One of the main things I hope to find in a Jewish practice is a sense or awareness of the sacred. It is a tricky proposition for me, because I am agnostic/atheist, yet think the experience of the sacred is a deeply human and, for me, centering and meaningful part of life. My atheist friends who were raised outside of a religious tradition often look at me askance for my fascination with the sacred; and yet I am just made in such a way that I both experience the sacred in my bones and don’t believe in god or any kind of external, agentive, creative force.
The quote from Rabbi Green (in the column to the left) describes a way that an agnostic but religious humanist Jew approaches the world. Science does what it does, and produces empirical knowledge about the universe. But we still, as humans, with these amazing and weird brains, must experience that universe; and our brains, with the weight of their evolutionary origins behind them, are impelled to give that experience of the universe meanings.** Rabbi Green calls this a “post-naïve” religiosity, where the literal existence of a being or essence that acts in the universe with intention is rejected, yet the post-naïve remains connected to a religious affect and practice. I have been without such a practice for about 15 years, and yet have never lost the occasional overwhelming and powerful experience of Existence, Being, The One, what Rabbi Green calls “God”.
Who or what was the God I sought—and still seek today, half a century later!—once I had accepted that I was such a ‘nonbeliever’ in the God of my childhood? The question seemed to be whether we post-naïve seekers dare to use the word ‘God’ anymore, and what we might—or might not—mean by it, while remaining personally and intellectually honest. …
… I still consider the sacred to be the most important and meaningful dimension of human life. ‘The Sacred’ refers to an inward, mysterious sense of awesome presence, a reality deeper than the kind we ordinarily experience. … These moments can come without warning, though they may be evoked by great beauty, by joy, by terror, or by anything else that causes us to stop and interrupt our ordinary, all-encompassing and yet essentially superficial perception of reality. …
… It is out of such moments that religion is born, our huamn response to the dizzying depths of an encounter we cannot—and yet so need to—name.
… I find myself less convinced by the dogmatic truth claims of tradition than powerfully attracted to the richness of its language, both in word and in symbolic gesture. Through the profound echo chamber of generations, tradition offers a way to respond, to channel the love and awe that rise up within us at such times, and to give a name to the holy mystery by which our lives are bounded (Green 3-5).
Although I’m still uncomfortable with Rabbi Green’s god-language, when I read this passage a couple weeks ago, it was as if I had written it. This was straight out of my experience with being a believer in science, scientific method, and scientific mindset, and yet having these experiences of awe and wonder at the universe I live in, my own body, and life as Being.
It is this awareness of the massive interconnection of all existence in an incomprehensibly massive universe in which I am an infinitesimal speck, that I want to have in awareness, to acknowledge in a regular kind of way. It is the one aspect that has been missing for me in Buddhism (which, by the way, has been an amazing power for good in my life, and which will always be an integral part in my own spiritual path). In the Congregation Sha’ar Zahav Siddur, there is a blessing for everyday life, written by Sue Bojdak, that can potentially remind me of this greater connection, and the holiness of every other human I encounter from day to day.
You reflect God through your soul, through your mind, and through your body. … We honor you and your body because you are a gift (Siddur 6).
In more orthodoxic religions, the requirement is on belief. In Mormonism, where I was raised, there are a set of key beliefs that are mandatory, and you are regularly asked about them and expected to publicly proclaim them on a regular basis. This is more common in Christianity, but may exist in more conservative or traditional forms of Judaism. So in my early 20s, when it was increasingly clear that I didn’t actually believe in it, I tried for about two years to talk myself through a different meaning of the rituals, scriptures, prayers. It was a lot of work, exhausting in a context where I knew that if anyone knew what was happening in my mind, what I was doing to try to make mormonism intellectually tolerable, they would have been mortified and possibly taken corrective action against me.
But what Judaism seems (so far) to offer is a context within which the relationship to each other and the sacred is the focus, and there is built in to the religion, at least in modern, liberal, post-Englightenment mode of Judaism, the assumption that every individual in the room is working out the meaning themselves and differently. I get the impression that if I told the guy davening next to me at shul that I didn’t believe in God, that I just thought there was something awe-ful and wonder-ful about the Existing in the universe and being aware of it, even the most orthodox might argue with me in disagreement, but there wouldn’t be a question of whether or not it was Jewish to think such a thing.
It is an incredibly refreshing and relieving and relaxing place to be. And so I can pray B’tzelem Elohim, and love its meaning and implications in a panentheistic spirituality, and yet maintain my intellectual integrity as an atheist.
teku
**I do not mean to argue here that religiosity was selected for in the evolutionary process. When I look at the evidence we have at the moment, I fall into the “spandrel” camp, those who see Homo sapiens religiosity as an accidental bi-product of the evolution of our problem-solving consciousness and our social cognition.
Becoming Jewish 
A fellow atheist-cum-Jew (formal conversion still ahead on my path) who only recently stumbled onto your thoughtful blog, I’ve been reading through your posts with delight. I, too, admire Rabbi Green’s writing and perspective. Moreover, I find in your candid posts a kindred mind. I don’t explicitly agree with everything that Rabbi Green asserts, and I have some nit-picky things to hash out with you (after I’ve had a little more time to let my response gestate), but I’m grateful to have found your voice.
One note of etymological interest:
Given the Hebrew construction, B’tzelem Elohom is literally translated as “in the image of Gods,” since Elohim is the plural of El, a Hebrew name for one of the ancient Israelites venerated pastoral gods. Although I’m a monopanendeist (a position not at odds with atheism), Elohim is one of my preferred names for G-d (along with HaShem, Ein Sof, the Ground of Being, The Everything, The All, and other names of that ilk) because it is concrete evidence of theological evolution, if you’ll accept that term in this context, something the literalists and fundamentalists refuse to do.
Hungry,
Could you explain the idea of “monopanendeist”? How does it relate to or differ from Green’s panentheism?
I’m an academic. I’d be happy to hash out some nit-picky things with you.
I’m glad you found the blog. I’ve been craving dialogue with like-minded seekers and Jews-by-Choice. I’ll have a new post of my own up in the next few days.
Cheers
Todd
Hi, Todd.
To be honest, “monopanendeist” was a term written on the fly; it’s not a word I’ve before used to describe my theological convictions, and neither is it one that I’ve read before.
The “mono” prefix was added only to highlight the poly/mono push-pull in the name Elohim, and panendeism is simply a deistic version of panentheism. As a non-theist, or atheist, I of course find theistic interpretations and truth claims problematic and, using Rabbi Green’s preferred term, “naive.” I trend toward the same mystical conceptions of G-d and the universe (or universes?) that Rabbi Green does, but I don’t see how such a cosmology or theological groping involves theism. Perhaps I’m being a stickler, but the G-d described by such a holistic metaphysical perspective is, in effect, a dumb G-d (and I don’t mean that pejoratively), a G-d whose hands are our hands, and whose voice is the ravens’ voice, and whose mind is the stuff of astrophysics….and beyond, on all counts, hence the “en” added to the “pan” (materialism and beyond, into the realm of what must be dubbed supernaturalism, but is no more supernatural a hypothesis than the many-worlds interpretation, which is a wonderful flight of our collective scientific imagination).
There is a helpful and clear summation of panendeism at this website, though it seems the man behind the site is determined to plant his flag in a concept that has been around since deism, which I believe is as old as serious philosophy, if not older.
Theism is indeed a problematic idea. But by the time you get panendeism v. panentheism it seems like a distinction without a difference. Deism, at least its 18th century iteration, was still theist; it just conceived of a god that was not agentive in the world.
It seems like adding the panen- onto -theism changes the meaning of theism altogether. My non-theist/atheist position comes from the face that I find no evidence in the known universe for an agentive, intentional force acting out there, other than what our over-active social brains impute onto the natural world (I use the word “nature” hesitantly, as it’s so burdened with Western cultural baggage).
By adding the panen- prefix to -theism, you change the whole definition of theism and moves it to a more non-theist position than deism ever was. The panen- removes all intention and agency, indeed, it removes any possibility of being in anyway separate or apart from the All of everything that Exists. It removes the actor or intention from Creation and leaves only Creation itself and the forces that produce our existence in this flash of time.
The redefinition of “theos” forced by the “panen-” becomes so complete that it opens up the sanctification of all that Exists, and, for me, satisfies my disbelief (agnosticism, no belief without evidence) in the old-style theos of traditional monotheism.
I like the idea of sticking a “mono” on there, however, to emphasize the Oneness of all that exists, the monism of modern Kabbalistic interpretations of creation. The ‘echad’/אחד of the sh’ma and m’zuza come to take on whole new meanings (and make it possible for me to observe the practices associated with them) and foreclose the older dualistic, god-separate-from-creation model.
I’ve been reading a book called Minyan by Rabbi Rami Shapiro. He’s way more comfortable with what I call god-language than I am (and also than R. Green is). That said, in the beginning of the book, Shapiro argues that there is a difference between monistic and dualistic Judaism, and that monistic Judaism (descended from the Kabbalistic and hasidic movements) is the one that carries us forward:
“Mainstream Judaism offers a dualistic understanding of reality that separates God and Creation. Nondual Judaism holds that there is no real separation between God and creation. … The goal of nondualistic Judaism is to bridge the gap between God and humankind. The goal of nondual Judaism is to bring you to the realization that there is no gap.”
Interesting points. Thanks for the response.
I do think theism is distinct from deism, at least with respect to the personal aspect of the theistic god or gods. If one conceives of a god that is not agentive, she isn’t conceiving of a theistic god, at least not as I understand it. I agree that the panen- prefix fundamentally tweaks traditional notions of theism, but the fact that theism remains the root can (and does for me) confuse things. But I’m harping on semantics.
Your cosmogony, or what I’ve gathered of it here, seems very akin to mine; a god didn’t create, but G-d is Creation and the rest of it, the All…and beyond. Indeed, dualism goes out the window, and I agree with Rabbi Shapiro about the vitality of monistic Judaism (and the near irrelevance of dualistic Judaism). Unfortunately, Shapiro’s is a minority position.
Yes, definitely an issue of semantics, which is for me masochistically fun. heh. I don’t disagree with your definitions of theism or deism, just that putting the new prefix on theism necessarily changes it. In other words, theism, monotheism, pantheism, panentheism are all four distinct from each other.
Regardless, I also agree with you that the personal aspect of theism is a deal-breaker for me. There simply is no intention outside of what exists, no individual being beyond or in addition to All that Is. I find the Kabbalist idea of Ein Sof really resonant with current physics as well as my experience of existence beyond my own short and brutish life.
The great thing about Judaism is that, unlike Christianity, there are no dogmas and they don’t kick you out for not believing. So Shapiro is a minority in the U.S. (but I highly influential minority in the Reconstructist movement and thereby on U.S. Judaism writ large: Rabbi Waskow and Rabbi Green are two of my other favorites, especially Rabbi Green’s book Radical Judaism). But the worst that happens is other theistic Jews might argue with him and say he’s doing it wrong and even scream and kvetch and try to bar him from the Wailing Wall (crazy ultra-orthodox Israeli yiddishe grandpas)–but no one would say he’s not a Jew.
For us גר/ger, the situation would be different, however, I fear.