Believing or Not

Had an enjoyable electronic exchange with a Political Science professor from a mid-sized state college in the Midwest.  He had written a book called The Nones, which I listened to on Hoopla audio, then sent him my review of the book.  Using public data, he described those who had opted out of religion without actually declaring atheism as drifters, people always in limbo with unstable employment, marginal education, and few commitments to anything.  That differs from my concept of Jewish Nones, people who either profess no religion or more commonly no denomination, yet are industrious, educated and with social attachments.  In his response to me, he noted that he has a project on Jewish analysis which challenges him because we don't really define ourselves by belief, as he does as one imprinted to a Baptist childhood and part-time pastor activities.  We are measured more accurately by the things we do.  Some are ritual like adherence to dietary laws or Shabbat observance, the common American yardsticks.  Others are less definable, like financial generosity to Jewish and secular social initiatives.  But generally we don't have people depart because the Rabbi has taken  a political view contrary to ours but might if marginalized by an influential macher.  We can believe pretty much what appeals to us if we perform our mitzvot.  As I go through death anniversary lists on Wiki most days, selecting out Jews of accomplishment, more secular than religious, many have adopted atheism as their ideology yet remain part of the Jewish civilization by attending worship at limited times or sending their children to Hebrew School.  Others have been marrying non-Jews decades before the Conservative Rabbis did the lecture circuit to condemn this in the 1960s.  Their children may be Nones or Christians, but they are not drifters with no purpose or meaningful personal or professional accomplishments.

The General Social Survey which has been tracking American social norms, including religion, since 1972 tries to ascertain belief as a choice between Bible as literal transcription of Divine word, Divinely inspired, or useful myth and legend, which separates fundamentalists of all types from secularists.  In some ways it exposes a gap between Rabbis who promote literalism from secularly accomplished constituents who don't, but no choice of religiosity makes a Jew ineligible for the benefits of being Jewish or absolves us from our behavioral expectations.  Most American Jewish institutions have adapted to this, largely giving up on shunning, though not entirely abandoning, at least conceptually, degrees of Jewishness.  Our leadership, which is itself rather fluid, values our usefulness far ahead of our beliefs and our performance of mitzvot.  It may make us unique, and for the present era even enduring.