To Be A Jew Today

How can you make sense of the dizzying range of Jewish beliefs, practices, and politics today? In this book, Noah Feldman argues that the most illuminating lens is not denominational labels but the way you encounter God—and how that encounter shapes law, ethics, and peoplehood under modern power. Feldman contends that contemporary Jewish life coheres around four cross-cutting God-views—Traditional, Progressive, Evolutionist, and Godless—and that a shared theology of struggle holds them together. To grasp why communities clash (and still belong to one family), you must see how authority works, how moral claims collide with law, and how the State of Israel has become a narrative generator redefining Jewish commitments worldwide.

In this guide, you’ll discover a map of belief patterns that travel across denominations and geographies. You’ll then learn how each pattern makes sense of halakhah (Jewish law), prophecy, and modern conscience—and how they respond differently to Israel’s triumphs and tragedies. Finally, you’ll learn why messianic ideas matter for politics, how extremism can hijack theology, and how reimagining peoplehood as family helps you navigate contested boundaries with compassion.

A Map Before Institutions

Feldman begins by giving you a compass rather than a label. The Traditionalist hears God as commanding law and delegated rabbinic authority (think Haredi daas Torah). The Progressive encounters God as moral force, with Isaiah’s call to justice trumping ritual when they conflict (picture Heschel marching with King). The Evolutionist treats law as binding yet ever-interpreted by humans after revelation (“It is not in heaven”). The Godless Jew wrestles without a deity, building Jewish life through culture, politics, or science (Kaplan’s “civilization,” secular Zionism, Marxism, Freud). Each type exists across Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist spaces; your interior theology, not your shul sign, often predicts how you’ll argue and belong.

Authority, Debate, and the Risks of Power

Jewish tradition prizes debate as devotion. The Talmud’s oven-of-akhnai declares that legal authority rests with human interpreters, not heavenly miracles. Yet the same tradition warns against humiliation in the name of order (Rabban Gamliel’s deposition after he publicly shames Rabbi Joshua). Feldman uses these stories to show you a paradox: authority is necessary for cohesion but fragile when overreached. Traditionalists excel at belonging and halakhic totality; Progressives excel at moral activism and inclusion; Evolutionists manage continuity and change; Godless Jews translate struggle into modern projects. Each approach generates goods—and predictable blind spots.

Israel as Theological Earthquake

Zionism did more than found a state; it rewired Jewish theology and identity. American Progressives moved from skepticism to embrace (after the Holocaust, 1967, and 1973), often pairing Holocaust memory with Israel as moral imperative (Fackenheim’s “614th commandment”). Today that synthesis strains: younger Progressives on campus judge Israeli policy through universalist ethics and side with Palestinian rights in ways their elders find painful. Meanwhile, Religious Zionism (Rav Kook and Gush Emunim) reframes state-building as messianic process, making Israel the spiritual center for many Evolutionists and Modern Orthodox. Even Haredi Traditionalists, once anti-Zionist, increasingly identify with the state’s institutions and the IDF through pragmatic politics and cultural ties—without adopting classic Religious Zionist metaphysics.

Messianism, Extremes, and Self‑Critique

Messianic ideas shape politics. Chabad’s Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, built a global outreach network and praised the IDF, treating the state as potential substrate for redemption while rejecting concessions. In a disturbing fusion, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh blends neo‑Hasidic mysticism with militant settlement ideology, proposing a halakhic monarchy and providing, in works like Torat ha‑Melekh, rationales later echoed by extremists (e.g., the Duma arson milieu). Feldman urges a return to Deuteronomy’s ethic of humility: prosperity in the land tempts pride; pride invites sin; sin invites catastrophe. A Jewish politics worthy of its texts practices collective self‑critique rather than innocence.

Peoplehood as Family

To hold pluralism together, Feldman reimagines peoplehood as family: you join by birth, choice, or adoption (conversion), and you argue as kin. Cases like Brother Daniel (a Catholic monk denied Law of Return status) and the recognition of Beta Israel, plus proposals like zera’yisra’el for those of Jewish descent without halakhic matrilineality, show how law, memory, and emotion collide. The family model rejects racial purity and invites compassionate boundary work—especially vital when Israel’s state institutions (Chief Rabbinate, Law of Return) now arbitrate belonging for the global family.

The book’s throughline lands here: to be Jewish is to wrestle—with God, with law, with moral claims, with state power, and with one another. If you learn to locate yourself on the map, honor debate as worship, and practice family‑style accountability, you can navigate disagreement without excommunication. That is Feldman’s hopeful wager: argument, rightly held, is a form of love.

Feldman’s map asks you to locate your core intuition about God before you choose a lane of Jewish life. He outlines four patterns—Traditional, Progressive, Evolutionist, Godless—that recur across denominations. Understanding the logic of each helps you predict attitudes toward halakhah, ethics, and Israel without resorting to caricature. The aim is empathy through clarity: you see why your cousin’s Reform tikkun olam, your neighbor’s black‑hat daas Torah, and your friend’s egalitarian yeshiva are each internally coherent.

Traditional: God Commands, Rabbis Rule

If you experience God as a sovereign who binds you to law, you are a Traditionalist. Authority flows through an unbroken chain from Sinai to rabbinic sages (Pirkei Avot) and is embodied in gedolim whose daas Torah guides everything from school curricula to politics. Haredi life (Lakewood’s BMG, Jerusalem’s Mir, Yiddish/Yeshivish dialects, high birth rates) creates total belonging and purpose. Yet Feldman flags risks: proceduralism can hollow spirituality (Maimonides’s “mitzvat anashim melummadah”), and concentrated authority can humiliate dissenters—Rabban Gamliel’s overreach becomes a cautionary tale.

Progressive: God as Moral Force

If the prophets define God for you, justice trumps ritual when they conflict. Isaiah 58 and Hillel’s ethic (“What is hateful to you…”) fuel synagogue activism and public policy work (immigration, civil rights, gun violence prevention). Mordecai Kaplan’s Reconstructionism reframes Judaism as a civilization, allowing belief‑spectrum communities with metaphorical God‑language (“To whom it may concern”). The payoff is inclusivity and alignment with modern liberal values; the problem is sustaining ritual depth and intergenerational glue when theology leans universal.

Evolutionist: Binding Law That Grows

Here you accept halakhic authority but insist meaning evolves via human interpretation. The oven‑of‑akhnai (“It is not in heaven”) legitimizes majority rule over miracles; the “rebellious son” is interpreted out of practical existence. Rabbi Rahel Berkovits exemplifies this: because she knows God as just, she rejects halakhic readings that degrade women and works to align law with divine will. Evolutionists use Maimonidean allegory to harmonize Torah with science and morality, producing inclusive rulings—or, in other hands, nationalist ones. Authority is decentralized; outcomes vary by interpreter.

Godless: Jewish Without Theism

You can reject a personal God and remain richly Jewish. Feldman tracks Elisha ben Abuyah (“Aher”), Marx, Freud, and secular Zionists crafting Jewish projects without the supernatural. Kaplan’s civilization model enables Jewish schools, holidays, and ethics on humanist grounds; U.S. secularists like Felix Frankfurter treat the Constitution as scripture while living in Jewish networks. The gain is intellectual honesty and broad coalition; the risk is thin continuity if institutions and thick culture fade.

(Note: Kabbalah and mysticism aren’t a separate “pattern.” They infuse any of the four—Hasidic warmth inside Traditionalism, Renewal chants in Progressive spaces, or neo‑Hasidic study among Evolutionists.)

Why This Map Works

Because each pattern is a stance toward divine authority, you can forecast disagreements about Israel, conversion, or gender. Traditionalists prize cohesion; Progressives prize fairness; Evolutionists prize fidelity through change; Godless Jews prize cultural survival and universal ethics. Feldman’s map does not ask you to approve of all outcomes; it invites you to argue on the right premises—what you think God demands, or why you think God is not required.

Traditionalism offers the comfort of clarity and the power of community. You wake and sleep within a halakhic order legitimated by sages whose authority you trust. Feldman takes you inside the Haredi world—black hats and white shirts signal a total social project anchored in Torah study and rabbinic judgment. The appeal is real: thick belonging, shared purpose, and an integrated life. The perils are also real: when procedure eclipses spirit and when power humbles rather than protects.

How Authority Is Built

Traditionalists narrate a chain from Sinai through the rabbis, reinforced by Pirkei Avot’s “make a fence around the Torah.” The fence is daas Torah: the communal deference that turns gedolim into final arbiters. Feldman uses Rabban Gamliel’s public enforcement against Rabbi Joshua to explain why centralized authority can resolve disputes, but he also highlights the Talmud’s backlash—Gamliel is deposed for humiliating a peer. Authority survives when it is firm yet collegial; overreach invites collapse.

Meta‑Halakhah and Spirit

Why do you keep the law? For Hasidism, the meta‑purpose is cosmic (redeeming sparks through devekus). For the Lithuanian yeshiva, the “meta” is halakhah itself—study for its own sake (R. Hayyim of Volozhin). Feldman warns that proceduralism can drain affect; Isaiah 29:13 and Maimonides caution against rote mitzvot. The best Traditionalist communities cultivate spirit within form—Hasidic song, mussar introspection, or communal chesed—so the fence guards a living garden, not a parking lot.

Liberal Critiques—and Real Harms

From a liberal lens, Haredi life raises red flags: gender hierarchy, constrained secular education, LGBTQ exclusion, and the steep social cost of leaving. Feldman does not flatten the view—he shows child poverty and limited job skills as tangible outcomes of policy choices. Traditionalists invoke religious liberty to defend their schools and norms; Feldman notes this is often tactical rather than principled liberalism. The challenge for you is honest weighing: spiritual goods and social harms coexist.

Quiet Anti‑Zionists, Active State‑Shapers

A striking modern turn: Haredim moved from principled anti‑Zionism to deep engagement with the Israeli state. Early bargains (Hazon Ish with Ben‑Gurion) won draft exemptions and subsidies for yeshivot. Decades later, these tactical deals produced voter blocs, ministries, and constitutional ambitions. Younger American Yeshivish students cycle through Jerusalem’s Mir or Brisk, buy property, and adopt right‑leaning politics aligned with Israeli security hawks. United Torah Judaism’s push for a Basic Law: Torah Study would enshrine yeshiva learning as a national service, converting accommodation into state identity.

(Note: This is not Rav Kook’s messianic sacralization. It’s a pragmatic, institutional identification: the state that funds you and protects you becomes “ours,” even if your theology never declared it redemptive.)

The Knife‑Edge of Leadership

Feldman returns to Gamliel’s warning: concentrated authority must absorb modernity without losing legitimacy. Gedolim today navigate internet access, workforce participation, and sexual ethics while preserving cohesion. If they humiliate or deny lived realities, backlash follows—internally (quiet exit) or externally (legal battles). Traditionalism thrives when leaders make room for soul and dignity within law; it falters when procedure becomes the point.

Progressive Judaism puts Isaiah’s exclamation point—loose the bonds of injustice—at the center of religious life. If you hear God chiefly as a moral imperative, you prioritize human dignity even when ritual pulls the other way. Feldman shows how this stance energized modern Jewish movements and public leadership, then tracks the spiritual and institutional challenges that emerge when theology leans universal and metaphorical.

Prophets, Hillel, and Tikkun Olam

From Isaiah 58 to Hillel’s “What is hateful to you…,” Progressives take Jewishness to mean ethical responsibility. Tikkun olam, once a Kabbalistic repair of cosmic vessels, becomes a practical program—feeding the hungry, marching for civil rights. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walking with Martin Luther King Jr. crystallizes the Progressive image: prayer with feet. Ritual is reframed as moral pedagogy; when conflicts arise, justice wins.

Kaplan’s Civilization and the Worship Problem

Mordecai Kaplan solved a sociological puzzle: how do skeptics remain Jewish? By treating Judaism as a civilization—language, folkways, holidays—Progressives could build schools and synagogues without metaphysical consensus. The catch, Feldman notes, is liturgical thinness. Sporadic attendance and High Holiday spikes suggest that a purely moral or cultural glue struggles to sustain thick communities across generations (Havurah and Renewal countered this with participatory spirituality, but at smaller scale).

Israel, the Holocaust, and a Fraying Synthesis

American Progressives once viewed Zionism warily. After the Holocaust and the Six‑Day War, they embraced Israel as moral necessity and identity anchor. Emil Fackenheim’s “614th commandment” (“do not give Hitler a posthumous victory”) fused remembrance with state support; the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s national stature marked the synthesis. Today, occupation and stalemate press hard against liberal ideals. Gen X Jews often land in a J Street posture—love Israel, pressure it to be democratic. Many Gen Zs, trained in intersectional ethics, align with Palestinian advocacy on campus and countenance BDS, bewildering elders who remember 1967’s euphoria and 1973’s peril.

The Spiritual Hunger

Feldman sees a rising thirst for practice—chant, silence, embodied prayer—within Progressive spaces. Some turn to Jewish Renewal (Romemu), others to hybrid paths (JewBu/HinJew). Yet mainstream institutions have not fully integrated this hunger, leaving a gap between justice work and inner life. The opportunity is to braid prophetic ethics with contemplative practice so that moral passion does not become exhaustion.

(Parenthetical note: Think of this as Progressive Judaism’s “Benedict Option,” not in withdrawal but in building thick micro‑communities that can sustain service with song.)

The Open Question

Progressivism asks you to answer two hard questions: What makes Jewish practice distinct if universal ethics suffice? And how do you transmit that distinctiveness without theistic certainty? Feldman offers no formula; he commends honesty about trade‑offs and intentional investment in community so that justice remains a Jewish discipline, not only a universal slogan.

Evolutionism is the art of staying bound to law while making it breathe with time. If you stand here, you believe halakhah remains authoritative, but its application is entrusted to human interpreters. The Talmud’s declaration “It is not in heaven” (after the oven‑of‑akhnai miracle) locates final say on earth—within deliberative, institutional processes. Feldman shows how this unlocks remarkable adaptability—and real risk.

Authority After Revelation

In the oven story, Rabbi Eliezer invokes miracles and even a heavenly voice to endorse his view; the rabbis reply that Torah, once given, is interpreted by human majority. A parallel move reinterprets the “rebellious son” into a never‑applied law. These episodes license later rabbis to harmonize law with reality. Modern Evolutionists inhabit this inheritance, using precedent, minority opinions, and values talk to evolve practice without breaking continuity.

Conscience Inside the System

Rabbi Rahel Berkovits offers a clear case: because she knows God as just and loving, interpretations that degrade women cannot be God’s will (ratzon Hashem). She works through halakhic tools—stringencies loosened, leniencies extended, institutional innovations—to align practice with equality. Rabbi Steven Greenberg uses Maimonidean allegory and close reading to reopen Leviticus on same‑sex intimacy. The point isn’t judicial activism; it’s faith that God entrusted us with conscience and craft.

Religious Zionism’s Evolutionary Turn

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook reimagined secular Zionists as God’s unwitting tools, staging statehood as a redemptive unfolding. His son Tzvi Yehudah’s students—Gush Emunim—translated that into settlement activism. For many Modern Orthodox Jews, Israel becomes the arena where halakhah matures into sovereignty. Here the same evolutionary method yields different goods: egalitarian halakhic innovations in one circle; ultranationalist readings in another. Evolutionism magnifies the stakes of who holds the interpretive center.

The Contradiction—and the Bet

Feldman concedes a tension: Evolutionism wants Traditionalist continuity and Progressive outcomes. Some adopt a postmodern “as‑if” observance—keep Shabbat for community even if belief wavers. Feldman thinks the method works best when tethered to real faith; otherwise the center may not hold. Your responsibility, if you choose this path, is to build learning communities capable of patient reasoning—and to accept that evolution can also empower outcomes you oppose.

(In political theory terms, Evolutionism is a Burkean Judaism with prophetic guardrails: conserve through adaptive reform.)

Feldman refuses the claim that atheism severs Jewishness. Instead, he portrays Godless Jewishness as a mode of wrestling that channels sacred energy into culture, politics, and science. You can light a candle to history and obligation without invoking a personal God. The question is whether your institutions and projects are thick enough to endure.

Elisha, Deutscher, and the Unfaithful Faithful

Elisha ben Abuyah—the Talmud’s “Another”—exits belief but never quite leaves the beit midrash. Isaac Deutscher coins the “non‑Jewish Jew” to capture figures like Spinoza, Marx, and Freud—universalist in aim, particular in inheritance. Feldman’s point is generous: doubt and dissent can be profoundly Jewish modes, not merely exits.

Kaplan’s Way to Stay

Mordecai Kaplan built a home for skeptics by redefining Judaism as a living civilization—rituals as folkways, Hebrew as culture, synagogues as community centers. You can pray “To Whom It May Concern,” celebrate holidays, and educate kids without supernatural claims. This works best when communal infrastructure is robust—schools, camps, publishing. When culture thins, the model risks becoming episodic and consumerist.

Political Theologies Without God

Secular Zionism replaces messianism with nation‑building; Marxism replaces providence with historical laws. Many Jews poured Jewish drive into these projects. Feldman is careful: Marxism is not “actually” Judaism, but Jewish participation in universalist movements often carried a Jewish cast—concern for marginality, critique of power, urgency for repair. In the United States, secular humanists like Felix Frankfurter found civic scripture in the Constitution, forming communities of practice that—practically—were Jewish.

The Bagels‑and‑Lox Defense

Feldman even defends the cultural Jew whose practice is culinary and holiday‑centric. Foodways, humor, and memory are real glue. But he cautions against dogmatic atheism that ridicules belief; Maimonides warns that rigorous negation can harden the heart as surely as naive piety can dull the mind. The more promising Godless path is humble: build art, justice movements, schools, and welcome mats—thick culture that keeps the door open to return.

(Note: Think of this as “Abrahamic without Abraham”—you keep the journey, hospitality, and argument even if you drop the voice at the start.)

Messianic ideas don’t just live in books; they move people and policy. Feldman traces two currents—Chabad’s potential‑messiah model and Religious Zionist national messianism—and shows how a fringe fusion yields dangerous extremes. Understanding these currents helps you discern why some Traditionalists identify with the Israeli state and IDF while others push toward theocratic revolution.

Schneerson’s Triple Innovation

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson globalized outreach (shlichut), making Chabad Houses the default Jewish embassy in Kathmandu, Shanghai, or a college town near you. He advanced a theology of the potential messiah in every generation (some followers proclaimed him the messiah “mamash”), and he publicly embraced Israel’s defense—praying for soldiers, rejecting land‑for‑peace. The Rebbe stopped short of sacralizing the state; instead he treated sovereignty as a potentia that a future messiah could assume and sanctify. This created a bridge: Traditionalists could support the IDF and identify with national strength without endorsing secular Zionist teleology.

From Potential to Program

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, a Chabad‑trained mystic who led the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva near Nablus, recombined Chabad motifs with Religious Zionist militancy. He and his circle sketched constitutional blueprints (Derech Chaim) for a halakhic monarchy, arguing that instituting the right vessels could precipitate redemption. In this telling, waiting becomes disobedience; building theocracy becomes piety. The result collapses restraints between eschatology and daily politics.

When Theology Licenses Violence

The 2015 Duma arson, which murdered baby Ali Dawabsheh and his parents, exposed the peril. Graffiti cried “Long live the king messiah.” The attackers were linked culturally to teachings from Ginsburgh’s orbit and to the book Torat ha‑Melekh, which discusses permissibility of killing in war and has passages widely read as justifying lethal harm to children for “future danger.” Israeli prosecutors did not indict the authors for incitement, but a High Court dissent spotlighted the moral abyss. Feldman’s lesson is sobering: fringe syntheses can spill into mainstream politics (e.g., affinities with figures like Itamar Ben‑Gvir), and ideas about kingship and purity can metastasize into terror.

A Narrow Path for Identification

Between quietist anti‑Zionism and revolutionary theocracy lies a pragmatic path: identify with the state’s protective institutions while refusing messianic absolutism. Chabad’s support for the IDF created a cultural on‑ramp for Haredim; Haredi parties’ coalition roles built institutional ties. Feldman urges vigilance: celebrate Jewish safety without an ethic of triumphalism; embrace sovereignty without forgetting Deuteronomy’s warning against a “high heart.”

(In comparative politics terms, this is the danger of sacralizing the nation: when theological urgency fuses with ethnonational means, constitutional brakes can fail.)

Feldman closes by recentering peoplehood—and discipline. Think family, not race; covenant, not purity. Families argue, assimilate newcomers, and stretch definitions under pressure. The State of Israel magnifies this work because it now operationalizes belonging through law, while Jewish theology demands humble self‑scrutiny whenever power is ours.

Law, Memory, and Messy Cases

Modern names—Israelite, Judean, Jew—blur across time; modern law tries to fix them. The Law of Return invites Jews “home,” but who counts? Brother Daniel (Oswald Rufeisen), a Catholic monk of Jewish birth, sought citizenship as a Jew and was denied; the court held that conversion to another faith leaves the national collectivity. Beta Israel’s recognition came via rabbinic rulings (R. Ovadiah Yosef) and policy, often with symbolic conversions to ease doubt. Inside Traditionalism, Haim Amsalem’s zera’yisra’el proposal would welcome those with Jewish seed (e.g., IDF soldiers of Jewish fathers) through lenient conversions, aligning law with lived kinship and civic honor.

The State as Boundary‑Setter

Secular Zionism imagined a neutral state; in practice, state bodies (the Chief Rabbinate, Interior Ministry, courts) arbitrate marriage, divorce, burial, and immigration. A paradox follows: by making Israel central, secular Zionists created a machine that enforces Traditionalist definitions on many who don’t share them. Diaspora Jews feel the edge when their conversions aren’t recognized; Israelis feel it when they can’t marry without Rabbinate approval. Family feelings meet legal walls; pain ensues.

Theology of Collective Risk

Deuteronomy pairs land with warning: prosperity breeds pride (“My strength made this wealth”); pride breeds sin; sin invites downfall. For centuries Jews practiced catastrophe‑as‑mirror—repentance after loss. Secular Zionism rejected this as defeatism, opting for agency and arms. Feldman threads a middle path: keep agency, add humility. Reinhold Niebuhr’s warning—nations convinced of innocence become dangerous—maps onto today’s “Jewish Power” politics, which can sound like Deuteronomy’s “high heart.”

Family Ethics in Practice

Treat boundary debates like family business: firm, candid, kind. Expand circles where possible (recognize Beta Israel; ease paths for zera’yisra’el; dignify converts). Use prophetic critique as love language, not disloyalty. And wherever you stand—Traditionalist, Progressive, Evolutionist, or Godless—practice Jacob’s wrestling: face the night, demand blessing, accept the limp. That is how a contentious people stays one.

(Note: This echoes Michael Walzer’s “Exodus politics”—critique from inside the camp—and the rabbis’ model of argument for the sake of heaven.)