We need to stop thinking of Judaism as a religion

To fully embrace Jewish indigeneity and reject the non-Jewish world’s attempt to impose its thinking upon us, the Jewish people must re-examine how we define our Jewish identity. There is no aspect of this process more vital than the notion of Judaism as a religion.

This perspective is so deeply embedded in our collective psyche that it seems almost like a natural truth. Overcoming it will be extraordinarily difficult and will require significant effort on both individual and collective levels. However, despite being so embedded, this concept is actually a relatively modern phenomenon.

The Jewish people were always self-described as an Am (people). There is no word for religion in the Tanakh. And while the modern Hebrew word for religion is Dat, historically, it first appeared in Megillat Esther (the Scroll of Esther), where it was first used to reference law.

The redefinition of Judaism began in earnest between the 16th and 18th centuries when Judaism started being referred to specifically as the Jewish religion, in response to the Christian discourses that dominated at the time. Prior to the Reformation, ‘religion’ was used only in reference to Christianity, but after this point it came to be used in a broader sense, meaning a set of theological beliefs; in other words, what we define today as a ‘religion’. Crucially, this definition was applied to Jews by Christian scholars.

The process accelerated in the 19th century, following the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), when new definitions of Judaism were created in order to assimilate Jews and Jewishness into Europe. By this process, Jews were ‘remade’ in the likeness of the new post-Enlightenment world.

The notion of Jews as simply a religious group, like Christians or Muslims, is not an accurate representation of our identity. This was not a case of cultural evolution but rather an attempt to remake Jews in the likeness of the Christian majority.

For Jews, even those of us who do not believe in God, He cannot be separated from our daily lives or actions. Some Jews infuse their Jewish actions with God; others do not. Nonetheless, the actions undertaken by both are the same. When I say Kaddish for my late father, Malcolm, on his Yahrzeit every year, for instance, I light the Yahrzeit candle and recite the mourner’s prayer, which is solely focused on exalting God’s name. But when I say Kaddish, I am not thinking of God; I am thinking of my father and our connection with the Jews who have commemorated their dead in this way for thousands of years.

Given its definition as ‘the service and worship of God or the supernatural’, it is possible to argue that the Jewish belief in, and worship of, Hashem constitutes a religion. However, we should investigate our identity through our own lens, not through the lens of Christianity, which is the conceptual framework many of us have for religion. Even if Jews do have a religion, ‘Judaism’ would still be the incorrect term to describe it; rather, it should be understood as our indigenous culture.

But what about the issue of faith within Judaism? The Jewish concept of faith, Emuna, is rooted in a dynamic relationship with God, emphasising trust, loyalty and a profound personal connection with the divine, hence the Jewish propensity to wrestle with God. It’s less about adhering to doctrines or creeds and more about engaging in a lived relationship with God, thriving on ongoing dialogue and encounters where the individual actively participates in their covenant with the divine. In contrast, Pistis (Christian faith) tends to focus more on believing in specific truths or doctrines.

This discussion highlights the challenges we face when investigating or understanding Jewishness through translations and a non-Jewish lens. It clearly demonstrates that to explore our own civilisation, we must do so in the language in which it was written – Hebrew.

We must perceive Judaism through a Jewish lens. If we don’t, we end up using English words to define our concepts and then applying a Christian context to understand them.

Another redefinition of Judaism – this time as a ‘world religion’ – was to take the Christianising of Judaism a step further. Scholars of religion Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson define the idea of world religions as "a particular way of thinking about religions which organises them into a set of discrete traditions with a supposedly ‘global’ import". World religions are also said to include Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. They are usually described as being large, spread internationally, and having influenced the development of Western society.

For a multitude of reasons (not least being that Judaism is not a religion in the Western understanding of the word) it is, however, a mischaracterisation to include Judaism in this category. Judaism is not large; there are only 15.7 million Jews in the world. We do not seek to convert those who are not Jews. And while Judaism did play a foundational role in Western society, this is because Judaism was exported around the world – not by Jews, but by Christians.

While the World Religions paradigm was brought in to allow the inclusion of non-Christian religions in education, it has instead remodelled them according to liberal Western Protestant Christian values (akin to what the Church of England promotes), emphasising theological categories, argues religious studies academic Suzanne Owen.

While rejecting Judaism as a ‘World Religion’, a potentially more accurate definition of Judaism could be ‘Indigenous Religion’. Kenneth H. Lokensgard and Alejandro V. Gonzalez define ‘indigenous religions’ as "the ancestral religions of peoples who are native to particular landscapes. Their religions help them achieve the goal of living successfully in those places. Thus, indigenous religions vary, just as the places their practitioners inhabit vary. Yet, the many religions practiced by indigenous peoples share common themes. These themes include emphasis upon relationship and place".

This definition certainly fits the Jewish experience and relationship with the land, but Lokensgard and Gonzalez are more accurately outlining indigenous culture rather than just describing indigenous religion.

For Jews, as with other indigenous peoples, such as Inca people who worship Pachamama, the Earth Mother goddess, God cannot be separated from the daily culture and practices of the people. Therefore, it seems that even when identifying indigenous religions and attempting to understand the diversity of belief which exists, Lokensgard and Gonzalez continue to use a Christian view of the world, where ideas of God can be delineated from other aspects of culture.

For Jews, and other indigenous peoples, culture encompasses religion (in the narrowest sense) but isn’t confined to it. Religion is a component of culture rather than a defining characteristic on its own.

A crucial part of reclaiming our identity as Jews is reframing our understanding of Judaism. While it includes a belief in God, it is not a religion in the Christian sense of the word; it is the indigenous culture of the Jewish people, which contains God. The process of reframing will not be easy, but it is essential for living our lives as Jews authentically. To achieve this, we must understand our civilisation through a Jewish lens.

This article is an edited extract from The Jews: An Indigenous People by Ben Freeman, published by No Pasaran Media on 27 February.