The Humanist

By Hilary Leila Krieger, April 1, 2004

Sivan Maas wants to make sure Israelis don't take their Jewishness for granted

Sivan Maas describes how the typical Israeli family celebrates the Pessah Seder: "They open the traditional Haggada, starving for the main course. They mumble their way through it and, after the food, they don't have the strength or the patience - from the food maybe - so they don't finish the Haggada."

And so, perching on the edge of her couch and stretching out an upright palm, she asks, "When you say this is very important but let's mumble through it and get to the food, what are you really saying?"

Maybe "nothing" would be too harsh a word for the lifelong student and teacher of Jewish culture to use as a response. But she has no qualms, calling the phenomenon indicative of a "crisis" in Israel in which the nonreligious, secure in the knowledge that they live in a Jewish state and according to a Jewish calendar, "take their Jewishness for granted."

That crisis is what Maas, an engaging 45-year-old Haifa native, married and the mother of three pre-army children, hopes to overcome now that she has become Israel's first Secular Humanist rabbi. This fall, Maas was ordained by the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in Detroit, Michigan. Maas, who lives in Jerusalem's German Colony neighborhood, already has a master's degree in Jewish studies from the Conservative Schechter Institute and training in graphic design from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

THE SECULAR Humanist movement emphasizes the importance of the Jewish cultural tradition, from the Bible to Buber to Bialik, in an effort to appeal to the masses of secular Israelis uninterested in religion or alienated by their brushes with Orthodox Judaism.

According to Felix Posen, whose Posen Foundation supports secular Jewish education, 62 percent of the Israeli public identifies itself as secular, making every denomination from Reform to Orthodox a "minority." And according to Maas, a growing number of the Israeli majority are seeking ways to maintain Jewish traditions and experience outside of a religious framework, turning to alternative if not legally binding marriage ceremonies, for instance. What these activities largely lack - beyond official recognition - is institutions.

Maas is laying the foundation for such institutions with the training program for Secular Humanist rabbis she started for 10 students this winter. The group, funded by the International Secular Humanistic Institute as well as tuition payments, meets at an informal beit midrash (study hall) not far from her home.

The down-to-earth, professionally attired Maas, who rejects the idea that God can intervene in human life, acknowledges that the traditional concept of a rabbi is that of a religious leader. But she maintains that her definition - "an educator, a counselor, an expert in Jewish culture [and] an initiator and organizer of community events and a person involved in people's life-cycle events" - is one that allows secular Jews to connect with each other and their heritage.

In the case of the Seder, for instance, she asks why secular Jews don't rewrite the Haggada in a way that makes it relevant to them - something secular rabbinical leadership could encourage them to do.

Standard objections stem from a hesitancy to tinker with tradition and a lack of motivation. With either of those excuses, she argues, "You're saying we don't have any ownership on our culture. [But] it doesn't belong to someone else, it doesn't belong to the Orthodox.

"If you make it legitimate that our Jewish experience is creative, that the Jewish experience should be relevant, creative, and our own, I think that sends a different message. It sends the message that we do have an obligation to the Jewish people... being Jewish, we are obligated to continue our Jewish heritage, to make it relevant for us, and to enhance our Jewish experience so that we celebrate our life, our Jewish life."

Maas, who spent a year as a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, makes the point that Jewish tradition has always been an evolving enterprise, noting that the Hebrew term "Halacha" is from the same root as the word "walk."

"When you're walking, you're changing all the time. It's only when the Halacha stopped walking that Judaism became irrelevant to many people. Or, if we're honest, to most people," she says.

She suggests that secular Jews engage with God on a critical level, evaluating his actions from the perspective of their moral probity, just like readers consider other biblical personalities.

The view was handed down to her by her father, Ya'acov Malkin, who founded and serves as the academic director of Meitar, the College of Judaism as Culture. Though situated in Rehavia in Jerusalem, Mass describes it as "a college without walls," as 50 schools use Meitar programming in teacher training.

To the question of whether his version of Judaism is one without God, Malkin responds: "It does include God, of course, because God is one of the most important literary heroes in all the Jewish literature, in all literature."

In fact, the emphasis on the centrality, if not the divinity, of God is a chief distinction between Secular Humanism in Israel and in the United States, where approximately 40,000 Jews identify themselves as part of a movement that tends to strip God from the tradition.

The Secular Humanist movement has ordained several rabbis in its 34 years of existence in the US, but Maas is the only Secular Humanist rabbi in Israel. There are some local structured programs, such as her father's, which focus on Jewish education for non-believers.

Maas hopes the graduates of her rabbinical program will also be able to play a role in organizations such as the army. Enrollees in Maas's three- to four-year program, called "Tmura," which means "change" or "reward" in Hebrew, are primarily sabras who have already performed years of Jewish community work. They are expected to have a master's degree in Jewish-related topics, though the curriculum will review Jewish cultural contributions and academic approaches. The program will also prepare them for leading life-cycle and Jewish calendar events in the secular community.

Prospective student Nardy Grin has already begun to conduct alternative wedding ceremonies for friends. Grin himself married this way two years ago, though in the eyes of the state he has only a common-law union.

Grin, who at 38 has already spent years in non-religious Jewish education, says, "I think the most important thing is to define secular Jews as something positive, a set of values and something to live by."

"Most of the secular activism that had anything to do with Jewishness had to do with activism against the Orthodox monopoly," Maas explains, pointing to such issues as opening venues on Shabbat.

"I'm not against that activism. I'm very much for it. But to be in a world where to be secular is to take things for granted or to be fighting against the Orthodox [monopoly], then what are you left with? You're left with nothing positive. What we want to do is offer something positive."

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