How Humanistic Is Humanistic Judaism? an Interview with Sherwin Wine

How Humanistic Is Humanistic Judaism? An Interview with Sherwin Wine REE INQUIRY: You have founded something called the presence of a just and loving God. Our history is a perfect Society for Humanistic Judaism. What is it? example of the fact that we live in a world, a universe, that FSherwin Wine: The Society is a federation of individuals does not give a damn whether we live or die and that, ulti- and communities in North America who espouse a philosophy mately, our fate is in the hands of other human beings. of life called Humanistic Judaism. Humanistic Judaism is a If you have a sense of humor, and also a sense of horror— combination of two things: humanism as a philosophy of life, as Woody Allen does, which perhaps makes him today's great- like all other humanisms, and Judaism as the culture of an est unofficial Jewish philosopher—you know that, above all, historic and national people called the Jews. the message of our experience is the absurdity of the universe. FI: Judaism usually refers to the Old Testament, to the It is almost an existentialist message. So, our humanism is Talmud, and to the traditions since. God is central to this reinforced by an appropriate understanding of Jewish history. notion of Judaism. You differ from that. Indeed, when we teach Jewish history we don't teach it from a Wine: Well, we view the word Judaism as parallel to the traditional religious point of view; we teach it from a scientific- word Hellenism. Christianity and Islam do not have the name historical point of view, which enables the child or the adult of a nation in their description. So, in that sense, I don't think who studies it to articulate, as far as possible, the full range of Judaism is analogous to Christianity or Islam. As Hellenism is Jewish experience. In this way, our understanding of history the culture of the Greek people, Judaism is the culture of the reinforces our humanism. Jewish people. You can be a secular Greek, you can be a FI: Then you don't take the Bible as the revealed word of religious Greek; you can be a secular Jew, you can be a religious God in any sense, do you? Jew. And, obviously, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Wine: The Bible is not the textbook of Humanistic Judaism. most Jews of any note, even those with very strong attachments That's the radical difference between us and what we would to the Jewish people, have been secular Jews. Just go down the call conventional Judaism—Orthodox, Conservative, and Re- list: Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, for example, who form. We do not accept the documents of rabbinic Judaism as certainly had a very strong sense of their Jewish identity, were the authentic documents for articulating the meaning of the both thoroughly secular. Jewish experience. So, we don't have a Torah in our meeting FI: So, your groups are largely committed to an historic room. The Bible for us is of historic significance. cultural expression, to a kind of civilization with a set of values. FI: A testament drawn from human history. Wine: And there is a connection between the two. You see, Wine: In two senses: It is a code book that depicts what being Jewish is not like being Albanian. By this I mean—and I happened to Jewish people in the past. And it is also certainly am not disparaging Albanians—that the word Jewish is a a record of what large numbers of Jews believed and what provocative word. There is vulnerability in being Jewish. large numbers of Jews continue to believe. FI: Is there a special way in which you view Jewish history FI: What do you replace the Torah with? and the Jewish experience? Wine: Philosophy, Jewish or non-Jewish, that articulates Wine: Rabbinic Judaism maintains that the meaning of the humanistic point of view. Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Jewish history is that the Jews are the manifestation of the Jean-Paul Sartre, and Karl Popper are all part of our educa- presence of a just and loving God in the world. Well ... after tional program. One of our temple's most successful programs two thousand years of Jewish history and the Holocaust, the comes at the end of twelfth grade, when our students graduate one thing Jewish history symbolizes more than almost any from high school. They put on "An Evening with the Philos- other national history is the absurdity of the universe—not the ophers," in which each student takes on the persona of a great humanist philosopher—it is always an impressive, moving evening. Sherwin Wine is rabbi of the first humanistic Jewish congrega- We also study nonphilosophical literature. In the eighteenth, tion, the Birmingham Temple of Farmington Hills, Michigan, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, a lot of antiestablishment and author of Judaism Beyond God and The Real History of Jewish literature was created that expresses our perspective. the Jews. And today, most of the great Jewish poets are determined Spring 1988 49 secularists. At Jerusalem's Institute for Secular Humanistic The result is the control of many areas of personal and public Judaism, we are now engaged in creating an anthology of life by Orthodox rabbis. For marriage purposes Jewish identity secular Jewish literature. It will not be our "Bible," of course, is determined by Orthodox rabbis, who maintain the racial because no anthology can be sacred literature. But this an- principle that you are Jewish only if your mother is Jewish. I thology will contain nonreligious literature, which is consider- find this situation appalling. No modern state can reasonably able, that has been produced in Jewish history. turn over the determination of its national identity to the clergy. One of the reasons the Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism Humanism or Judaism? was established in Jerusalem was to offer resistance to this development. FI: Many humanists are highly critical of Humanistic Judaism For a long time, secularists were very smug in Israel. They for being too parochial. They ask, are non-Jews admitted to thought the country was theirs—so why organize? When the your temple? Orthodox starting coming into power after the '67 war, they Wine: Our membership is open to anybody. When non- were stunned; they didn't believe what was happening. But Jews join, they recognize that a good part of our programming now they know, and they realize they have to respond. It's an is devoted to Jewish culture and to a concern for meaningful urgent problem. Imagine something similar happening in the Jewish identity. Most of the non-Jews in our congregations United States; imagine Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell deter- come because they are married to Jews, but also because they mining the criteria for citizenship or the mode of jurisprudence. enjoy being with Jews and participating in a Jewish environ- In Israel, fundamentalist Jews have achieved that kind of state ment. power. FI: What is more important for your members, the human- FI: What is your basic difference with Jewish funda- ism or the Judaism? mentalism? Wine: There is a spectrum. To some people the Judaism is Wine: It is an inaccurate and false description of the Jewish certainly more important than the humanism. They come to experience. Its theories of history and humanity are opposed to our group because they are atheist, agnostic, or secularist but fact and evidence. also have a very strong sense of Jewish identity, a sense that The Jewish personality of modern times is essentially a can derive from many things—from positive childhood experi- skeptical one. That personality did not arise out of Orthodox ences, for example, or from a feeling of solidarity against anti- beliefs; it arose out of the Jewish experience. Orthodox Jewish Semitism. These people devote most of their time doing Jewish ideology and the Jewish personality don't jibe. things. Then we have people,in the group—at the other end of Second, I regard some of ultra-Orthodox Judaism as im- the spectrum—who are mildly interested in Jewish identity but moral. Women are treated as inferior. Truth is imposed in an are primarily interested in humanist philosophy. Our commu- authoritarian manner. Non-Jews are viewed as unclean nity is happy to accommodate both. strangers. FI: Let me be frank. Some humanists think that the Society FI: How is Humanistic Judaism different? is too divisive. By focusing only on Jewish culture and Jewish Wine: We do not believe that the preservation of a group history, aren't you denying humanism's basic tenet, its universal identity means that you have to exclude others. Humanistic aspect? Jews do not require rigid boundaries between people—as do Wine: Our primary identity is human identity, no doubt the Orthodox, who isolate man from woman, Jew from non- about that. But that doesn't mean that, in organizing humanism, Jew. We want soft boundaries so that people flow back and you can't serve other needs people have. It may be the case forth and share experiences with one another. that a group of psychologists, for instance, decide they want to More important, we regard our primary identity not to be have, because of their professional interest, a special organiza- our Jewish identity but our human identity. Our Jewish identity tion of humanistic psychologists who meet together with their is important but secondary. families; naturally, they will exclude other humanistic profes- FI: In North America and elsewhere there is a history of sionals. Would we say to them that they can't do that? Of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.

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