Denominations
Humanistic Judaism
Judaism
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Origin 1963
Humanistic Judaism is a movement founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, who established the Birmingham Temple near Detroit as a congregation that celebrates Jewish culture, history, and identity through a nontheistic, humanistic philosophy rather than belief in a supernatural God. Wine helped organize the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969 as the movement's North American umbrella body, and an affiliated seminary, the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, trains and ordains its rabbis and leaders. The movement holds that Jewish identity rests on culture, history, and peoplehood rather than theology, and its communities mark the Jewish calendar and lifecycle with humanistic rather than traditionally theistic liturgy.
Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal PositionEthics grounded in reason and human experience, without the supernatural 1Tradition: Judaism Defining Doctrinal PositionJudaism as an evolving religious civilisation, God reconceived naturalistically 1Tradition: Judaism Position on SexualitySame-sex marriage is performed and LGBT clergy are ordained on equal terms with heterosexual clergy 1 The Society for Humanistic Judaism, the central body of Humanistic Judaism in North America, passed a resolution in 2004 supporting the legal recognition of marriage and divorce between adults of the same sex and affirming the value of marriage between any two committed adults, pledged in 2010 to speak out against homophobic bullying, and states members of the LGBTQIA community may participate in every ritual and hold leadership roles in any capacity. Sexuality Position DetailThe Society for Humanistic Judaism, founded in 1969 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine and headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan as the central body of Humanistic Judaism in North America, passed a resolution in 2004 supporting the legal recognition of marriage and divorce between adults of the same sex and affirming the value of marriage between any two committed adults with the sense of obligations, responsibilities and consequences that follow, and pledged in 2010 to speak out against homophobic bullying. Members of the LGBTQIA community may participate in every ritual and take on leadership roles in any capacity, with no restriction on whom a Humanistic Jewish rabbi or celebrant will officiate for. 1 History
Separation or DivergenceReform Judaism, in which Wine had trained and been ordained, over the rejection of theistic prayer and belief in a supernatural God 1 Date of Separation Organisation
GovernanceA federation of autonomous member organisations 1 The Society for Humanistic Judaism, a federation of autonomous local communities and congregations across North America OrdinationThe International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism has ordained rabbis of both genders since Tamara Kolton's ordination in 1999 Practice
Liturgical Language Reach
Adherents Today Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginFarmington Hills area, metropolitan Detroit, Michigan 1 FounderRabbi Sherwin T. Wine (1928-2007) 1 Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Trajectory
Membership Over TimeIn 1994 the Society for Humanistic Judaism counted 10,000 members across thirty affiliated congregations in the United States and Canada, the organization's own reported figure as relayed by Wikipedia. 1 Membership Figure As Of Basis of the Membership Figure In Other Languages (3 names)
- Sociedad para el humanismo judío
- انجمن یهودیت انسانگرا
- Société pour un judaïsme humaniste
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Sherwin Wine and a Judaism Without Theology
Humanistic Judaism began with one rabbi's crisis of conscience. Sherwin T. Wine (1928-2007), trained and ordained in the Reform movement, took up the pulpit of a newly formed congregation in suburban Detroit in the early 1960s, but grew convinced that he could not honestly continue leading prayers that addressed a personal, supernatural God in whom he no longer believed. Rather than leave the rabbinate or abandon Jewish communal life, Wine proposed something different to his congregants: a Jewish community built around Jewish history, culture, ethics, and peoplehood, using Jewish holidays, lifecycle ceremonies, and literature, but without theistic prayer or the claim of a supernatural God.
Most of his congregation agreed to the experiment, and in 1963 they founded the Birmingham Temple in the Detroit suburbs, later renamed the Birmingham Temple Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, generally regarded as the founding congregation of the movement. Wine articulated its philosophy at length in his writings and public teaching over the following decades: Judaism, he argued, is best understood as the evolving civilization and culture of the Jewish people, of which theology is only one historical strand, and one a Jew is free to set aside while remaining fully and authentically Jewish.
Building a Movement: The Society and Its Seminary
As congregations sympathetic to Wine's approach formed in other cities through the later 1960s, he helped organize the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969 to serve as a national umbrella body linking them, coordinating publications, holiday resources, and a biennial assembly for what remained, and remains, a small and specifically North American movement. Wine later established the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism as a seminary to train and ordain rabbis and other leaders formally in Humanistic Judaism's own philosophy rather than importing them from theistic movements; Tamara Kolton, ordained in 1999, became the Institute's first rabbi trained specifically for the humanistic movement, and the Institute has since ordained further rabbis of both genders.
The movement holds no central theology beyond its rejection of supernaturalism, leaving individual communities and members considerable latitude, but it is united by its insistence that Jewish identity is a matter of culture, history, and ethical commitment rather than doctrine, and its congregations mark Shabbat, the major festivals, and lifecycle events such as bar and bat mitzvah with ceremonies drawn from Jewish tradition but reframed in humanistic terms. The Society for Humanistic Judaism, headquartered in the Detroit area, reports a movement of roughly 40,000 people across North America and affiliated communities abroad, a modest but internationally organized presence within contemporary Judaism's wider denominational landscape.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
1963, Years The atlas dates the origin of Humanistic Judaism to 1963.
Belongs to Tradition
Branch Of
Rejected Here
Chosenness, Doctrines Chosenness by divine election is rejected; Jewish distinctiveness is grounded in shared culture, history and peoplehood rather than in a doctrine of selection by God.
Covenant, Doctrines A covenant with a God is rejected along with the God. What is kept is the shared history and culture of a people, held to need no supernatural party to it.
A divine creation is rejected. The origin of the universe is treated as a question for natural science and not for religion.
Halakha, Doctrines Halakha as divinely binding law is rejected; Jewish practice is retained as cultural and historical heritage rather than as commandment.
Messiah, Doctrines A supernatural personal Messiah is rejected, consistent with this stream's founding rejection of belief in a supernatural God.
Omnipotence, Doctrines This stream is founded on a nontheistic philosophy, so an omnipotent God is rejected along with the rest of the supernatural claim.
Prophecy, Doctrines Supernatural revelation is rejected. The prophets are read as human moral teachers whose demands stand on their own merit rather than on their source.
Redemption, Doctrines Redemption by divine act is rejected. What improvement the world receives is held to be the work of human beings and of nobody else.
Resurrection, Doctrines Bodily resurrection is rejected as a supernatural claim inconsistent with this stream's humanistic philosophy.
Founded on a nontheistic, humanistic philosophy, this stream rejects supernatural revelation, holding that Jewish identity rests on culture, history and peoplehood rather than a divinely given text.
A sequence of petitions addressed to God has no place in a Judaism that does not address one.
Humanistic Judaism is nontheistic and keeps no order of spiritual beings in its teaching or its liturgy.
Gabriel, Archangels Humanistic Judaism keeps no angelic order in its liturgy or teaching, Gabriel included.
Kabbalah, Disciplines Humanistic Judaism is nontheistic and keeps no esoteric doctrine of the divine, so the Kabbalah has no place in its teaching.
Metatron, Archangels Humanistic Judaism keeps no angelic order and no Kabbalistic hierarchy.
Michael, Archangels Humanistic Judaism is nontheistic and keeps the Jewish calendar, culture and ethics without supernatural beings, so no angelic order appears in its liturgy or its teaching.
Humanistic Judaism keeps Jewish culture and ethics without divine command, so a code of divinely given law carries no authority in it.
Humanistic Judaism observes no binding halakhah, so the standard code of Jewish law has no governing role in its practice.
Uriel, Archangels Humanistic Judaism keeps no angelic order, so the four archangels of the traditional bedtime liturgy have no place in its practice.
Derived From
Founded by Sherwin Wine, a Reform rabbi, on a liturgy from which references to God were removed.
Held Differently
Said for the dead in a form that names the memory of the person rather than the greatness of God, the movement keeping the practice and not the theology behind it.
Rabbi, Religious Roles & Titles Humanistic Judaism ordains rabbis who do not affirm God, as teachers of Jewish culture and celebrants of its life cycle. The training and the title are kept and the theology they classically carried is not.
Shema Yisrael, Mantras Kept as the central declaration of belonging and reworded so that it does not assert what the movement does not hold.
Humanistic congregations read the Torah as a human document of Jewish history and culture. The scroll is kept and read, and what is claimed for it is different.
Critiqued Here
Humanistic Judaism honours Spinoza as a founding figure of a Judaism without supernatural belief and does not regard the ban as carrying authority over anyone.
Objects and Practices of This Tradition
Ethical action in the world is held to be the whole of what the tradition asks, there being no one to petition.
A coming of age ceremony is held in which the young person presents a piece of research on a Jewish subject of their own choosing.
Acts of loving kindness are retained in full. This stream drops the theology and keeps the ethics, and this is one of the duties it keeps.
Sherwin Wine's own 1985 founding statement of the movement, the first full published case for a Jewish identity grounded in peoplehood rather than theology, written after two decades of the same practice at Birmingham Temple.
Marriage is solemnised by this movement's own celebrants.
The Mishnah is studied as a historical and cultural document rather than as revealed authority.
The Sabbath is marked as a cultural and family institution.
The Seder is kept, from Haggadot this movement has written, in which the story is told as human liberation rather than as divine deliverance.
This movement holds no service of prayer to God. Its gatherings use readings, music and reflection drawn from Jewish history and literature, and the difference is stated rather than concealed.
The Talmud is studied as a historical and cultural document of the Jewish civilization rather than as revealed authority.
The Tanakh is read and taught as literature and history, part of Jewish cultural heritage rather than divine revelation.
Repair of the world is held as a human obligation, and it is the closest thing this stream has to a mission.
The Torah is read and taught as literature and history rather than as divine revelation or binding law.
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