It is often said, and widely believed, that in Kahal B’raira you can’t use the word "god." Anthropologists will note that this is not an offshoot of the ancient Jewish prohibition against using the NAME of God. It is closer to the principle known in many supernatural systems that names have a special magic. The true name is directly tied to the power of the thing it names. 

  However, it is neither magic nor respect for god that has made the word unspeakable at KB. My hypothesis is that it evolved out of a desire for peace. By agreeing as a community not to mention the word we have managed to avoid possibly divisive discussions about the concept. We know that there is confusion in the community about what one should believe, what one can believe, and what others believe about a deity, so we can all thank god that we’ve chosen not to speak about it.

  With time the situation has become somewhat Strindbergian. Like the unspoken but open family secrets in his plays, there is a ghost that haunts us here at KB, threatening to burst out whenever we touch on issues of philosophy or Jewishness. Let’s face it: for a Humanistic Jewish organization to have a holy ghost is completely absurd. More important, so long as we keep this ghost in the closet we stifle our ability to discuss issues that are important to us. 

  Is this really so bad? I think so. There are a few different ways in which our pet ghost causes problems. First, many of us are unsure about how Secular Humanistic Jews are "supposed" to relate to god. Second, we do not face up to the implications of something we all know -- that there are differences among us in how we think about the issue of god. What do we do if we find that someone believes in god, or gods, or spirits, or sparks of divine consciousness? Do we excommunicate them — no more committee assignments for you, you anti-heathen! Third, we have members who were not and are not Jewish, and who join primarily to support family members. They — without wishing to impose their beliefs or traditions on us — may feel that our approach to god-as-pornography is more demeaning to the beliefs of others than would be a lecture or an argument or even a doctrine.

  I really believe that we have nothing to fear from god. Once we understand how the notion of god fits into Jewish history and into Humanism, we can be more comfortable discussing notions of god that arise in these contexts. Once we understand our own individual notions and beliefs we can be more tolerant of others, and more accepting of our part in a movement that has its own, rather inclusive, take on the issue. So, let’s take a (whirlwind) look at god, Judaism and humanism.

  I’ll start off by pointing out that the Society for Humanistic Judaism does not attempt to limit what individual members can believe or say. This is unlike some religions, but totally consistent with Jewish tradition. If you’ve ever attempted to read Talmud, even in translation, you’ll recognize how incredibly ambiguous it is. My Hebrew teacher believes that this ambiguity was inserted deliberately by the sages, so that Judaism would remain free of dogma and be always open to interpretation. Even if that is merely Mishnah, the fact remains that Judaism has never specified or limited what its adherents believe.

  Nobody will ask you, even in an orthodox shul, whether you believe in god. Obviously, if you attend an orthodox shul you are not going to get up in the middle of the service to quote Voltaire, or to eat spare ribs. As a guest, or as a member, you respect both the beliefs of others and the matrix in which those beliefs are placed.

  Furthermore, Judaism does not define god in any way that can be used as the basis of a purity test. Not even the orthodox have such a definition. Of course, to speak of "the orthodox" is already an oversimplification — do we mean the Modern Orthodox, the various schools of Hasidism, the Sefardi or the Ashkenazi, the shul on the upper West Side of New York or the one in a Polish shtetl in 1925? None of these religions, as you may know, has much in common with the religion described in the Bible, which was led by a priesthood —slash-government and was based on animal sacrifice at a holy temple.

  And if we add the Conservatives and the Reform we have many, many different (but equally ill-defined) notions of what it means to be the Jewish God.

  The European Enlightenment brought Jews and others the freedom to apply reason to philosophy and religion. Of everything that grows from it, two concepts are important to this discussion. Deism and Humanism. You may recall Voltaire writing things like this in Candide, and elsewhere: 

  This is clearly a different kind of god from the ones that had been at the centers of Judaism and Christianity. What did it mean to believe in this kind of God? One well-known and articulate believer was the English poet, William Blake. Blake was, according to Alfred Kazin, "against every conception of God as an omnipotent person, as a body, as a Lord who sets in train any lordship over man… [against] all theological casuistry that excuses pain and admits evil; against sanctimonious apologies for injustice." But he was not an atheist. He believed that god was revealed through Nature and Nature’s laws. When he wrote

  Deism is closely related to the crime of freethinking. A free-think-eris defined as 

  Some people found answers in the belief that god’s ways were not always clear. Others found the conclusion to be that there could not possibly be a god. Given that conclusion, what do we do with all the other questions of religion — the shaping of joy and sorrow, the guidance of ethics, the binding of culture? Here is the birth of Humanism as a religion.

  In truth, Humanism had already appeared in the Ancient World, most famously among the Greeks. Remember Protagoras, who wrote "Man is the measure of all things?" Even more important was Epicurus, who was explicit in rejecting supernaturalism and the thought patterns that it implicitly engenders. He wrote

  So, what is Humanism? There are many excellent statements of Humanistic Principles. For now I’d like to quote just two, which will provide an excellent summary. First, a poem by Robert Green Ingersoll

• there is no creator (God),
• no sacred or inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and Property,
• no divine purpose for mankind,
• no life after death,
• or Judgement Day.

• situational ethics (no absolute right or wrong),
• abortion,
• euthanasia,
• the right to suicide,
• homosexuality or any other variety of sexual exploration,
• Goals 2000,
• the common good over individual rights,
• the notion that the environment and lower animals are more important than human beings,
• and One World Government under socialism.

  We also share a general disinterest in talking about things that cannot be rationally discussed. What ultimately, is there to say about gods? If one or more exist they are beyond all of our knowledge, and we have no facts that can be used to make a deduction one way or the other. God is, by all of our understandings, outside of rational discourse. 

  Both flavors of Humanist are actively conscious of how dangerous the notion of a supernatural being can be even as a metaphor. Its use frequently leads to the belief in unseen forces that affect our destiny, to assuming a predefined purpose to life, and to the authority of doctrine and garment. Deists may have to watch themselves to avoid letting the metaphor shape their thinking. Atheists have to avoid the nearly equivalent trap of focusing on the non-existence of god instead of on the world around them.

  Humanistic Judaism is perfectly compatible with both Deistic and Atheistic flavors of Humanism. We of course welcome others who find things here that attract them but may not have come to either of these conclusions. We’re not in general interested in proselytizing. We don’t much talk about god because, whatever we believe, there’s so much else to talk about.

  What ties us together as humanists is the belief that we are responsible for making things come out the way we want. God did not get us a bonus at work, or cause the G8 nations to pledge funds for fighting AIDS. God did not hit us with the cellar beam when we stood up too quickly or affect the last election. We sing "Ayfo Oree, Oree bee" but know it’s hard to break those old habits of imagining that some supernatural daddy and mommy are going to save us if we get into a jam. All humanists — deist, atheist, pantheist, Gaia-ist, whatever — are prone to these old ingrained thought patterns. This shows, perhaps, when some one asks us whether we believe in god. We fall into the trap of starting to say "No, but…" What we should say, always, is "Let me tell you what we do believe."

  So our avoidance of god at KB represents the right instinct, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. We need not avoid the word from fear. We can discuss the idea, and how different ones of us feel about it. But it is, I submit, discussions of how to understand and reinforce humanism in the Jewish context and tradition, and its implications, that should occupy us, rather than discussions — or avoidance of discussions — of god. The rewards are much greater. 

  I don’t know what it feels like to believe in god. I used to think I had to in order to be Jewish, and I tried really hard, but I failed. There is supposed to be a sense of security to it. Like some of the new drugs that are being created, I’d like to have the experience, briefly, without any of the risks. 

  But there is also security in Humanism. I was struck, recently, by a statement in — of all places — the history of the Avery Dennison Company. Avery, which we all know from labels and nametags and dozens of other items, got its start because it had a patented process for manufacturing self-adhesive labels. Given that patent they were able to build a secure niche for themselves. But at some point the patent was challenged. Their official history explains what happened:

presented on September 9, 2001 at Kahal B'raira