My Path to Humanistic Judaism
Orthodox Yeshiva to Secular HumanisticJudaism

Herbert Halbrecht
Co-founder of the Triangle Congregation for Humanistic Judaism

My parents were not religious, but were ardent Zionists, and actually met at Zionist district #1 on the Lower East Side of New York in the 1920's. My father came from an observant family in what is now Romania. At least his parents were religious, and his grandfather was a Hasid. Neither he nor any of his four brothers and a sister, who all emigrated to Israel, were religious, although they were more or less observant of at least major traditions. My mother's mother was “traditional”, but not especially religious.

My parents wanted me to have a very strong Jewish education, but while we observed traditional holidays, there was no significant “religious” overtone. This was just the way we lived.

I was lucky. The Yeshiva I attended, Yeshiva Etz Chaim in Boro Park, had teachers who, I realize in retrospect, taught us how to learn and think, not just to memorize religious dictum. I studied Hebrew and the Bible plus Jewish history half a day plus Sunday mornings. By the time I was thirteen, graduated and celebrated my Bar Mitzvah, I was almost bi-lingual. We studied regular secular subjects the other half day, Monday through Friday. Attending Saturday services was mandatory. The quality of the secular education was exemplified by the fact that all those graduating when I did, who applied to Townsend Harris High School, a special accelerated three year high school, were admitted. I was an A- student, as long as deportment was not included in the grade averages.

Then, at seventeen, I went to CCNY and had my first religious epiphany. It was in a survey course on philosophy, when I discovered Baruch Spinoza, arguably the first western Pantheist. I had, even at seventeen, some trouble with considering god as some kind of transcendental “personality” and here was Spinoza, a great philosopher, using the label“god” very differently.

Pantheists believe that god is not a personality, but that all laws of nature, forces, manifestations, etc. of the “self-existing universe” are god. He also specifically said that “nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings”. This made sense to me, for the first time, in my search for rationality in religion.

At the University of Chicago, although a student in the Graduate School of Business, I was interested in and able to attend lectures by leading religious philosophers, including Rheinhold Neibhur, Paul Tillich, and others. It dawned on me to question any religion, including Judaism, that claimed it had a monopoly on a relationship with and access to god.

At a meeting in the early 1950's, I accidentally met Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, who told me “you have the makings of a Reconstructionist.” I didn't know who he was or what he was talking about, but an aide gave me his book, Judaism As A Civilization. It opened my mind to new concepts. In his book, he described Judaism as a culture rather than a religion, and as a culture, in order to survive, Judaism must be “reconstructed.” This is comparable to one saying that like evolution itself, Jewish culture, to survive, must adapt, not be rigid and static. I sometimes wonder about what Rabbi Kaplan would think of Reconstructionism today.

Unfortunately when I looked for a Reconstructionist synagogue, I could not find one. Later when I did find one so labeled, there was no difference between it and Conservative services, with which I felt uncomfortable. It was too centered on god.

I have always been very active in Zionist activities and was a street corner debater even before there was an Israel, and later I often spoke at synagogues, churches, and organizations showing why United States foreign policy should support Israel.

I became particularly intrigued that my Zionist heroes, Theodore Herzl, David Ben Gurion, and Chaim Weizmann were secular. (Yet today many American Jews are critical of those of us in whom Judaism is totally ingrained historically and culturally, because we deny the supernatural and god.)

When I married and we moved to Westport, Connecticut in the 1960's, we joined a Reform congregation because it was the most conveniently located for us. Obviously the religious aspect of my affiliation was weak. It became weaker and both my wife and I became quite irritated years later when our Reform Rabbi refused to officiate at our daughters wedding, even though she and her husband to be, who wasn't Jewish, agreed to raise their children as Jewish. He graciously was prepared to “bless” them after someone else performed the wedding ceremony. I will refrain from indicating our daughter's response. Incidentally, she is now a member of the board of a large Conservative synagogue in Stamford, CT., and their three children are being raised Jewish, very much so!

When we moved to Durham about nine years ago, we joined a Reform temple after finding ourselves unable to distinguish a synagogue with a “Reconstructionist” Rabbi, from one that was conservative in its services.

Increasingly, I've been troubled reading the prayers, which for page after page - for seemingly interminable hours - praised god repetitiously, talking about how wonderful is the god who redeemed us from Egypt and throughout the centuries, how charitable, just, all-knowing, kind, etc... etc...

In this regard, I had my second religious epiphany at a High Holiday service of my Reform Temple. A printed supplement to the prayer book praised god “who has redeemed us through the ages, leading us forth from Egypt...”

I was enraged!

I kept thinking of what has happened to us through the ages: our plight during the Crusades where we were murdered, butchered by the tens of thousands by those on their way to the Holy Land; the vicious anti-Semitism to which we have been subjected; and mostly of the holocausts, afflicting Jews, of course, but also others, just within my memory, and especially the HOLOCAUST.

WHERE WAS GOD??

Frankly, if we are the “chosen people”, I fervently hope that this honor and title can be transferred to some other people for the next few millennia. A much better exposition of this is articulated in The Future Jew, by Michael Cairin. (See the website: thefuturejew. com.) His Holocaust Hagaddah is, as someone said :“shattering.”

Not believing in the supernatural, however, does not mean abandoning all beliefs. I believe in Hillel's commentary: “IF I AM NOT FOR MYSELF, WHO IS FOR ME/ BUT IF I AM ONLY FOR MYSELF, WHAT AM I/ AND IF NOT NOW, WHEN?” This commentary is framed and on a wall in my house. Interestingly, his other well remembered statement, when asked to define the law of the Torah while standing on one leg, was “do not do to another what would be hateful if done to you, all else is commentary. Now go study.” Both are totally people oriented, and decidedly humanist.

I believe in my own responsibility to impact on my own destiny and have long stopped blaming others, including my parents, as well as the supernatural, for my defects.

I see no point in seeking help through prayer from the supernatural forces which did not help those, including those much more pious than I by far, and others who suffered unimaginable horrors of the many holocausts to which mankind has been subjected in addition to ours. Their victims were Jews, gentiles, Muslims, Africans, and others.

Humanistic Judaism enables me to celebrate my Jewish heritage and culture, and to participate in the community and fellowship of Jews, while I enjoy and benefit from our diversity.

I believe, not in the coming of moshiach, but in ourselves and what we can be.

If you do, too, join us. You will be welcomed with open arms - and open hearts.

Herb Halbrecht Tel: (919) 969-1573 Fax:(919) 929-2690