How would you define secular Jew?

[Harel13]

Thank you very much for that. I looked at the link but didn't find the words I remembered. I'm thinking that I'll recognize all of it if I see it transliterated (I don't read Hebrew well any more and never did speak it). I think I memorized it then. Do you know how I can find that?

Here's a link to the haftarah in Hebrew and English:

https://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading_cdo/p/haftarah/aid/2495808/jewish/Shoftim-Haftorah-Hebrew-and-English.htm

 

[rosends]

Technically dat means law, so dati means law-abiding. But most people don't think about it that way, because the world has gotten used to Western definitions.

Biblically this is the case but maybe only because there was no distinction between "law" and "religious practice following law" -- consider the use in V'zot habracha. Rashi on 33:2 explains דת there as referring to the "law" that was given as the Torah. The Ibn Ezra writes about the word/phrase eishdat, "התורה שנתנה באש".

By the time Megillat Esther rolls around, the world has an added understanding as "law" distinct from (at least Jewish) religion.

 

[rosends]

Thanks.

Thanks again, but I'm long since past that. In fact, though I was once ashamed of it, I'm proud of my Jewish cultural heritage now. How did Jews win so many Nobel prizes?

I'm proud of that ethic. My mother was a Roosevelt-era New Your Jewish liberal. She took the option of no college off the table. It was never a consideration. My college diploma was a given, and it didn't hurt me any imbibing that, nor her admonitions to pick a profession like law or medicine.

And she was at the liberal vanguard. She got a divorce from my conservative (and bigoted) atheist Jewish father at a time when my young friends would all ask, "What's a divorce?"

And her third husband was a black man when nobody else was doing that, and when walking into a restaurant garnered glares of disapproval. She worked in Watts during the riots at the WLCAC: Home - WLCAC .

Yes, thanks, I've heard it spoken that way, too, but prayer isn't part of my life. I just have a good memory, or wouldn't know it any longer.

Speaking of which, I think I remember the first two words of my haftorah - "Anoche, anoche" (pronounced ah-no-KEY, I believe). Does that mean anything to you? It was on September 9, 1967, if that helps identify the torah reading for the day.

that was my bar mitzvah parsha's haftarah as well. Three cheers for summer birthdays when friends don't come because they are all in camp...

 

[Harel13]

that was my bar mitzvah parsha's haftarah as well. Three cheers for summer birthdays when friends don't come because they are all in camp...

Well, at least your birthday doesn't come out on the three weeks...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I've been going to Stratford Festival religiously for more than 60 years.

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If, by chance, you happened to see Frankenstein Revived, I'd love to know what you thought of it.​

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[YoursTrue]

I'm not sure why this is so hard for you to understand. Do you have some reason why you would doubt it to be true?

The question is what will happen in your opinion if a person does not do those things so as to be religious?

 

[YoursTrue]

I have been trying to put together something reasonable about the label "secular Jew." I think it is a poor choice of English words but it reflects a title from the Hebrew of Chiloni. The root idea is "chol" which is loosely defined as (in modern Hebrew) "secular, profane; weekday". Clearly even that word has a wide range of meanings, as does the English word "secular." It also sets up a binary opposition, making Chiloni the opposite of Dati ("religious" but again, that's not a great word). In a more biblical usage, chol is separate from kodesh ("holy") and that colors the current usage making it more of an epithet.

To my very limited mind, a secular Jew is one who does not engage in the ritualistic and even belief-based identity as a Jew, but subscribes to an ethnic/historical/geneological connection, linked to a heritage and culture but not the codified or institutionalized spiritual expression. But that's just off the cuff.

Sounds reasonable. Soooo I guess a person considered a "secular Jew" is one more or less raised in a Jewish 'atmosphere' perhaps, not like with a family going to church services, etc., but who was not considered observant as a Jew, but didn't want to belong to any other group. Thanks for explanation.

 

[Link]

A non-religious ethnic Jew in general. What's the issue?

A lot of ethnic Jews existed in Arabia before Islam. A lot of them converted.

Are they ethnic Jewish Muslims?

I'm not arguing or disputing, just wondering.

Yathrib was mostly ethnic Jews (I think though they believed in Isa (a) but were not "Christians" in sense of trinity) that later became Medina al-Munawara. If they didn't invite Mohammad (s) at the time of peril of him and his followers, Mecca would have been destroyed per Quran by God.

I think Yemen was mostly Jews too.

 

[YoursTrue]

The phrase I use is cultural Jew, and you could call me one. My parents were atheists but self-identified as Jews. They didn't pray or attend synagogue, nor celebrate Jewish holidays. What was Jewish about them was that they preferred being with other atheistic Jews, they used Yiddish expressions, and they liked foods liked bagel with shmear and matzoh ball soup. And my mother thought education was the key to future (university was assumed) and wanted her son to grow up to be a doctor. Seinfeld and his family might be a reasonable example of my Jewish family.

By my generation, I didn't prefer to be with Jews and didn't use Yiddish phrases.

By contrast, my mother remarried a failed rabbinical student, who did celebrate the holidays at home (seders, menorahs), took us to synagogue for the High Holidays, kept a kosher home, and had me bar mitzvahed, which required learning to pronounce Hebrew. I remember the Hannukah prayer from those days - baruch atta adonoi elohanu melech ho'olom asher kidashanu b'mitzvosav vitzivanu l'hadleek ne'er shell Hannukah. I'm not sure if that guy believed in a god or not despite reciting prayers during holidays. We never talked about or to God.

Unfortunately, he was also cruel and slapped me around a bit, which had the curious effect of making Judaism and Jewish culture repulsive to me and left me with some anti-Semitism to deal with, but that's in the past.

I was going to bring out bagels but I did not. Of course there are others that like bagels and a shmear with maybe a little lox but they don't have to be Jewish, as an old ad used to say. I also must say in commiseration that my mother slapped me a bit I guess when I got fresh (no guidance other than the smack), my father simply was there but showed me little to no affection and I had no moral guidance whatsoever.

 

[YoursTrue]

At this point quite a few people.

But early on it was probably some of the earliest Jewish religious authorities, unless I am seriously mistaken ("what are the odds", he said, tongue firmly in cheek). I believe that they are currently known as Rabbis, perhaps at some point Judges.

Not sure why that is relevant here, though.

Which kind of makes the point that there must have been SOMETHING to the account about Abraham beyond fiction, what do you think?

 

[YoursTrue]

The ad from some time ago -- " "You Don't have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's Real Jewish Rye" See? You can still love "Jewish rye" but don't have to be Jewish...Not sure if there is non-Jewish rye though.

 

[LuisDantas]

Which kind of makes the point that there must have been SOMETHING to the account about Abraham beyond fiction, what do you think?

Sorry, but I am just not following.

 

[YoursTrue]

Sorry, but I am just not following.

So many believe the account about Abraham must have been fictionalized, but that there are "Abrahamic" religions really does demonstrate that someone in a very influential way knew about Abraham's existence and experiences.

 

[LuisDantas]

So many believe the account about Abraham must have been fictionalized, but that there are "Abrahamic" religions really does demonstrate that someone in a very influential way knew about Abraham's existence and experiences.

A literal Abraham, you mean?

I have no idea why anyone would think that. I know that I do not.

Fiction is everywhere, and often more useful and more significant than factual reality. I have no reason to doubt it was much the same some five or ten millennia ago.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

The question is what will happen in your opinion if a person does not do those things so as to be religious?

Nothing.

 

[YoursTrue]

A literal Abraham, you mean?

I have no idea why anyone would think that. I know that I do not.

Fiction is everywhere, and often more useful and more significant than factual reality. I have no reason to doubt it was much the same some five or ten millennia ago.

So then you would say the "Abrahamic religions" are all fictional(?)

 

[YoursTrue]

Nothing.

So nothing about any rewards or punishments in the future from the God of the Tanach insofar as you are concerned?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

So then you would say the "Abrahamic religions" are all fictional(?)

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Abraham is legend rather than history. This does not impact the very real existence of the Abrahamic faiths today.

 

[YoursTrue]

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Abraham is legend rather than history. This does not impact the very real existence of the Abrahamic faiths today.

Yes, regardless of legend or history--there is a dividing point between those religions claiming a basis of faith in the account somewhere about Abraham.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

So nothing about any rewards or punishments in the future from the God of the Tanach insofar as you are concerned?

Are you talking about consequences after death? I will reply based on that assumption.

Different Jews have different views of the afterlife. Some believe in no afterlife at all. Others believe in Gehinnom (a temporary hell where we are purified), the resurrection, and the World to Come. Me personally? I don't have an opinion. To be really honest with you, the existence of an afterlife or not just makes no difference to how I live my life today. I obey God simply because he is God and worthy of my obedience, not for any reward in the afterlife.