{"id":107,"date":"2026-09-22T22:23:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T22:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/?page_id=107"},"modified":"2026-09-22T22:23:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T22:23:51","slug":"the-spiritual-humanistic-jewish-process","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/?page_id=107","title":{"rendered":"The Spiritual Humanistic Jewish Process"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Spiritual Humanistic Jewish Process<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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The most sincere and valuable Jewish decisions are made by the kehillah that will actually live by them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spiritual Humanistic Judaism does not need to impose one uniform position on every individual Jewish practice. People may relate to Shabbat, kashrut, prayer, festivals and other traditions in different ways. What we can share, however, is an outlook and a process for making Jewish decisions with integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The past has a vote, but not a veto.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot simply reproduce the way biblical, rabbinic or medieval Jews lived. Their societies, knowledge, circumstances and assumptions were different from ours. Nor should we treat the past as irrelevant. Jewish tradition contains centuries of reflection on holiness, justice, discipline, community, human character and the responsibilities of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our task is to study that inheritance carefully, to ask what values it embodied, and to consider how those values might be lived faithfully now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the same as searching the past for a quotation that will justify whatever we have already decided. Nor is it a matter of pretending that ancient practices secretly mean exactly what we want them to mean. Making Jewish decisions requires honesty: honesty about the sources, honesty about our own lives, and honesty about the consequences of the choices we make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Spiritual Humanistic Jewish approach therefore asks several questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • What were our ancestors trying to protect, cultivate or express?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What understanding of human nature lies behind this practice?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What does the practice train us to notice?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • What kind of person or community does it help us become?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Does it deepen justice, compassion, courage, gratitude, responsibility or self-discipline?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Does it make life more sacred\u2014or does it preserve exclusion, hierarchy or harm?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    These questions are not merely intellectual. Jewish practice is embodied. We do not only think about values; we give them shape through what we eat, how we rest, how we celebrate, how we mourn, how we speak, and how we relate to other people and to the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The example of kashrut<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Consider the Jewish laws of food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A study of the Torah and later Jewish interpretation may draw our attention to blood, animal life, boundaries, restraint and the transformation of eating into a conscious act. The Torah\u2019s prohibitions concerning blood reflect an ancient recognition that blood represents life. The separation of meat and milk may be understood through symbolic associations with nourishment, birth, death and the responsibilities involved in taking animal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Different people may draw different conclusions from this study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One person may choose ethical vegetarianism or veganism. Another may follow traditional kashrut. Someone else may develop a form of contemporary kashrut concerned with animal welfare, workers\u2019 rights, environmental sustainability and the conditions under which food is produced. Another person may practise a more limited form of kashrut while finding other ways to mark the holiness of eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The point is not to reduce kashrut to one abstract idea. Jewish food practice can cultivate restraint, gratitude, mindfulness, communal belonging and reverence for life. It can remind us that eating is not an ethically neutral act. It can turn an ordinary necessity into a repeated spiritual encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The question is therefore not simply, \u201cWhat did the ancient rule say?\u201d It is also, \u201cWhat kind of relationship with food, life and responsibility is this practice asking us to create?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The role of the kehillah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Jewish decisions are strengthened when they are made in community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Spiritual Humanistic Jewish process is best carried out within a kehillah, a havurah, a congregation or any group of Jews committed to living a purposeful Jewish life. Communal decision-making does not mean that every individual must practise Judaism identically. It means that our choices are tested through conversation with others and become part of a shared way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A kehillah may need to decide how its kitchen will operate, whether its communal events will be vegetarian, what standards of animal welfare it will follow, how it will mark Shabbat, or which forms of prayer and blessing it will use. These decisions should involve study, reflection and consultation rather than being imposed casually or inherited uncritically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The community listens to the inherited sources. It listens to contemporary knowledge. It listens to the lived experience of its members. It considers who is included, who may be excluded, and what kind of spiritual culture the decision will create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It also recognises that a Jewish practice is not only a rule. It is a discipline. It forms habits. It shapes attention. It teaches the body as well as the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For this reason, the question is not merely whether a practice can be defended intellectually. We must also ask whether it can be lived meaningfully, repeatedly and communally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tradition and change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    A Jewish community may preserve a traditional practice because it continues to express a value that remains spiritually powerful. It may reinterpret the practice. It may develop a new form. It may decide that a particular ancient value no longer deserves to govern Jewish life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For example, many contemporary Jewish communities have concluded that excluding women from a minyan has no enduring spiritual or ethical value. The decision to include women does not represent indifference to tradition. It represents a judgement that the deeper purposes of communal prayer\u2014participation, responsibility, learning and shared spiritual life\u2014are better served through inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The same process can be applied to questions of gender, sexuality, disability, ecology, economic justice, animal welfare and the relationship between Jewish life and the wider world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tradition gives us language, memory, practices and accumulated wisdom. It does not relieve us of the responsibility to think. Nor does change require us to abandon continuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    The past has a vote, but not a veto.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Spiritual Humanistic Jewish decision-making<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    No Jewish community can avoid making choices. Even refusing to decide is a decision: it leaves inherited assumptions in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The question is whether those choices will be made consciously, honestly and together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A Spiritual Humanistic Jewish process does not begin by asking everyone to settle the question of God. A person may understand God through Kaplan, Schulweis, Spinoza, Maimonides or another Jewish framework. A person may speak of holiness, godliness, the yetzer hatov, the sacredness of life or the light within humanity. These differences need not prevent shared practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What matters is whether our Jewish decisions help us to live with greater awareness and responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Do they deepen our relationship with the kehillah?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Do they make us more capable of compassion and justice?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Do they cultivate gratitude without complacency?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Do they strengthen our courage to resist harm?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Do they help us transform inherited values into lived commitments?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      The most meaningful Jewish practices are not museum pieces. They are ways of inhabiting Jewish time, Jewish memory and Jewish responsibility in the present. They connect us to those who came before us while leaving room for those who will come after us to continue the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Judaism is not preserved by refusing to change. It is preserved when its deepest values are given truthful, embodied and spiritually alive expression in every generation.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The most sincere and valuable Jewish decisions are made by the kehillah that will actually live by them. Spiritual Humanistic Judaism does not need to impose one uniform position on every individual Jewish practice. People may relate to Shabbat, kashrut, prayer, festivals and other traditions in different ways. What we can share, however, is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":12,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-107","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}