If I can be permitted a response to someone no longer able to participate in the thread, this is exactly why at least honorary status as a Member Of the Tribe devolves on people who like me are of Jewish heritage but have nothing to do with religious observance (in my case, for two generations now).
There are bad actors out there who don’t care if you’re active in the faith. They’d happily target you regardless.
In that sense, anti-Semitism is a major factor maintaining Jewish self-identification.
It varies by the branch of Judaism. A Lubuvitcher friend claimed that Judaism doesn’t accept adoption, and if you take in an unrelated baby you are caring for an orphan, but it’s not actually your child. I don’t believe this is the standard Orthodox position, but I’m not sure. Most Conservative Jews will perform an infant conversion (the ceremony in the mikvah mentioned above). They’ll often do that in a mixed marriage, too, if the mother isn’t Jewish but agrees to raise the kids Jewish. Reform Jews may just say, “it’s my kid, so they are Jewish”, but might also do an infant conversion if they have friends or family who would care.
Our youngest is adopted. We also did a traditional Mikva conversion for the reasons listed.
I had understood that there was some tradition to try to avoid adopting a child of a Jewish parents out of concern that the child might end up marrying a close relative without realizing it. Unsure about that though.
You can make points like this without directly replying to someone who has been asked to leave the thread. That would be more polite, and i urge posters to do so going forward.
My rabbi (Reform) had the same sentiment when I came out as an atheist in my Bar Mitzvah speech. My father was absolutely furious, and nothing the rabbi said to us afterward would assuage his anger. In time, my father came to accept my being gay, but not my atheism.
It was many years before I accepted the concept of “cultural Jew” and included it in my identity. My husband was raised Muslim, and went through a similar evolution, settling on being a “cultural Muslim”. There is nothing religious in our home except my parents’ Jewish art work and our Christmas tree and menorah.
Spinoza is an interesting case, since he was in fact excommunicated. (The Wiki précis says that there is no evidence he maintained any kind of Jewish or Christian identity, and that he himself thought the idea of a “secular Jew” was nonsense). So, Jew or not Jew?
IMO, had he been a head of state as in the main topic, he would absolutely not have counted as a (religious or otherwise) Jewish head of state, since he himself said so. If he says he is not Jewish, we have to take his word for it.
I think it’s very Christian to think that whether you believe in God affects whether you are Jewish. I know practicing Orthodox Jews who are atheists.
There was a time when religion and culture and tribal identity was a lot more intertwined, and Judaism is a remnant of that time. Yes, you can convert. That’s basically an adoption into the tribe, though.
My understanding is that Hinduism is similar. But i don’t know a lot about Hinduism, so i may be way off.
I am definitely puzzled by this (yes, referencing your user name). It is not possible to practice Judaism in the Orthodox manner and not believe in the existence of G-d.
I know two men, who don’t know each other, who:
live in Orthodox communities
keep strictly kosher
strictly follow the Sabbath
wear a kippah whenever I have seen them
pray in a minyan multiple times a week, and routinely read Torah for their congregation
check with their rabbi to make sure they are following the rules on other matters
have told me they don’t believe in God
identify as Orthodox Jews
Make of that what you want.
I suspect the same of some other Orthodox friends, but it’s not the sort of thing that routinely comes up. These are both fairly close friends with whom I’ve discussed religion extensively.
A man walks into a bar in Belfast, but before he can order, two locals corner him. “Before you order,” one says, “tell us: are ye Catholic or Protestant?”
“Actually,” the man responds, “I’m an atheist.”
“Aye,” the local says, “But are ye a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”
(joke changed for relevancy)
To me, an atheist who’s a confirmed member of the Presbyterian church, it’s a hilarious joke: clearly someone who’s atheist can’t be a Protestant or a Catholic, it’s an absurd idea. Even knowing that Christianity’s emphasis on belief is nowhere near universal among religions, my Protestant upbringing makes it very difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea of an atheist Orthodox Jew. (which, ironically, points out how the joke might not be so absurd: there’s a whole value system and cultural background to my Protestantism that’s independent of my beliefs about the supernatural/divine).
I’m not doubting you–it’s more like I’m looking at a very convincing optical illusion, where what I “know” viscerally is very different from what I know intellectually.
Related: i was chatting with a cantor who spent some time as a hospital chaplain. The patients filled out a form indicating their religion, but whoever is on call sees the patients who want to talk to a chaplain, the chaplain needs to be ecumenical enough to assist people of varying faiths. She told me that all the people in that hospital who had checked “atheist” were Jews, and the atheists who grew up in other religions just left the box blank.
Very few forms seem to give a “check box” for Agnostic or Non-Religious. This actually annoys me. I’ve been somewhere in that range almost my entire life and don’t consider myself Atheist. I left the RCC at age 7 or 8. I’ll describe myself as a recovering ex-Roman Catholic at times.
My kids are technically Jewish but are completely non-religious. My wife is Jewish but non-practicing. But way more religious than I am as she doesn’t despise her birth faith.
Someone earlier (maybe you) said that the point of ““If only they had forsaken me and kept my Torah.”” is that keeping the Torah even in the absence of belief might lead a person back to belief. I think I understand that - but what I don’t understand is why it would then be impossible to practice Judaism in the Orthodox manner and not believe in the existence of God. I can see how it would be unlikely for someone who doesn’t believe to live in an Orthodox manner, just as it would be unlikely for someone who doesn’t believe to follow all the rules of the Catholic Church - but I’m not sure how either is actually impossible especially for someone who started out believing and then lost that belief for some reason.
They assume that people of all religions make the same back-of-the-head assumptions about a whole batch of things; and they don’t think of these assumptions as having anything to do with religion at all. Very often they do, even if the original religious belief is multiple generations in their past.
Is there something essentially sinful about sex? Does it make sense to say that one god could give different groups of people different instructions about how to live? Can it be religiously proper behavior to argue with God?
– I have no problem whatsoever with understanding that an atheist could practice Orthodox Judaism. They would only have to believe that following those rules of behavior is good for at least some humans / at least some forms of human society. They wouldn’t have to believe that the rules had been given by God.
Another strong incentive is being part of that very specific community. Sharing practice is critical to membership in what is a large part of your personal world.
That very much depends on which flavor of Christianity and what is meant by “going through the motions”. I can only speak for my own version, but the Catholic Church does not consider it reprehensible if someone who follows all of the Church’s teachings and laws doesn’t have faith. In fact, it almost expects that people will have doubts or lose faith at times. However, that’s very different from a person who does not practice at all and has their child baptized to make the grandparents happy