This news…
It’s everything that I hate about liberal Jews and Ivy League progressives stacked into one giant shit sandwich.
Harvard University has chosen a devout atheist and ‘humanist chaplain’ to lead the Ivy League school founded by Puritans to educate their clergy with the motto ‘Truth for Christ and the Church.’
Greg Epstein, 44, who was raised in a reformed Jewish household in Queens, New York, was named president of the chaplains for the religious community at the school after serving as Harvard’s ‘humanist chaplain’ since 2005.
Epstein, 44, was raised in Flushing, Queens, as a self-described ‘assimilated and disinterested reform Jew’ in the nation’s most diverse borough.
In 2005, Epstein received ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism.
He holds a B.A. (Religion and Chinese) and an M.A. (Judaic Studies) from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School
There is no such thing as Secular Humanistic Judaism. The very idea is offensive.
The very first principle of Judaism is from our holiest prayer, the Shema:
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
If you don’t believe in God, you are not a Jew.
You might have grown up in a Jewish household.
You may be ethnically Ashkenazi.
But you are not a Jew.
A secular Jew is bullshit.
The very idea is offensive. It’s like saying “he’s a secular Muslim.”
Jewish means something. Secular Jew means nothing.
You like bagels and lox and understand Mel Brooks jokes, so the fuck what.
To call a secular atheist a Rabbi makes me want to burn his divinity school to the ground.
That Harvard hired him as their chaplain, honestly, is antisemitic. Propping up some fuck-useless non-Jew as the paragon of what Judaism is, because “he’s a Rabbi” is perverse.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, J. 😉
This is yet another example of the deterioration of faith. It’s even more depressing as the High Holy Days are around the corner. Sigh.
I can’t tell if you’re sarcastic or not so I’ll clarify:
Rather than having an actual practicing Kosher Rabbi to represent Judaism, they have some Leftist fake-Jew.
This would be like bringing in those Drag Queens that dress up like satanic nuns to represent the Catholic faith.
It’s awful and wrong and antisemitic.
Judaism is a beautiful faith that is over 5,700 years old and Harvard’s selected representative for that is some Progressives who thinks Judaism is eating at Einstein Bros.
@J. Kb: Sorry, sir. I was being sarcastic. I thought that my smirk emoji was sufficient.
We agree that these days, Reform Judaism mostly consists of people worshipping the State, instead of G-d. That’s why when I was still in MA, I moved to a Conservative synagogue where the rabbi “got it”.
Now, up here in central NH, options are few. As I had posted earlier, I was, in effect, asked to leave my Reform synagogue because I carried a handgun. So, the search begins.
I guess the unfortunate problem is that, while Christians can worship at home without trouble, you need a minyan at least for certain things. Are there enough Conservative (and/or Orthodox) Jews within reasonable driving distance?
@pkoning: Manchester is an hour or so away. I’m going to wait until after the Holy Days to explore whether or not they’re “open” for business.
Thanks for asking.
So not only are the atheists not going to partake of the services offered, but the religious students will avoid it as well.
So there is a religious leader for athiests?
Man i always knew athieism was just another religion!
Matt, of course it is. If you use the definition of religion as “a system of belief in things without proof”, then clearly atheism is one (as is warmism). A believer says “I know God exists” or perhaps “I know lots of gods exist”. An atheist says “I know God does not exist”. An agnostic says “I haven’t seen proof of the existence of God” — which of course also implies “I haven’t seen proof of the non-existence of God”.
J, thanks for the full text of the prayer. I hadn’t seen it before, and now I understand the origin of tefillin.
No?
As an athiest, I disapprove as much as the Jewish dude.
I’m being mildly cheeky. I think atheism crosses into religion if your dogma reaches the same levels as any other religion.
I have known some atheists who were evangelical about it. I personally don’t believe in G_d (or the Flying Purple Spaghetti Monster or that Epstein killed himself and lots of other things), but rarely even think about it and am generally willing to accept that others do have religious beliefs (I do have a problem with Islam, but only because their “religion” and their political philosophy are so deeply intertwined – I would have had a problem with the Spanish Inquisition, too). I *was* raised in the Judeo-Christian ethic and still try to do what it considers “right” based on the fact that it produced a generally practical set of guidelines for a functional society.
There are those people where it fits into the joke of if they aren’t vegan or doing cross fit and still won’t STFU about something, then they must be atheists needing to prove to you there is no God.
Interesting censorship of the word God, why might I ask?
Just so you know where I’m coming from:
I personally am not religious but do believe we are subject to powers outside of our comprehension and control. I intellectualize too much and can’t decide if that means a deity, the laws of nature, or if the laws of nature are that deity. I also can’t decide which of the religions claiming to be the one true religion is the one true religion…. I’m also reasonably convinced that the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of a Judeo-Christian God is interchangeable with the, in my opinion, not fully comprehensible laws of nature that determine the fabric, makeup, and interactions of observable and in observable reality. I’m happy to be convinced or proven wrong one way or the other, no one ever wins out over another to me.
I don’t begrudge or disparage others for their belief in a power either, I mean, I believe in one myself, just probably not like them. To me, it’s like respecting any other differing opinion.
I rendered the word “G_d” because, as I understand it, some Jews think it is disrespectful (per their Torah) to actually use the unexpurgated name. There is no reason for me to be offensive, even if I am a nonbeliever. I personally see no need in my world view to add the complexity of a supreme being. I’m having enough problems believing in fermions.
Fair enough and I was unaware of such a thing.
Thanks!
@nipomo: Yes, traditionally, G-d’s name is only spelled out (sort of) in prayer books and such, not in secular writings nd postings. Thanks.
Putting up a Christmas tree doesn’t make you a Christian, either. There’s faith, and there’s identity, and as in other areas, how you “identify” doesn’t necessarily make it truth.
This is offensive beyond belief.
Um. I put myself in the category “Jewish enough for Hitler” – I may not be observant, but if the Antisemite faction were fully in power, I’d turn up somewhere on their list. (‘Course, they’d likely come after me for various other reasons before getting around to the color of my mitochondria.) And, who knows, I might find time for religion in my old age.
But an atheist rabbi chaplain? That’s beyond nuts. At least Zelazny’s agnostic priest was amusing, not to mention non-denominational and merely agnostic, not to mention fictional.
And this is a perfect example of a JINO – Jewish in name only. And it’s what has given Jews the world over a bad name.
As to atheism, most ‘atheists’ have substituted some other god-form for God. Like Gaia or the Earth Mother or Global Warming or Abortion-on-Demand. And that’s what they worship.
So, well, most atheists aren’t.
George Orwell said, “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”