An Interview with Rabbi Sherwin Wine

Rabbi Sherwin Wine created a sensation back in 1965 when Time magazine wrote about the maverick young Reform rabbi and his suburban Detroit congregation of atheists. The Birmingham Temple was organized in the summer of 1963 and the congregation elected to become Humanistic the next year. More than three decades later, Wine's insistent Jewish secularism still raises hackles among many Jews. The Humanistic Judaism movement he founded claims more than 30,000 members worldwide, including Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University, one of the world's leading Holocaust scholars.

Hershel Shanks (Moment editor): Why do we need a fifth branch of Judaism? Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist — isn't that enough?

Sherwin Wine: A large number of Jews aren't being served by the existing four denominations. If you're interested in Jewish survival, we will lose them because they aren't Reform, they aren't Reconstructionist, they aren't Conservative, they aren't Orthodox. In most cases they are unaffiliated because they can belong only without integrity. Integrity means that you say what you believe. And it's not possible for secular and humanistic Jews to do that within the framework of the four existing denominations. We live in a world where there are multiple needs and multiple constituencies.

I'm not sure what to call your movement, humanism or Humanistic Judaism?

Humanistic Judaism.

In your literature you often say humanism, without the Judaism.

I can refer to Orthodox Judaism as theism if I want to; it's a branch, it's a form of theism. Most theisms are alike. Change the name of the god and you pretty much have the same philosophic setup. As Orthodox Judaism is a branch of theism, Humanistic Judaism is part of what we call humanism.

What is distinctive about Humanistic Judaism?

It derives a humanistic conclusion about life from the experience of the Jewish people. All Judaisms are interpretations of the Jewish experience. Just as all Christianity is built around the history and personality of Jesus, or Christ, all Judaisms are focused on the history of the Jewish people. Prophetic Judaism and priestly Judaism and rabbinic Judaism have all interpreted that history to point to the fact that the Jews are the Chosen People, that the Jewish people are witnesses to the existence of a loving and just deity. Humanistic Judaism looks at the same history, and we come to the opposite conclusion.

Which is?

After the Holocaust, the meaning of the Jewish experience is that you cannot count on the kindness of the faiths. Human beings have to rely on their own power, their own efforts, their own courage.

Can't you be a Reconstructionist Jew or a Reform Jew and subscribe to that?

I don't doubt that large numbers of Reform Jews and the overwhelming majority of Reconstructionist Jews subscribe to the humanistic idea. I was trained as a Reform rabbi. I left the Reform movement because of the absence of integrity. Why would you say "Praised art thou, Lord our God, Kind of the Universe," if what you mean is that there is no king of the universe and there is no divine and loving providence out there? Most of the people at Hebrew Union College when I graduated in 1956 were basically humanistic. I tried to fit humanistic beliefs into theistic vocabulary. That's what most Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis do. That vocabulary is appropriate to Orthodox Judaism. It is not appropriate to a humanistic view of life. You don't stand for three hours praising an all-powerful deity if in fact you believe there is no all-powerful deity around to help you.

Do you, in effect, reject God?

To reject God means that there is one and I am turning my back on him. But there is no evidence as far as I can see for the existence of a conscious manager of the universe.

Aren't there many understandings of God?

No. "God" is an ordinary English word like "table," "chair" or "rug." It is attached to verbs: God hears, God knows, God sees. You can't escape that when you use the word "God."

People have very different understandings of the Divine. People have many different ideas about the power that drives the universe, the power that created the universe, the mystery of the universe.

But if I talk about biblical and rabbinic Judaism, God is a conscious being that runs and manages the universe. You may disagree on whether he has determined everything; you may disagree on whether his radiance fills the universe or whether he has withdrawn from it. But there's no disagreement on the basic meaning. I represent a constituency of people who are sick and tired of using a vocabulary that does not fit what they believe. They simply want to say clearly and explicitly and openly what it is that they feel and believe.

And what next?

We believe that the power to deal with the problems of our life does not come from some divine or supernatural source, but from within us — me and other people. And there is very clear vocabulary for this that isn't confusing. Once you use theistic vocabulary, then you have to sit around apologizing, redefining, always explaining.

You reject God's existence?

I don't talk to God. We don't pray to God.

Do you pray?

No. We celebrate what we call the life of courage. We make a distinction between two lifestyles that obviously can be derived from the Jewish experience. One is the lifestyle expressed in prophetic and priestly and rabbinic Judaism, called the life of faith, which is based on the assumption that in the end it's called the messianic dream — the universe or God will guarantee that everything will end up OK. That's a very powerful belief system. If you believe in it, it's very strong. We don't. We don't think that's what Jewish history means. Look at Jewish history for the last 2,000 or 2,500 years, and the last conclusion you will come to is that there is a wonderful, gracious power that is guaranteeing the ultimate redemption of humanity. What we say is that in the end we have to train ourselves to be courageous.

Are courage and faith mutually exclusive?

Well, there's no courage if there's faith. When Mary Queen of Scots was going to have her head cut off, she said, "I have no fear. I know in a moment I'll be with God." Well, that's not courage. Courage is when you know it's the end. Rabbinic Judaism, which, of course, is Orthodoxy, very clearly states, "Do not fear. In the end, no matter what happens to you, you will be resurrected, and you will be judged. And if you follow the halachah, [religious law] you will be judged favorably, and there is a happy ending."

Some Jews believe that, but many do not. Why do they need Humanistic Judaism?

Because Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have borrowed all the symbols and all the vocabulary of traditional Judaism.

Are you saying that those symbols cannot be made meaningful?

They cannot be the expression of the Humanistic viewpoint. If you say that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish belief and lifestyle, that although the Torah was created for Priestly Judaism it can nevertheless be adapted, then you have to face the fact that three-quarters to seven-eighths of its commandments are not being followed by the people. If you use that as a symbol, the people who do more of it are going to have more authenticity than the people who do less of it. That's why Orthodoxy always wins. Some people, for whatever reason, have a need to preserve the vocabulary of the past. They want to use the vocabulary of the past.

Isn't there some value in the vocabulary of the past?

Yes. The value is that you feel identified. You can pretend that you are identified with the belief systems of the past. But some Jews are not comfortable using that vocabulary. To Jews who are comfortable with it, who have a need for that vocabulary, you can say, "I'm glad you have found the way to handle it." But then there are those Jews who aren't comfortable with it.