Limmud Toronto 2016

The phrase “Christian atheist” isn’t something you hear very often. Neither is “Muslim atheist.” But Judaism – especially the North American variety – seems less attached to its theological roots, and “Jewish atheism” is, as the young people say, very much a thing these days. You don’t have to go very far to find people who don’t believe in God, but still consider themselves Jews. In many cases, they’re still very much in touch with their Jewish heritage – it’s just that they’ve decided they can get along without believing in a deity. The goal for this session is to start a discussion about the nature of Jewish identity in a post-belief age. Along the way, a number of provocative questions will be confronted: Is there some connection between the reduced role of God in Judaism (compared to other faiths) and the traditional Jewish love of science and learning? Did the Holocaust make it impossible for Jews to believe in God – or was the decline in belief inevitable, in a high-tech, science-oriented world? And, what does it mean, exactly, to be a Jew if one no longer believes in the God of Abraham, Moses, and the rest of the gang?