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Can You Disbelieve Everything and Still Be Jewish?

November 4, 2010 by Patrick Beaulier

I posted a video a while back saying that, in my opinion, all you really needed to do to be Jewish was believe in the G-d of the Torah. I also put in a few nods to the importance of diversity, LGBT people, converts, etc. etc. etc. You get the drift.

Immediately, I got this reply:

“I disagree with what you said about believing something in order to be Jewish. Being Jewish isn’t about what you believe. It’s about what you do.”

My secular friends all agree with this statement. Doing Jewish is more important than Believing Jewish. But I wonder if that actually makes sense. Judaism, it seems, is the only religion in the world that says you can disbelieve in every tenent of the faith, yet still be a member. It’s like saying, “I don’t believe in Allah or Mohammed. The Koran is made up and eating bacon and drinking whiskey is awesome. But I’m a Muslim and you can’t take that away from me!”

I do believe that actions matter. But intent matters, too. Remember the old saying, “it’s possible to do the right thing, for the wrong reason, and the wrong thing for the right reason.”

At what point, though, does it matter that you believe in what you are doing, beyond making yourself happy that you continued on an ethnic tradition?

Please discuss. I’d really like to know.

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Random (Feelin' Lucky?), Rants Tagged With: 3xdaily, atheism, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, Jewish atheists, Judaism, kavanah, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punk torah, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, Religion

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