Leap of Faith: to believe or not to believe?

Sixty years ago, when I applied to enter the Leo Baeck College for rabbinic training, I don’t think I was asked outright, “do you believe in God?” In all my years as a congregational rabbi I don’t think we ever asked prospective members about their belief either.

I do know that many established members declared that they didn’t believe in God, even those who regularly attended services. In his latest book, David Baddiel writes: “To be a Jew you don’t have to have much of a sense of God… what you need is a sense of ritual.”

What do we expect of a bar/bat mitzvah youth? Not that they make a public declaration of faith in God, but that they can adequately read from the Torah. Does any synagogue make them recite “ani ma’amin b’emunah sheleyma… I believe with perfect faith”, going on to affirm all 13 statements in the list attributed to Maimonides that we find in the concluding hymn Yigdal?

How many congregants who are declared atheists refuse to sing Adon Olam, with its list of statements about God’s nature, especially if sung to a jolly Israeli pop-song melody? Of course, many who are atheists or agnostics find no sense in synagogue services, but I suspect quite a few of them enjoy the family seder, or are happy to come to shul for a family simcha. Baddiel is right – it is sense of ritual and, I would add, a sense of belonging to a community that is important. How many Jewish atheists have found comfort in the rituals of a Jewish funeral, or reciting Kaddish?

In my student rabbi days, we Liberal Jews were ‘updating’ our prayerbook by changing to modernised English translation. I recall my revered teacher Rabbi Louis Jacobs jokingly saying: “We Orthodox don’t have that problem, we daven in Hebrew”. Yet he wrote books and taught Jewish theology.

Ritual, community, studying Jewish texts, reading Jewish books, doing mitzvot: these are important. And God? I would say that all who engage in Jewish activities are doubly blessed if they can do so with a sincere and deep belief in God, that they do so because this is God’s will. But a Jew who is sure that no God exists, is still a Jew.

As a rabbi I suppose I should say, please God they come to believe, and maybe I can help them on this path.