http://shirshalom.home.att.net/ Check out the "Mission Statement" and "Are you a Humanistic Jew?" on the left hand side. Anyone ever been to a place that celebrates humanistic Judaism? I think it's compelling. The main site for humanistic Judaism is http://www.shj.org Peace, MollyBloom
I'm not a humanistic Jew, but I do think it's cool that it exists for those that could benefit from it. For me, it's just too spiritually devoid. But for others it may be exactly what they need. It's still very young, and very much in a formative stage. I read an article on it in the local Jewish paper. For example, at this time there are some humanist Jews who are looking into Israeli pop music for liturgy, and they're only now looking at an ordination program. Dauer
I think that it might be a great thing for my brother Erich to look at. It suits him. My other brother, Adam, whose kind of the opposite of Erich (a strict Orthodox Jew who has considered becoming a Rabbi and who I think will probably have an arranged marriage) told me that he knew (or knew of, I don't remember which) Jewish Buddhists when he went to Binghamton. That was the first time I had heard of people applying Buddhist philosophy to other religions, let alone Judaism. Which I found to be odd, because the Buddhists I have spoken to always made sure that I understood that Buddhists don't believe in G-d. I guess they just apply certain teachings, or what?
I think with Jewish Buddhists it's more a matter of taking those teachings which can be helpful and applying them to Judaism. Buddhism has done a lot of mind R&D that Judaism hasn't done as thoroughly, for one. It seems to me, however, that a lot of Jewish Buddhists are returning to Judaism from Buddhism and are just taking what they've learned back to Judaism with them which I think is very healthy. Dauer
