Rabbi Adam Chalom Brings It!

If you were only to judge Secular Humanistic Judaism by my blog entries, you would get a much too narrow perspective. As a newbie, ordained in the Reform movement, I spend a lot of time in critique-mode.

The day will come when we will have mature and well-developed secular, humanistic and non-theistic congregations throughout the country. When we do, it will be because we have a large cadre of non-theistic rabbis and pastors like Rabbi Adam Chalom of Kol Hadash in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

His name is pronounced “shalom,” but to me his teaching is more like a “chalom” (with the Hebrew ח – chet) meaning dream.

When I talk about a replacement for religion that will meet human needs without metaphysics, it’s Adam’s approach that I’m talking about.

Please, please, PLEASE go to the podcasts of his talks. You will see how truly meaningful a sermon can be! So far he’s posted his high holiday addresses on the topics of finding purpose in life, the place of joy, and the meaning of beauty.

Rabbi Chalom, who is also the North American dean of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, is the premiere example of what I believe liberal rabbinical leadership could look like in the future. He reminds me of some of those really brilliant people I went to rabbinical school with (graduate of Yale; Ph.D. from U. Michigan), but having been raised as a Secular Humanistic Jew, he took the non-theistic path to the rabbinate.

I know so many intellectual Reform and Conservative rabbis who disappoint the hell out of me with their insistence on retaining the theistic language and attitudes of the past. If even a fraction of them took Adam’s path, they would transform the liberal Jewish world overnight. Imagine how many young people would be drawn to our approach if it were more widely available and with teachers like Adam.

Reform and Conservative Judaism began with Orthodox rabbis engaged in intellectual rebellion. They were succeeded by younger, less rebellious, more confident rabbis who grew up as liberal Jews.

It’s true that Rabbi Chalom has been a Humanistic Rabbi longer than me, but he’s a lot younger and he represents what we could do with a generation of great rabbis raised in the movement. It took well over one hundred years for the Reform movement to reach that point and Secular Humanistic Judaism is still younger than me. Thanks to the internet, you can hear him and see what I mean.

Why are you still reading this? Go listen to those podcasts!