Spiritual but Not Religious

On the internet dating sites there is this interesting category for religious preference called ‘’spiritual but not religious’. There is no category called ‘’religious but not spiritual’’, nor have I ever seen anyone ever describe themselves this way. An Orthodox Jew not into musar, kabbalah, or chasidus might very well describe herself as religious but not spiritual. In the liberal/secular Jewish world such a category does not exist.

Some Jews who write spiritual but not religious are simply responding to the way the question is framed. They are no choices labeled secular. They don’t want to write atheist, or agnostic, when all they really want to say is that they have no business with organized Judaism. So they check as a default mode the only remaining alternative ‘’spiritual but not religious.’’ Others however mean something very definite. Most members of the ‘’spiritual but not religious’’ category are women. Men on the internet mostly say straight up they are not observant. They don’t suddenly become spiritual. Why is it that when a woman is a non-observing Jew, she feels the need to graduate to a new religion called Spiritual but not Religious? I don’t know the answer

Here are some examples of what it means for a Jew to define him/herself as ‘spiritual but not religious’.
I was born into a Jewish family but am not religious. I am culturally and racially Jewish. I have the foundational values that many Jews have; exercising the intellectual muscles, interest in ethics and justice, and good old dark and ironic humor.

Here we have a sophisticated attempt to deal with being Jewish but not religious. In fact, I am sympathetic to the secularized version of Reform Judaism that is being presented: intellectualism, an intense moral consciousness with a universalist flavor, and what he calls “good old dark and ironic humor.” There are two ways of understanding this humor. The first is that it’s a leftover from the shtetl. Jews were ironists and humorists because it was a natural way of coping with their political condition. The second is that there’s a special dark and ironic humor attached to being conscious of being Jewish but not religious. Woody Allen is an example. (I actually believe that Jews with no background in historical yiddishkeit who are spiritual but otherwise not self identified as Jews, lack humor to the same degree as more traditional Jews.) A sad fact about the American Jewish culture is that the personality type this person represents has not survived into this century with any great numbers. In the forties and fifties, people used to say of themselves they were cultural Jews. You hear the phrase less and less. Now it’s spiritual all the way. I wonder if this is because of the New-Age spiritualism that has overtaken California and the spa world. Or is it because American-Jewish culture is in the dumps? The non-stop assimilation of American Jewry has brought about a dumbing down of American Jewish life.

I am Jewish but not religious. I have an interest in Quantum physics from a spiritual perspective. My other interests are eclectic... Buddhism, therapy, integrating the psychological and spiritual for the present moment.

Here we have a classic example of a spiritual but not religious smorgasbord and it illustrates both its strengths and its weaknesses. We’ll take them one at a time. I know what the woman is talking about when she mentions Quantum mechanics from a spiritual point of view. There is this very weird, but real, phenomenon called quantum entanglement which we now know to be true because of Bell’s Theorem. Some people, even physicists, have suggested it has some implications for spirituality. The Chafetz Chaim used to say, “If they sneeze in Paris, they feel it in Radin.” Maybe so, but as of now no one has shown any interesting application of quantum weirdness to spiritual life. As it stands, this woman can have an interest in quantum mechanics for the rest of her life, nothing will happen spiritually.

On the other hand, the combination of Buddhism, therapy, and the various techniques for integrating the psychological and spiritual in some practical way can’t be dismissed as nonsense. The program is roughly this…you do an hour or two of yoga a day, workout in the gym, run two- three miles, eat organic foods, stay thin, meditate for an hour, see a therapist three times a week, and repeat for the next ten years. It does make a difference. When you compare such people with those who work sixty hours a week, are overweight and bent out of shape, sedentary, consume copious amounts of junk food, and live such a frenetic life that there is no time for introspection and contemplation, it is hard to say there is no difference. It’s not a particularly Jewish way of achieving spirituality, but even here there have been various attempts to combine this sort of rigorous discipline with Jewish symbols and culture. These attempts are varied and sometimes go under the general names of Jew-Bhu and Jewish Renewal. (An easy way of getting started as a Jew-Bhu is to begin with Rodger Kamenetz’s sweet little book The Jew in the Lotus). I plan on taking a closer look at Jewish Renewal.

I feel a connection to my Jewish heritage. Spiritually, I am always aware of the miracle and absolute sacredness of life and I take seriously our role as brother's keeper and earth's caretaker.

The last quote is an example of the ecology branch of Jewish spirituality. Here the quest for purity and wholeness is projected out onto the environment. Almost every spiritual person is anti-Bush on environmental issues. The concept of a market in pollution rights is foreign to their way of thinking. Almost like eating chazir. We might call this stripe Green Jew- Bhus.

I have two complaints against “spiritual but not religious” Jews. The first is that frequently they are devoid of any nationalist feelings or appreciation of our history. So even if they can fill the void that comes with secularism, they still lack a strong sense of being part of a continuous historical community. It is difficult to raise children on a steady diet of yoga and gym. My second complaint is that many people who call themselves “spiritual but not religious” refuse to discriminate between various occult sciences and disciplines. Monday’s the therapist, Tuesday’s the astrologer, Wednesday’s the gypsy palm-reader, Thursday is homeopathy, rolfing and alternative medicine, while Friday is the day to experiment with the new products and services that constantly come to market. In my mind, it frequently degenerates into a counter culture mush that doesn’t make much sense.

We are talking about a large group of Jews who are looking for something and have given up on Judaism. When a Jew is spiritual but not religious they are announcing they do not have a serious Jewish religious identification. They are dead to Jewish life even if they still frequent the local deli. They are a classic example of what the Protestants call “un-churched.” A special place in heaven is reserved for somebody who can figure out a way to reach these people.