We Jews are so glad that Judaism is not a religion. It doesn’t matter if you are a polytheistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic Jew, so long as you are Indigenously Jewish! Meaning, observant/wrestling in our Judean-orignating ancestral laws – we call this Jewish halachot.
Rabbi Menachem Manis HaKohen Friedman teaches it this way:
“So, I get this a lot: “Well, if you are shomer halacha and not a biblical literalist, then you’re really an atheist!” If so, then I’m proud to be one, because as Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook taught:
“Atheism displays the power of life. Therefore, the real spiritual heroes extract sparks of great kindness from their atheism and turn its bitterness into sweetness.” – Rav Kook, Arfilei Tohar, § 120
“The destructive wind of disbelief will purify all the filth that gathered in the lower realm of the spirit of faith… Its light will shine as a new light upon Zion with a wondrous greatness.” – Rav Kook, Shemona Kevatzim 1:476, Orot haTehiyah, ch. 51, p. 199
In other words, it’s always okay to question and challenge our understanding as Jews. One can be shomer halacha and an atheist, at the same time.”
This is not a new development for our Jewish people, for Rabbis throughout the thousands of years have affirmed that being Jewish is all about our Indigenous Judean-orignating halachot system (our Jewish people’s laws) and not about a specific “theological” belief. We Jews have no established universal “faith” creed, like both Colonial Christianity and Colonial Islam has, for it is unnecessary to being Jewish – meaning to being a legal member of the people of Israel. “Faith” is for gentiles, and showing “love” for YHWH of the land of Israel by mitzvot/halachot observance is Jewish.
If you didn’t know this, that’s okay! For most people are taught to think they know the Jews and our ethno-religious ways, and rarely are Jews included into the worldwide discussion about things Jewish – especially, through questions! Then, when this rarely happens, often a successfully colonized Jew that is non-threatening to Colonial Christianity and Colonial Islam is brought in to educate “appropriately”, without upsetting the Colonial Arab-European order of things.
Now, back to the above, please allow me to ask the modern obvious question: How can you be both polytheistic and shomer halacha (a traditional indigenous Jew)?
The only thing being “polytheistic” implies is that you recognize the human species reality that there are many “God”s in this human world but, as an observant Jew, you only reserve your devoted commitment to YHWH, the god-King of the Jews. For YHWH is a jealous deity who doesn’t want his Indigenous Judean vassaled people “whoring” themselves to other people’s gods (whether ethno-religious land-based or Colonial universalist). Torah never said to “believe” in this god, only to “love” through mitzvot observance.
We Jews are so glad that Judaism is not a religion! It must literally suck to have a mind so trapped in theology that you can’t question this theology itself. Thankfully, we Indigenous Peoples all around this world get the danger of this! Not just for our people’s survival, but for how theology distorts human minds into indifferent supremacists with, if privileged, impunity. Your sins always forgiven by a deity, this clouds the human mind into social injustice!
Trust me. Give this Jew some time, and I will make you a “believer” in Indigenous Peoples’ ways, understanding, and view of this human world. Also, this is why we Jews do not proselytize, because other Indigenous Peoples are not wrong in their “religious” beliefs!
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META Description : Judaism is not a religion. It doesn’t matter if you are a polytheistic, monotheistic, atheistic Jew, so long as you are Indigenously Jewish!
UPDATE Comparative Thought: “The story of Jesus originates in a monotheistic society.” … Absolutely wrong!
For Jews, monotheism was a 12th c CE development. The Jews of the late BCE through late early CE were henotheists. Including the Jews who wrote most of Mark and all of Matthew, before the teachings of the Jesus sect were appropriated by gentile Aegeans up north for their new found religion, Colonial Christianity. Henotheism is the recognition that all nations have their own land gods, but Israel is monolatrous only to YHWH, the land god of the Judean Canaan Levant.
The story of Jesus originates in the polytheistic world of the ANE. During this period, Jews were a devotedly monolatrous Middle Eastern Indigenous nation (for the most part!), and responding to the polytheistic influences of the Greco-Roman empire. Even northern Aegean-created Christianity was polytheistic influenced in its very creation. We Jews should know, for it is our lived history! If only diaspora Jews weren’t so threatened by structural Colonial Arab-European antisemitism, they could then be more honest about lived Jewish history.
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