c. 2006 Religion News Service

BEACHWOOD, Ohio _ “Good Shabbos.” “Good Shabbos to you.”

The mostly older men and women leave their contributions to the potluck dinner up front, then exchange the traditional greeting throughout the dining room at the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.

In a tradition extending back thousands of years, the Shabbat candles are lit after participants settle in at their tables. The ceremony continues with the drinking of wine and the breaking of bread. Then, individuals remember friends or loved ones who have died.

But there was one strikingly different aspect about this Friday night gathering from most held in Jewish homes and synagogues _ and it wasn’t that it was taking place in the party room of a condominium complex.

There was no mention of God through the entire ritual.

Welcome to the annual meeting of the Jewish Secular Community of Cleveland, part of the Cleveland-based international Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations.

Judaism without religion?

No problem, say these secular Jewish groups that hold Shabbat programs, celebrate major holidays and even ordain rabbis to pass on a tradition in which they believe the covenant is not between humanity and God, but among people over hundreds of generations.

There are now secular rabbis and leaders who preside at events such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and memorial services.

“I believe in people,” said Rifke Feinstein, executive director of the secular Jewish congress. “I believe that only people can do the things I want them to do: end hunger, create peace.”

The movement began in 1969 in Detroit with the founding of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, where Jews were seeking ways to cultivate communities focused on cultural, rather than faith-based, Judaism.

Today, the secular congress has about 25 affiliated communities, each having from 80 to 300 members, throughout the United States and Canada, Feinstein said.

Secular Jews say they do not need God. What they do want is their own place in the larger Jewish community. What they offer are ways for nonreligious people to be culturally Jewish.

That is important for many people and the community as a whole, secular Jewish leaders said. Limiting Judaism to those who believe in God closes the doors to others, Feinstein said.

“These people are not going to be really interested in going to this temple or this synagogue,” she said.

Dorothy Werblow of Euclid, Ohio, who was the coordinator of the Cleveland community for 15 years, said the celebrations sponsored by the group on Friday evenings and Jewish holidays allow secular Jews “to touch … part of who you were, or are.”

Not that it is easy forming a secular Jewish identity.

Leaders of the secular groups say they understand that the literature and rituals that have shaped Jewish identity throughout the centuries have strong religious themes. For example, the Torah and the Talmud _ central religious texts _ are recognized as providing ethical foundations for the Jewish community.

So the movement is attempting to achieve a delicate balance between staying connected to the Jewish community through traditions based in religious belief and reworking holiday and life-cycle celebrations to emphasize their cultural elements.

In the case of Shabbat programs, the emphasis is not on God creating the world. Rather, during the candle lighting here, the secular Jews gathered recently recited, “May the candles illuminate our minds, warm our hearts and rekindle our commitment to each other and to the Jewish people everywhere.”

This fall on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement considered the holiest day of the year, many Jews will be in synagogue services seeking their own encounter with a forgiving God.

On that day, local secular Jews will gather for a service that rejects what leaders call “the symbolic harshness of an angry God” and instead “calls attention to the human condition of inner turmoil and the wish and striving for inner peace and harmony.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

In general, secular Jewish leaders say they their groups have been accepted in the wider community. Rabbi Matthew Eisenberg, immediate past president of the Greater Cleveland Board of Rabbis, said the secular group shows the diversity of the Jewish people.

Still, the group faces significant issues in reaching future generations. While secular Jewish groups in some parts of the country have younger memberships, the Cleveland group is aging. The great majority of its members are 50 or older.

At its annual meeting, group member Mark Weber said challenges facing secular-humanistic Judaism include the need to build a strong education program, to encourage home-based rituals and observances, and for the movement to develop a strong Jewish identity.

The key to survival, he said in an interview, is “if they can appeal to young Jewish parents with children.”

What secular and humanistic Jewish groups have in their favor, observers say, is a powerful desire and commitment to be part of the Jewish community.

“You are who you are,” Feinstein said. “My role is not to antagonize. My role is to be comfortable with who I am.”

KRE/JL END BRIGGS

(David Briggs writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

Editors: To obtain photos of a service at the Jewish Secular Community, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.