Religion Vs. Culture

November 1, 2016 Abe Novick

Alvy Singer to his friend Rob:

“You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said, ‘Did you eat yet or what?’ And Tom Christie said, ‘No, JEW?’ Not ‘Did you?’ … JEW eat? JEW?” ~ From the Woody Allen film
“Annie Hall”

Although Woody Allen has yet to make a movie in Israel, as a pop culture icon he’s about as Jewish as they get. And for many of our tribe, that’s just about as “Jewy” as they get.

Several years ago, in a class taught by an Orthodox rabbi, I asked, “What does being Jewish mean to you?” He quickly turned to the whiteboard and wrote “God, Torah & Israel.”

I thought to myself, “Well, OK, but for a lot of secular Jews, what if they don’t believe in God? Or question the existence of a supreme deity? And what if they don’t think the Torah was written by the hand of God, or frankly is even historically accurate? And what if they have a real problem with Israel? For them, what is there?”

When I’ve raised these questions to my Jewish compatriots, they frequently tell me they’re culturally Jewish. I interpret that to mean they have a sense of being Jewish (anything and everything from eating bagels to watching “Seinfeld” reruns) but don’t particularly ascribe to any rules laid down by my Orthodox rabbi friend or most any other rabbi for that matter.

That’s not to say they are bad people or do anything morally wrong. But is it Jewish? Indeed, they have a strong sense of social justice, a belief in tikkun olam (repairing the world) but may or may not feel connected to our community or a synagogue.

The writer Liel Leibovitz raised a similar point in the online magazine Tablet: “It’s time we ended this farce. Those of us who find little use for Judaism except as a stage on which to perform the pageantry of progressivism should kindly take a bow and leave for other precincts that better suit their interests.”

His strident reaction stems from a strong emphasis many Jews place solely on ideological and social sentiments, and not religion. Likewise, many of these same good folks, driven to tikkun olam, may not fit into the fabric of a Jewish community but definitely consider themselves cultural Jews.

Synagogues and Jewish organizations also struggle with the same dilemma of how to open up the tent wide enough to let Jews of all philosophical varieties in without diluting the tenets of Judaism.

Perhaps each type of Jew should take a walk in the other one’s shoes. Those inside the shul should go outside where it’s hard to compete with a popular culture that presents being Jewish in the guise of Howard on “The Big Bang Theory” or in movies like “The Pickle Recipe,” a very cute new movie that hits the funny bone but also reaffirms our cultural Jews’ discomfort with anything smacking of religion.

And to my purely cultural Jewish friends, synagogues have changed a lot since you were in Hebrew school. They’ve opened up and emphasize many of those same values you hold dear, from social action and cultural life to culinary cooking.

Moreover, there’s more cultural Jewishness out there in the world than ever before, largely because there are so many more mediums to consume it and outlets for producers to make it. It’s like a Zabars of entertaining delectables, and you get to nosh it all down without even leaving your living room.

Indeed, Mr. Allen recently created and is starring in a six-episode miniseries on Amazon about a suburban Jewish-American family in the 1960s called “Crisis in Six Scenes.”

Jewish-American culture is something to be celebrated and welcomed, and while it may mainly reside in the social hall of your shul, the doorway into the sanctuary needs to be wide open.

Abe Novick is a writer and communications consultant. He can be reached at abe@abebuzz.com.