Current Web Magazine Issue - InterfaithFamily.com Page 1 of 3 Home > > Current Web Magazine Issue HOME RESOURCE PAGES Print entire issue CURRENT WEB MAGAZINE ISSUE Web Magazine ARTICLE ARCHIVE Secular Judaism CONNECTIONS IN YOUR AREA Issue 208: May 8, 2007 BLOGS Sponsored by the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation DISCUSSION BOARDS NEWS AND ADVOCACY ABOUT IFF PRESS ROOM FEATURED ARTICLES STORE Can You Raise a Child Without God? Find By Ken Burk powered by FreeFind The short answer: Yes. The long answer: It's more challenging without the stirring narratives of traditional religion. Read More Of Shalom and Om By Heather Lazar A Jewish woman married to a Hindu man finds the universal lessons in Jewish holidays. Read More Interfaith Families and Secular Featured Judaism Partners/Funders/Links By Rabbi and Cantor Judith Seid In a Secular Humanistic congregation, the children of intermarriage celebrate both of their parents' heritages equally. Read More Login Login Name: ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Password: More Articles on Secular Judaism Our Secular Humanistic Seder By Deborah Freeman Not Signed Up? Find Out More. Have you heard of the fifth child, the one who no longer sits at the Passover table? "Mazel Tov" Instead of "Oy Vey" Interview by Ronnie Friedland http://www.interfaithfamily.com/site/c.ekLSK5MLIrG/b.1711661/k.778F/Current_Web_M... 5/4/2007 Current Web Magazine Issue - InterfaithFamily.com Page 2 of 3 Rabbi Adam Chalom asks only one question of interfaith couples who ask him to marry them: Do you love each other? Books Judaism, Please. Hold the Deity. By Jesse Tisch In God-Optional Judaism, Judith Seid takes disbelief seriously. Avoiding Jewish "Nothingness" By Michael Felsen Secular Jewishness for Our Time traces the evolution of secular Judaism--from the socialist Yiddishkeit of the early 20th century to the multicultural activism of the 21st. News Is The Popularity of Jewish Culture Sustainable? By Chanan Tigay Young people are responding to Matisyahu, Heeb and Guilt & Pleasure. But will it get them into synagogue? Rabbi Field Embraces "Jews on the Edge" By Andrea Jacobs The head of Denver's Judaism Your Way provides alternative Jewish experiences to those outside the mainstream. From Our Article Archive Why We Call Them Intercultural Weddings: A Secular Humanistic Jewish Approach By Rabbi Miriam Jerris There's no such thing as a by-the-book secular wedding. Arts and Entertainment Interfaith Celebrities: Five Beautiful Women, A Violinist and One Caveman By Nate Bloom How many interfaith celebs made People's 100 Most Beautiful People in the World? Plus, the Geico caveman's path to Judaism. InterfaithFamily.com | P.O. Box 428, Newton, MA 02464 | 617 581 6860 | [email protected] Privacy Policy http://www.interfaithfamily.com/site/c.ekLSK5MLIrG/b.1711661/k.778F/Current_Web_M... 5/4/2007 Interfaith Families and the Synagogue - InterfaithFamily.com Page 1 of 3 Home > Article Archive > Spirituality > Interfaith Families and the Synagogue HOME RESOURCE PAGES For more information, visit our Synagogues and the Jewish Community and Interfaith Families Resource Page. CURRENT WEB MAGAZINE ISSUE Can You Raise a Child Without God? ARTICLE ARCHIVE Life-Cycle Ceremonies By Ken Burk My wife and I are raising our daughter, Shannon, in a Humanistic Jewish congregation in Holidays suburban Chicago, Kol Hadash. The path to Kol Hadash was not straightforward and we definitely had more than a bit of luck that helped us make this decision. Relationships Growing up, I was very fortunate that my parents were members of the Humanistic Spirituality Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit. This was no small accomplishment. My father came Religious Journeys from a devout Lutheran upbringing. My mother was raised Unitarian. This was during the early 1970s and the religious landscape of questioning and exploration was certainly different than Talking About God in Interfaith it is today. While my parents were uncomfortable with an establishment dictating what to Families believe and didn't feel able to place their faith in an unsubstantial god, they relished participation in community. Interfaith Families and the Synagogue Fortuitously for them, they moved to a suburb of Detroit with a substantial Jewish Conversion presence. Down the block lived a family that introduced them to a community that Introduction to Judaism Programs didn't tell them what to believe and encouraged people to rely on the very Arts and Entertainment tangible strength of their own abilities as News and Opinion well as mankind. Several factors led my parents to convert to Judaism. The InterfaithFamily.com greatest factor was Sherwin Wine, rabbi of the Birmingham Temple, and his Friday InterfaithFamily.com Magazine Past night services. His frank, intellectual Issues By Year analysis of philosophy and history touched a chord in my parents. Another major CONNECTIONS IN YOUR AREA factor was the people they met, with whom they shared many common interests. I BLOGS cannot remember a time when my parents were not part of the temple's Vivace DISCUSSION BOARDS program, a musical concert series with no religious affiliation, and they are still very NEWS AND ADVOCACY involved to this day. ABOUT IFF Despite my parent's active involvement in the temple community, I had little personal connection to Humanistic Judaism or to my contemporaries in the temple. For approximately a PRESS ROOM decade, I would say I had no connection to Humanistic Judaism. My own experience was definitely not engaging beyond my Bar Mitzvah year--in fact it wasn't particularly engaging STORE before that. I think this is an area where positive changes have been made because the education program which had consisted of a K-5 Sunday school has now expanded to K-12. In her own way, my wife grew up in a similarly convoluted "religious" household. Her mother Find stopped practicing Judaism before she married my father-in-law. My non-Jewish father-in-law can't stand organized religion and they raised my wife in a secular household in Park Ridge, powered by FreeFind Ill. Her extended family, however, still included a combination of Christian and Jewish cultures, although she had only limited exposure to both. When we married, our wedding ceremony included a rabbinical student recently ordained from the Birmingham Temple and my wife's uncle, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Fortunately, both resided in Michigan and we were able to discuss the details of the ceremony on trips from our home near Chicago. My wife wanted the ceremony to have a familial focus and I wanted one that would have Jewish customs with a secular bent. I was very glad that my wife supported having Rabbi Adam Chalom, the rabbinical student from the Birmingham Temple. During his tenure as an assistant rabbi before Rabbi Wine retired, I was fortunate to attend High Holidays services where he showcased his intellectual acumen and sardonic wit. We lived a DINK (dual-income, no kids) style for several years. Joining any congregation was way down on the list of things to do. I think my wife was a little more concerned with finding http://www.interfaithfamily.com/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ekLSK5MLIrG&b=297395&c... 5/4/2007 Interfaith Families and the Synagogue - InterfaithFamily.com Page 2 of 3 Featured some religious community because she wanted to explore the Unitarian Church. We just Partners/Funders/Links never really got around to it, which was more than fine with me. Then we had a string of good fortune. My wife became pregnant, and soon after that we discovered that a relatively new Humanistic congregation in suburban Chicago had hired Rabbi Chalom. I was very excited and my wife became a little more interested in learning the ins and outs of Humanistic Judaism. We attended many Friday night services, really enjoyed Login the discussions and decided to join. When we attended Rabbi Chalom's induction ceremony, we had one of our first opportunities Login Name: to talk with other members of the congregation at length. Rather than simply attending services and making polite conversation on a Friday night, we sat down and had dinner with Kol Hadash members. Although the night honored Rabbi Chalom, it was also a very special Password: night for us because so many people spent time welcoming us into the community and genuinely got to know us. After such a warm reception into our new community, we had the feeling that we would be members for a long time. Despite the draws of the temple community, my wife still had some personal issues. Her Not Signed Up? Find Out More. brother had converted to Catholicism several years ago. Many of our family events are driven by the Christian holiday calendar and my wife began to have a minor identity crisis. She enjoyed connections to Christian events, such as the baptisms of her nephews, Easter dinner at her brother's house, Christmas dinner at our house. Despite her own mother's Jewish upbringing, my attempts to celebrate Jewish calendar events before joining Kol Hadash were largely ignored. We had very little Jewish culture in our lives, and religious culture was something my wife yearned to have. Fortunately, as part of the initiatives the rabbi took as the new leader of the congregation, he planned an adult B'Nai Mitzvah class with a curriculum focusing on Jewish history. He had outlined the curriculum to us during a personal meeting as we discussed our new membership. This wonderful class not only offered a way for my wife to learn about her own Jewish heritage and culture that she had had little opportunity to explore previously, but also enabled her to bond with other temple members. It's not surprising that she ends up spending an extra hour after the class each week in a free form discussion with her classmates.