a 2,000 year old medical tradition, so she likes to do it. It makes her feel connected to Hippocrates. She says, “Through the timeless echoes of those who came before me, I imagine this act joining those of my ancestors as I do the same things they did, layer upon layer.”

How fast before you’re out of the door?

No God? Expect Rampant Pedophilia!

2011-09-13T18:44:00.000-04:00

During one recent Republican debate, audience members (whom I assume are not chosen off the streets) whooped and hollered in praise of Rick Perry’s many executions. Last night, during the CNN Republican debate, there were shouts of “let him die” when Ron Paul was asked about a hypothetical uninsured comatose man.

I would wager a substantial amount of money that these folks were all - or mostly - God fearing people.

I present these recent examples of morally uplifting behavior as a contrast to an article by Rabbi Moshe Averick instructing us that pedophilia is next on the slippery slope of atheism. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think of pedophilia, it’s not atheists who immediately pop into mind, but I’ll let that lie for now. He goes on to obsess over Princeton University’s Peter Singer for promoting amorality. I don’t know who Singer is, but if (and it’s a big if) he’s being cited accurately, he doesn’t speak for humanists.

Averick makes the usual point that only an acceptance that humans were made in God’s image can lead us to true morality. Otherwise morality is “simply a word”:

In my own lifetime I have witnessed radical societal swings in moral behavior and attitudes regarding marriage and sexuality, homosexuality, the killing of unborn children, euthanasia, and the use of illicit drugs.

He specifically cites one of the firm commandments that emerges from belief in God:

Thou shalt not have sex with children, and if you do you will be looked upon as a disgusting and contemptible criminal and will be treated as such.

I don’t quite see how he came up with that one, seeing that it contradicts the practice of many religions to marry girls off at a quite tender age. Most western religious folks aren’t thrilled about little girls marrying older men, but please don’t tell me they got that from God.

Demonstrating his foolishness, Averick closes with this assertion:

A wise man once observed that while belief in God after the Holocaust may be difficult, belief in man after the Holocaust is impossible. The choices before us are clear: we will either seek a transcendent moral law to which we will all submit, or we will seek our own personal and societal indulgence. If we turn to God in our quest to create a moral and just world, we have a fighting chance; if not, we are doomed to spiral into the man-made hell of the human jungle.

Here we go again.

For those of you just joining us, Nazi Germany was NOT an atheist society. The Vatican made a pact with the Nazis. Hitler cited God and religion all the time:

Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years. - Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872

How’s that for a godly “transcendent moral law”?

I have a proposal for Averick and all the other atheist-obsessed religious types. Go gather up all of your fellow religious fanatics. Just to make it easier, confine yourselves to monotheists. Have a long talk about “transcendent moral law” and then please come to a consensus as to what you figure out (or God tells you). Of course, we expect you to come to complete agreement. Not just about the gays, but on all of the other issues as well, down to who gets to go to heaven and on what basis.

While you’re busy with that, leave us humanists to to do the same (we’ll solve that heaven question pretty quickly). I promise you that when we’re all done, only one group will be left unbloodied.