VERSUS: Belief vs. Observance

Passover is has ended and it has made me think a bit. I recently heard an interview with Judith Shulevitz who wrote a book called "The Sabbath World" about the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest each week. During the course of the interview she said that while she does keep the sabbath she does not actually believe in god. My first reaction was a start of happiness that there is another Jew out there that has a similar practice as myself, of observance without faith. In her case it's keeping the sabbath and in my case it's keeping kosher. The interviewer's immediate response was one that I am very familiar with, to point out that many people would find this contradictory. In fact it's not.

The two concepts at play  here are belief and observance. For some reason most people seem to think that the latter requires the former and that simply is not true. The reason for this assumption is most people think that their motivation for observance is the motivation for observance. Most Jews that keep the sabbath do so because the god in the Hebrew bible commands it. Likewise, most Jews that keep kosher do so because their holy book says that it must be done. For some reason when it comes to religion, people for the most part work with the supposition that actions and motivations are of a 1:1 relationship; each single action has a single motivation behind it. If you look at any other sort of action this is never the standard. People save money for greed, prudent investments in the future or to donate to charity. People murder out of anger or jealousy or psychosis. People take prescription drugs in order to fix a disease, treat a natural condition or to simply get high, maybe even to kill themselves. A single action can have a number of reasons behind it ranging from healing to hurting. Why would religious practices differ?

The obvious answer is because they are religious actions and therefore are motivated by religion. Mystery solved. But there's more to it than that. If the human reaction to religious texts was that simple then no one would have a different interpretation or reaction to religion; Christians would never have schismed from Jews, no religion would have different sects and everyone would follow their religion in what people now think of as a traditional or fundamental manner. But religion is much more complicated than that, as it's both a combination of mythology and philosophy. It's that mix that creates a strange allure of magic, answers and sometimes even introspection. It's my practice, and I now know that I'm not alone, to use practice to exercise introspection without the handicap of magic and superstition or the presumption of predetermined answers.

Judging by the interview it seems that Shulevitz and I are observant for similar reasons. We have chosen to practice something traditional in order to set apart a certain time within our lives in order to break up a pattern that could form monotony and habit. I know this is true for me, that performing a practice that is non-intuitive and a little unnatural breaks up my day and forces me to think in a situation where I would normally act without thought. In my case that is eating. How many people actually think before every item they eat? How many people end up putting food in their mouths out of habit? For Shulevitz, she and her family try to limit their control and manipulation over the world on the Sabbath. She avoids the phone, TV and driving as much as she can. But it's not an act of leisure. It's an act of willful limiting of one's self, a forced break in the pattern of normal life.  Meditative asceticism.

I would even argue that the secular observance can be more meaningful than a religious one.  Not always, but can be. When religious Jews keep the sabbath or rules of kosher eating their thought process may kick in but it stops one step in, that the reason for it is god. Done. In a secular mindset the thought process doesn't drop the responsibility of practice on anyone or anything other than the practitioner. I don't keep kosher because I think a god will punish me if I eat pork. I do it as an ascetic practice that makes me consider my actions. And since the path of thought stemming from this observance leads to me then I must follow it, every time, to evaluate myself. Since I always have the freedom to stop my practice and eat normally I must reevaluate the value of the observance every time. I think self-analyzing every day of life is a bit more productive than a simple “god said so”.

I'm betting that keeping the sabbath, for Shulevitz, is similar. Each Saturday she and her family get together and change how they live for an entire day. What they do for entertainment as well as weekend productivity changes drastically and it's not because it's something they should do. It's because it's something they make themselves do.

I've studied a number of philosophies and religions and this sort of practice independent of belief is not nearly as common as I would have expected. Buddhism comes close but doesn't quite fit. While it technically does not necessitate belief in any gods Buddhism does have a lot of celestial superstition to go along with its philosophy. I also find the ideal of balanced karma cringe inducing, as to be done right positive karma is to be avoided just as much as negative karma. Both are traditionally “bad” and no impact in the world at all is the ideal. While avoiding any bad or good impact without the belief in the karmic system of reincarnation (the standard superstitious motive) is possible I think avoiding actions to help people would be difficult if one did not think that this was the way to improve their cosmic standing.

As far as institutionalized secular observance goes, the only one I've that comes close is Taoism. Taoism is the secular, philosophical half of Taoism/Confucianism. While Confucianism focuses on ordering your life around pleasing dead relatives Taoism is a a series of mental practices for expanding understanding. In fact, there's a whole branch of Taoist practices that revolve around breaking down sense and motivation in order to carve out new interpretations. It's an ancient and traditional set of practices engineered to break down dogmatic repetition. To top it off, there's not mystical revelation behind it. The incentive isn't to embrace an established “truth” but to find truth through one's self. There's no god to appease, no prescribed dogma to adhere to for the sake of dogma.The fact that it is usually tied with a system of superstition such as Buddhism or Confucianism is relevant but since that's not actually essential to Taoism it isn't a negating factor here.

As for why I chose the laws of kashrut (laws pertaining to being kosher), well, that too has secular philosophical value to me. While I am a secular Jew I still consider myself very Jewish. Picking kosher out of all practices let me do a number of things. The most obvious is feeling a many thousand year old cultural connection every time I eat and that is a powerful feeling. Another reason is that Judaism has an intrinsic element of debate in establishing practice. Since Judaism is a legalistic religion it is more important to follow laws than it is to believe in them.  For example, to be a good Jew it is more important not to worship other peoples' gods than it is to worship the Jewish god as long as you keep the laws.  Every element of Jewish law has a debate behind it consisting of at least two sides. Being kosher is no different and in choosing to be kosher I took it upon myself to research what the different debates were regarding each rule. This let me judge them myself and create a set of laws that I found acceptable. While the practice is not an exercise in logic it is an exercise in taking myself out of the mundane. Knowing not only what my rules for eating are but also why is empowering and adds another lever of awareness to my secular observance.

Does this all make total sense? On one level yes and on another no. I realize that if I had been born into a Christian or Muslim or Hindu household I would have a different practice that I would follow. On that level my observance is completely arbitrary. But like the koans of Zen and Taoism, that illogical and meaningless practice makes me take stock of other things I do and think.  It pushes me to analyze what intrinsic meaning actions really have and what I simply assume them to mean. In that respect the meaningless secular observance gives meaning and sense to the rest of my actions, letting me cast aside what is thoughtless habit, assumption and superstition while embracing what is valid, true and factual. And that gives meaning to my arbitrary practice.