By Morris Malakoff, JTNews Correspondent
According to survey after survey, if you are a typical resident of the Pacific Northwest, you are likely “unaffiliated” with the established religious community. Yet, those same “non-religious” people often express a strong belief in spirituality or even an unnamed “higher being or power.”
Rabbi Daniel Weiner, the senior rabbi at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, says that those who were once active members of a community, but have since given it up — be it Jewish or otherwise — may be wrongheaded in their action.
That is the crux of his new book, Good God: Faith for the Rest of Us.
In an interview following his book’s March 11 launch, Weiner said that many people began the exit from their religious community in their youth, or they have been turned off by the media and alienated by the aggressive tactics often found in extreme and fundamentalist type religions.
“Maybe they didn’t like something said at their Bar Mitzvah or maybe they turned away from the Catholic Church with all of the media attention it has gotten,” he said. “But to live a life based on a belief formed when you are 13 is probably not legitimate. If we lived our lives out based on decisions made then, think of what that would be like.
“So, they ignore it or try to do it themselves with ‘new age’ or Buddhism or something else,” he said. “They express belief in a higher being and admit to being spiritual. That is really a belief in God.”
Weiner said that at its outset, the book is designed to help people discover their spirituality and give it definition — not to proselytize. But he also hopes it might guide them to find a community appropriate to their needs.
He says his book is ecumenical and speaks to the disaffected of all religions, not just Judaism.
“All faith communities face this issue,” Weiner said. “They all see new faces when families have children and feel they should expose them to something or when people reach a point in their lives when they feel the need to reconnect with God, often late in life…. In between, they try a lot of self-exploration and various alternatives when what they are looking for has been here all along.”
His book is speaking to the mass of individuals who likely fall somewhere between youth and old age and are often more distracted by the machinations of secular life.
“We live in a society where there no longer is a penalty for not being part of a faith community,” he said. “It is easy to not be active and to think that somehow it is something for people who can’t think for themselves or that it will be looked on as something odd by their friends, or submitting to something that is mindless.”
But, Weiner says, times have changed.
“This is not a ‘check your brain at the door’ exercise. People can and do live in both a spiritual community and in the secular world and do question what they see and hear,” he said. “It is not a case of believing in fairy tales. Critical thought is a part of our open society.”
But how does one find that appropriate community in a city that offers every conceivable flavor of not only Judaism, but most other belief systems?
“We will spend weeks checking out the right school for our kids and even the best gym to go to for lifting weights,” he said. “This is no different. Ask around. Call the rabbi and come to services a few times. You will know when it is a place that works for you.”
Beyond finding that “proper place,” Weiner says that being part of a community fills a need that he believes is a part of basic humanity.
“I truly believe we are hard wired to be part of a community,” he said. “There is a gap in the richness of life that is filled by being part of a community, by connecting to others. That gap goes unfilled for those who feel disaffected. It is a soul sickness that is not healthy for a human being.”
Good God: Faith for the Rest of Us is available through goodgodforus.com. Cost is $24 plus shipping and handling and at Rabbi Weiner signs each copy sold through the site. It will be available soon at Amazon.com.