Secular Judaism: A Cultural Identity, A Spiritual Question

Secular Judaism is one of the most significant expressions of modern Jewish identity and, at the same time, one of the most challenging to define. Millions of Jews throughout the world understand their Jewishness primarily through ancestry, family, history, language, culture, memory, and identification with the Jewish people rather than through religious belief or regular observance of the commandments. They may rarely attend synagogue, may not keep Shabbat or kashrut, and may even describe themselves as agnostic or atheist. Yet they continue to understand themselves unmistakably as Jews.

This reality raises an important question for traditional Judaism. What does it mean to be Jewish when religious observance is absent? Can Jewish identity continue primarily through culture and peoplehood? And what relationship does the secular Jew continue to have with Torah and the covenant of Israel?

From a traditional Torah perspective, the first point must be stated clearly: a Jew remains a Jew. Jewish identity is not canceled by lack of observance, theological doubt, insufficient education, or even rejection of religious belief. A Jew who does not keep Shabbat remains part of the Jewish people. A Jew who does not pray remains part of the Jewish people. Even a Jew who does not believe in God does not cease thereby to belong to Israel. Observance matters profoundly, but Jewish belonging is not something that observant Jews are free to grant or revoke according to another person’s level of religious commitment.

Modern secular Jewish identity developed especially during the great transformations of European Jewish life beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, encouraged greater engagement with European intellectual and cultural life and challenged the assumption that every dimension of Jewish existence had to remain organized around traditional communal religious structures. Moses Mendelssohn and other figures of the period attempted in different ways to reconcile Jewish continuity with participation in modern society.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jewish identity took increasingly diverse forms. Yiddish-speaking labor movements, the Bund, secular Zionism, Hebrew cultural revival, socialism, literature, theater, journalism, philosophy, and political activism created new expressions of Jewish belonging. Many Jews who no longer understood themselves as traditionally religious nevertheless remained deeply connected to Jewish history and the destiny of the Jewish people.

For some, Judaism increasingly came to be understood not only as a religion but as a civilization: a people sharing memories, languages, literature, historical experiences, cultural practices, ethical concerns, and a sense of collective destiny.

That understanding remains powerful today. Many Jews identify themselves principally through family traditions, Jewish food, music, literature, humor, Hebrew or Yiddish culture, remembrance of the Shoah, attachment to Jewish history, concern for Jewish communities, or participation in holiday and lifecycle traditions. A person may attend a Passover seder while rarely entering a synagogue. Another may light Hanukkah candles but have little knowledge of halakhah. Someone else may feel a profound connection to Jewish history while remaining uncertain whether God exists.

These expressions should not simply be dismissed as meaningless or fraudulent. Jewish peoplehood is real. Jewish memory is real. The bonds connecting generations of Jews are real. The Torah itself addresses Israel not merely as isolated believers but as a people bound together across generations.

At the same time, traditional Judaism cannot honestly say that Judaism is merely culture.

The Jewish people were formed through covenant. Torah does not present Israel simply as an ethnic community preserving ancestral customs. Israel is called into a particular relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and is entrusted with commandments governing worship, morality, family life, justice, holiness, community, and everyday conduct. Jewish culture grew from this covenantal civilization, even when later generations became distant from its religious foundations.

This creates the central tension within secular Judaism. Jewish culture can unquestionably continue for generations without universal observance. Jewish literature can flourish. Jewish humor can flourish. Hebrew and Yiddish creativity can flourish. Jewish historical consciousness can remain strong. Yet from the perspective of Torah, culture by itself cannot fully replace covenant.

The question is therefore not whether secular Jews are genuinely Jewish. They are. The deeper question is what Judaism itself ultimately asks of the Jewish people.

Torah calls Israel to more than remembrance. It calls us to a way of life.

The commandments transform Jewish identity from something inherited into something practiced. Shabbat does not merely remind us that we are Jewish; it establishes sacred time. Kashrut brings holiness into eating. Prayer teaches dependence upon and gratitude toward God. Tzedakah disciplines our relationship with wealth and responsibility. Study connects each generation with the revelation and wisdom received before it. Festivals transform historical memory into lived communal experience.

For this reason, Derekh HaTorah (the Way of Torah) maintains a distinction between Jewish identity and Jewish observance. They are related, but they are not identical.

A Jew may possess the first while practicing very little of the second. That reality should inspire concern and invitation, but never contempt.

The appropriate response of the observant Jew is therefore not to stand in judgment over secular Jews. Greater observance should produce greater humility. A person who has been fortunate enough to learn Torah should recognize the responsibility that comes with that knowledge. Torah should make us more patient, compassionate, disciplined, and willing to teach. It should never become an excuse for arrogance.

There are countless reasons Jews become distant from religious life. Some were never educated in Judaism beyond a childhood ceremony or occasional holiday. Some grew up in families already several generations removed from observance. Some encountered religious communities that appeared judgmental or inaccessible. Others struggled intellectually with questions about God, suffering, history, science, religious authority, or the behavior of religious institutions. Still others simply absorbed the secular assumptions of the societies in which they lived.

These experiences deserve to be heard rather than immediately condemned.

The secular Jew should not be treated as a problem to be solved. He or she is a member of our people.

Orthodox Judaism therefore should approach secular Jewish identity pastorally as well as theologically. We can affirm Jewish belonging without pretending that observance is unimportant. We can respect questions without abandoning conviction. We can welcome someone into Jewish community without demanding that every theological uncertainty disappear before they enter the door.

A secular Jew who comes to a Torah class should be welcomed.

A Jew who has never prayed before should be helped rather than embarrassed.

Someone who knows almost nothing about Shabbat should be taught without being made ashamed of what they were never given the opportunity to learn.

A person struggling with belief should be allowed to ask difficult questions.

This openness does not require us to redefine Torah according to modern preferences. It simply requires us to remember that teaching Torah and loving our fellow Jews are themselves religious responsibilities.

There is also much within secular Jewish culture that observant Jews should appreciate rather than dismiss. Secular Jewish writers, historians, artists, scientists, musicians, teachers, activists, soldiers, philosophers, and community builders have contributed enormously to the preservation and development of Jewish civilization. The modern revival of Hebrew, much of modern Jewish literature, the preservation of Yiddish culture, Holocaust scholarship, Jewish historical research, and countless institutions of Jewish communal life have involved Jews of widely differing levels of belief and observance.

Their contributions belong to the story of the Jewish people.

Yet cultural achievement alone does not answer the spiritual question that remains beneath secular Jewish identity: What ultimately gives Jewish existence its purpose?

Traditional Judaism answers that Jewish life begins with the covenant between God and Israel. We are a people because we share ancestry and history, but we are a covenantal people because Israel was called to walk in the way of Torah.

The secular Jew may not presently understand Jewish identity in those terms. That does not place them outside our concern. On the contrary, it gives observant Judaism an obligation to make Torah understandable, accessible, intelligent, humane, and worthy of renewed consideration.

The goal should not be coercion.

Religious observance produced through social pressure, humiliation, or fear rarely represents genuine spiritual growth. People should be invited to learn, to experience Shabbat, to study Torah, to pray, to participate in community, and to discover the rhythms of Jewish life for themselves. Some may eventually become observant. Others may take only a few steps. Some may remain secular while nevertheless developing greater knowledge and appreciation for Jewish tradition.

The outcome belongs ultimately to the individual and to God.

Our responsibility is to keep the door open.

There is therefore no need to construct an artificial war between the “religious Jew” and the “secular Jew.” Both belong to the same people. Both inherit the same history. Both stand beneath the enormous shadow of generations that came before us, and both bear some responsibility for what Jewish life will become after us.

We may disagree profoundly about God, revelation, halakhah, or the meaning of Torah. Such disagreement is real and should not be concealed beneath vague language about everyone possessing equally valid religious interpretations. Traditional Judaism has beliefs and obligations. Derekh HaTorah does not surrender them.

But disagreement does not require rejection.

A family can argue and still remain a family.

Indeed, one of the tragedies of modern Jewish life occurs when observant and secular Jews come to regard each other almost as members of different peoples. The observant Jew may see secular Judaism only as assimilation and abandonment. The secular Jew may see traditional Judaism only as rigidity, coercion, or superstition. Neither caricature serves the Jewish people well.

We need conversation rather than caricature.

The Torah-observant Jew can remind the Jewish world that our civilization has a sacred center: the covenant between God and Israel. The secular Jew can sometimes remind religious communities that Jewish history, creativity, intellectual inquiry, cultural memory, and human experience cannot be reduced to outward observance alone.

Perhaps most importantly, we must remember that Jewish continuity has never depended upon everyone being identical.

The Jewish people have survived extraordinary differences of geography, language, custom, philosophy, politics, and religious intensity. Jews from Yemen, Poland, Iraq, Spain, Morocco, Russia, Ethiopia, Germany, Persia, and countless other communities developed distinct cultures while remaining part of Israel.

The challenge of our generation is therefore not to decide which Jews are worthy of belonging.

The challenge is to preserve the Jewish people while renewing their relationship with Torah.

Secular Judaism demonstrates the extraordinary strength of Jewish peoplehood. Generations of Jews have remained attached to their identity even when religious belief weakened dramatically. That attachment should not be mocked. It should be recognized as an opportunity.

The Jew who still treasures a family Passover seder retains a doorway into Jewish memory.

The Jew who loves Hebrew possesses a doorway into Torah.

The Jew who feels responsibility toward the Jewish people possesses a doorway into covenant.

The Jew who wrestles with God may be participating in a very ancient Jewish conversation indeed.

Derekh HaTorah therefore approaches secular Jews neither as outsiders nor as enemies of tradition. They are brothers, sisters, children, parents, neighbors, friends, and members of Israel. We may encourage greater learning and observance because we believe Torah is precious. But that encouragement must arise from love rather than condemnation.

Judaism is indeed more than a religion in the narrow modern sense. It is a people, a civilization, a history, a family, and a living inheritance carried across generations.

But at its heart stands Torah.

Secular Judaism reminds us of the enduring power of Jewish peoplehood. Traditional Judaism reminds us that peoplehood has a covenantal purpose. The task before us is not to choose one and despise the other, but to rebuild bridges between Jewish identity and Jewish religious life.

Every Jew should have the opportunity to discover Torah without being shamed into it.

Every Jew should know that the synagogue door remains open.

Every Jew should know that questions are permitted.

Every Jew should know that greater observance is an invitation rather than a test of whether they deserve to belong.

And every Jew, religious or secular, should be able to say of another Jew:

You are part of my people.

That is where the conversation begins.