Atheism as my path to High Holy Days enlightenment

Not long ago, I was having lunch with a colleague and we got around to the almost-always-perilous subject of religion. He asked me how I define myself, and I said, “I’m Jewish. And an atheist.” He laughed and said, “No, really, what are you?”  

For my colleague, a non-Jew, one is either religious or an atheist. Even more baffling to him was when he learned that, as a totally nonreligious Jew, I helped found a synagogue (IKAR), am married to IKAR’s founding president and executive director, revel in the study of Talmud, celebrate Shabbat dinner every Friday night, attend services almost every Shabbat morning, and regularly vacation with my rabbi and her family. The fact that atheism hasn’t diminished my deep connection to the Jewish tradition, people or even practice seemed utterly incongruous to him. But hardest of all for my colleague to understand was how my evolution into atheism has actually enhanced my enjoyment of Judaism over the years. 

For most of my life, I comfortably identified as agnostic. God never made much sense to me on either a scientific or ethical level, yet I felt that to be an atheist implied a degree of arrogant certainty that I preferred to reserve for my strident politics. Nevertheless, opening the prayer book as an agnostic was a maddening and fundamentally alienating experience because I believed that, to be a good agnostic, I was compelled to remain open to the possibility of God. I would stand in the midst of earnest, shuckling Jews, searching the words of the Amidah, for example, for meaning: 

Blessed are You, Lord our God … the great, mighty and awesome God, exalted God, who bestows bountiful kindness, who creates all things, who remembers the piety of the Patriarchs, and who, in love, brings a redeemer to their children’s children, for the sake of His Name.

The only meaning I could discern was that God was an insecure narcissist who doesn’t seem to merit the required exaltation — as evidenced by the dismal state of the world. All that forced love and fawning praise seemed like a theology of rigid obeisance to a needy and ineffectual deity, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to flee. Invariably, I’d put the book down and retreat to the lobby where the scotch (and politics) flowed liberally.  

At some point, however, my agnosticism evolved into full-blown atheism. This was not the result of a single epiphany but was, rather, the consequence of my accumulated experience of the state of the world and my deeper understanding of the science underlying the world. 

The effect of this evolution (or devolution, depending on whom you ask) has been nothing short of miraculous. No longer feeling that it was incumbent upon me, as a Jew, to find a way of embracing God, I am finally able to enjoy Judaism. And beyond that, once I liberated myself from the impenetrable language of the prayer book and its force-feeding of praise for a reckless and imperious deity, I was able to see something pure and, yes, even holy, in the communal engagement characteristic of great and compelling services. 

Rabbi Sharon Brous has often said that religion, at its best, is a call to allow oneself to experience awe. While I have no doubt that belief in God can be a catalyst for the appreciation of awe, awe can be experienced in a myriad of ways. And, for me, experiencing the power of a community rooted in and fueled by the ethical imperative embodied in the Jewish tradition has become one of my greatest sources of awe.     

With that in mind, services became a vehicle through which I could experience community in the purest sense, a space to share sorrow, gratitude and fear; a place to find fortitude, moral clarity and hope. The inevitably huge turnout of the High Holy Days only magnifies the intensity of that experience, especially when combined with the powerful call for self-examination and rededication to personal and communal responsibility that are the hallmarks of the holidays. 

I am galvanized and humbled by the extraordinary passion and possibility of a committed and intellectually serious community — so much so that it doesn’t even bother me anymore that some of my closest people and fellow IKARites are true believers. Indeed, I’m grateful that IKAR is strong enough to allow space for both the God-inspired and the godless.

Now, with God out of the picture, I’m finally able to have a truly religious experience.

Adam F. Wergeles is a Los Angeles technology lawyer and a co-founder of IKAR.