There’s an article in today’s New York Sun about Taglit-Birthright Israel’s multi-million dollar initiative to build on its program of sending young Jews on free 10-day trips to Israel. The program as it stands is a pretty remarkable thing. Birthright Israel has sent almost 145,000 young adults to Israel since 2000. Here’s the new plan in a nutshell:

[T]he as-yet-unnamed initiative will build new, fully staffed Birthright Israel program offices in 17 American cities, where alumni would be able to choose from a menu of free subsidized programs including seminars, festivals, conferences, retreats, and trips back to Israel — or obtain seed grants to create programs of their own.

The idea is to extend the return traveler's excitement for Jewish life into their everyday world.

The post-trip rush of enthusiasm for Judaism has become legendary in Birthright Israel's seven short years. Studies by researchers at Brandeis University found that Birthright Israel participants are more likely to participate in Jewish events on their college campuses; more likely to want to learn Hebrew, and more likely to say they want to marry within the Jewish faith and raise Jewish children.

Because Michael Steinhardt is both a founder of Taglit-Birthright Israel and an owner of the New York Sun, the piece is little more than an advertisement for the new initiative.What’s not discussed in the piece, and what’s not terribly well known, is that Michael Steinhardt—philanthropist, judaica preservationist, and restorer of Jewish identity—is an atheist.

About a year ago, I had the pleasure of attending a debate between Mr. Steinhardt and "America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach. It was an unconventional debate in that there was no specific question put to the debaters. It was a sort of “let’s talk about the viability of religious belief” session.

Rabbi Shmuley (as he’s regularly referred to) attempted colorfully and LOUDLY to make the case for religion, employing a few modes of logic, but mostly adducing faith and leaving it at that. Steinhardt defended his atheism with incisive reason and admirable parsimony.

What Steinhardt was most concerned about was that religious belief itself was driving Jews away from Judaism. It was his contention that the precipitous fall in Synagogue membership, etc is the direct result of the implausibility (or even just impracticality) of religious belief in the modern western world. He shared with the audience his inchoate plan of attack. He wanted to offer something he called, I believe, “Common Judaism.” He was very clear on two things about it. First, there’s no God involved; second, he didn’t know where to go from there.

To which I must say, Common Judaism doesn’t sound like Judaism at all; it sounds like common Jewishness.

I sympathize with Steinhardt’s take, but I think there’s a problem here. Jewish culture or Jewishness is a sort of trickling down or spreading outward from Judaism itself. Or to put it another way it’s Judaism passed through the ubiquitous filter of secular life. As much as Steinhardt wants to preserve Jewish identity, I think he’d lose it by doing away with Jewish belief. It would be like ordering filet mignon after ridding the planet of cattle.

An audience member asked if temples would be involved in Common Judaism. To which Mr. Steinhardt replied that since they’ve been built, by all means, they should be used. One time in Maine I came across a clubhouse for something called “The Independent Order of Odd Fellows.” I fear I might have caught a glimpse of the future of Common Judaism.

As it seemed so critical to him, I wonder to what degree, if any, Steinhardt plans on implementing the feel of Common Judaism in this Taglit-Birthright Israel expansion.