My Path to Humanistic Judaism

Marv Axelrod
Board Member, Triangle Congregation for Humanistic Judaism

It was my mother who set the tone for what went on in our house — this included eating kosher, going to Hebrew school three times a week, having four sets of dishes, putting money into the "pushke" and attending services on Shabbos and holidays. My Jewish education continued beyond bar-mitzvah when most Jewish youth happily sever their ties with religion. I attended classes through high school and was active in the youth group. All of my friends were Jewish. So upon graduation from high school it was a natural transition to college and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. All during these formative years, I kept the "mitzvot" as one accepts the air he breathes.

My drifting away from the tradition occurred in small increments: eating White Tower hamburgers, traveling on the subway before three stars appeared on the Sabbath, and dating non-Jewish women put me on the slippery slope. I was enjoying my new-found freedom from the strictures I had always known. As a result, at the time of graduation from college and the Seminary, I decided to take a job teaching in a public school instead of a Hebrew school.

My path from traditional Judaism was a winding one. Once the "fence" was scaled, it was easy to find my way from observant Conservatism to less observant Reform. During this time I found the idea of God less and less meaningful. Certainly I felt no obligation to get up at 7 a.m. to put on tefillin and recite the morning prayers as I had been wont to do. Nor did I want to ask God for anything or thank Him. Reading Eric Fromme's book, You Shall Be As Gods, in which he describes God's role as shrinking (tsintsum) in the world as the role of man becomes increasingly important for caring for the world or for destroying it. So my scepticism compounded with my freedom from the "yoke" of Torah led me to become an "epikuris" which can be understood as "fallen away."

During this transformation, I never considered myself anything else but Jewish. Jewish in the sense of being knowledgeable and identifying with Jewish issues. My daughters were raised in a home where social responsibility was the order of our lives. We did celebrate Hanukah, Purim and Passover, but ritual was not emphasized. As a matter of fact my girls went to Sunday School in the Ethical Culture.

I never felt the necessity of affiliating with a synagogue, especially in "Jewish" New York. That is until I moved to North Carolina where people often ask when meeting someone, "Where do you go to church?" Up until this year, I responded, "We're unaffiliated." Now, when someone asks I say: "We belong to the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism because it offers me the greatest freedom of expression."