Religion in Israel: Too black and white?It may only take an hour to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv (provided your bus doesn’t break down), but the two often feel more like different planets than neighboring cities. In Israel, the animosity between secular and Orthodox is palpable and growing, but according to an article in yesterday’s J-Post, the emerging Jewish Renewal movement is targeting even the most “hard-core” secularists, and attempting to bring Jewish traditions back into modern Israeli life by finding the gray areas within religion.

The ambivalence about Judaism in Israel became clear to me one night as I sat drinking in an alleyway bar in Tel Aviv with my Israeli friend Omer. Omer has been studying abroad in Germany for the past few years, and admitted that he felt disconnected there, and had started attending a Friday night dinner with other Jewish students. “My father would disown me if he knew I was lighting Shabbat candles,” said Omer guiltily. “We come from a long line of staunch Tel Aviv atheists.”

In order to counteract this deep rooted aversion to religion, the Jewish Renewal movement (different from the 1960s American movement of the same name) takes a more flexible approach, focusing on ritual, tradition and spirituality rather than outright faith. While the term “secular synagogue” may seem like an oxymoron,to proponents of Jewish Renewal, it’s the basis of their ideology.

Dr. Asher Cohen, a senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan's Political Science Department who recently wrote a paper on the failure of the Reform Movement to muster a significant following in Israel, said the movement lacked many of the drawbacks of Reform Judaism.

"First of all, there is no God," said Cohen. "Jewish Renewal is not a religion. So it does not turn off adamantly secular people."

Though the Jewish Renewal leaders identify their movement as distinctly Israeli, it’s hard not to sense that the trend mirrors the ever evolving definition of American Jewish identity. The search for cultural connections has taken many Americans beyond their local congregation or JCC. It is the reason why Jewcy exists, why small alternative congregations like Romemu are springing up across the country, and why birthright is quickly becoming the new bar mitzvah. For many, the search for meaning no longer revolves around the existence of God; it's about the need to find a comfortable, inclusive community.

 

Reason to Believe in God: "[A] father decided there was no other way to save his 2-year-old son from a blazing apartment fire than to drop him out of a fourth-story window. ... He was caught safely by an off-duty police officer who just happened to be in the neighborhood."

Reason Not to Believe in God: "Meet the Spartans narrowly conquered Rambo to nab the top spot in the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday."

Previously: Did I Believe in God in January?

Forget the Farm Workers Endorsement: you want J-dog on your sideIn describing her stance on immigration policy during Thursday's Democratic presidential debate, Senator Hillary Clinton dropped a subtly sly Jesus-bomb. Was the namedrop heartfelt and coincidental, or was it simply good planning? Half of those surveyed in a recent poll commissioned by the American Bible Society said they wouldn't vote for a candidate who doesn't believe in God, and a whopping 78% percent of those questioned said they like their candidates citing Scripture. So, you tell me: Is Clinton spouting words or turds?

When the House of Representatives passed the most mean-spirited provision that said, if you were to give any help whatsoever to someone here illegally, you would commit a crime, I stood up and said that would have criminalized the Good Samaritan and Jesus Christ himself.

I have been on record on this against this kind of demagoguery, this mean-spiritedness.

And, you know, it is something that I take very personally, because I have not only worked on behalf of immigrants; I have been working to make conditions better for many years.

 

Previously: Mike Huckabee on Gay Marriage, Fried Squirrels 

The Faith Between Us is like no other book about religion. Born when Jewish Peter Bebergal asked his Catholic friend Scott Korb if he believed in God, it's less a treatise on spirituality than an ongoing conversation between two friends about their surprisingly similar relationships with the divine. I spoke to them about their book (which is excerpted on Jewcy), their friendship, and their attempt to reframe the way Americans talk about religion. --Amy Guth

A new way of talking about faith: The bookTell us a bit about your writing process.

Korb: What started us thinking about the book was when Peter asked me whether or not I believed in God. The book as a whole answers that question. In short: No. In long: Yes, a lot.

The process goes this way: We write an essay. We send that essay to the other person. We edit each other’s essays.

From this point we diverge. I send my comments to Peter. Peter graciously incorporates my suggestions (to a point) and in a week or so has a finished essay. It’s smooth.

Peter doesn’t even bother sending me my essays back any more. First, he calls. He tells me the essay needs work, often with the structure or my focus. I tell him to read it again because clearly he hasn’t read it carefully enough. He tells me he’s read it twice. I tell him to read it again. He does. He calls me the next day with the same comments. I disagree and yell at him. We get off the phone. I sit for two days thinking I am right and Peter is wrong. I reread the essay the following day and realize that Peter is right and I am wrong. I rewrite the essay incorporating Peter’s suggestions (to a point). In a week or so I have a finished essay.

Bebergal: Scott has laid it out pretty well here. We both had our moments of being very protective of our writing, as if certain sentences and ideas were precious little kittens the other was trying to smother with a pillow. But even when we both agreed on certain things, our editor would see them and be appalled. That was the most humbling part of the process. At one point, after delivering some material, our editor said “I don’t really know what to say.” She said this not with excitement and enthusiasm, but as if someone had just smothered a kitten.

It wasn’t for Scott I wouldn’t be half the writer I am today. He has taught me so much, especially about slowing down and really reading over my work carefully. Scott loves words and sentences, and the way they work together. I get caught up in the intoxication of an idea and an image, and I often forget to make sure my expression of it is as clear and concise as it can be.

It will be a shock to begin our next larger projects mostly independent of each other.

A Jew and a Catholic walk into a bar: The authorsAs the two of you have been promoting the book, do you find that you've each fallen into different roles? Or do you split responsibilities down the middle?

Bebergal: I kind of like to think of us as good cop/bad cop, with me being the good cop. Since I am theist, and Scott really defines himself as an atheist, when we are talking to a room full of believers, I feel like I have to soften the blow a little bit when Scott tries to explain how he considers himself both religious and a non-believer. Also, Scott is more willing to carry a box of books, whereas I prefer to use one those grocery push carts.

Korb: Duty-wise, we've gotten pretty good at seamless tag-teaming. I talk, he reads, I read, we both discuss with an assembled group. Or vice-versa. Although I'm finding that people are just slightly more interested in hearing from Peter of actual encounters with the source of holiness – the God we hear so much about – than from me about how holiness has no source, necessarily, but that we create it (say, through an act of love), or recognize it in something someone else has created (say, in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead) at each new moment of creation. People like good cops.

Peter, what, if anything, has Scott's religion shown you about Judaism? Scott, what has Peter's religion taught you about Catholicism?

Bebergal: Scott has made me want to be a more observant Jew. I find that I take more care on the holidays and on Shabbat, and I can feel Scott's own devoutness in spirit when I practice. Scott has helped me to see the beauty in the metaphor and the symbol when I can't get to the actual meaning. But this has less to do with Catholicism than with who Scott is as a Catholic.

Also, to be honest, working this closely with a Christian and with Christian ideas has only emphasized for me how much I love Judaism, and how much I don't identify with a Christian conception of the world.

Korb: While over the years I've become fairly familiar with Judaism through its myths and rituals and ethics, and while much of this familiarity has come through reading and practicing and studying with Peter and his family, the fact is that Judaism remains a foreign land to me. Today I travel there regularly, but I'm by nature nostalgic, and it always feels good back home. The mystery of Judaism, though, the foreign rituals and the foreign languages, is a constant reminder that God is more than I could possibly say. In other words, the fact of Judaism means that my Catholicism cannot possibly say all there is to say about God.

Interested in more than just halo-gazing: JesusHow have your perceptions of one other's religions evolved through the process of writing The Faith Between Us?

Bebergal: I used to believe that being Christian meant that you accepted the infallibility of the Church and the teachings, and that the emphasis was on the afterlife. Scott's relationship to Christianity has shown me that the Jesus of the Gospels is much more interested in this world. Of course, all religions have their eschatologies, but I understand now that a true Christian life can be concerned with the here and now, with the environment, human rights, social justice.

Korb: There was a time when I might have said that Jews were not going to get into Heaven. The process of becoming a Catholic atheist – a process largely influenced by my encounters with Judaism – has led me to extend this to Christians, too. (That is, there is no Heaven to get into.) But that probably says more about how my perception of my own religion has changed through this process. How about: I've seen no evidence of the blood libel? Jews aren't money-grubbers?

Scott, you've said before, "We learn in the book that I was basically wrong about my whole life of religious disciplines" How have you each changed spiritually through the process of this book, if at all?

Bebergal: My early days of seeking some kind of mystical experience were characterized by drug induced paranoia and superstition, the latter staying with me throughout my life. When I got sober, to combat this, I had mostly put my ideas and desires about mysticism away, because they were too bound up in what had become unhealthy, and ultimately life-threatening, for me. But through the writing and my friendship with Scott I have become much less superstitious. And the lovely irony is that now I feel more capable of exploring mysticism again (this time without the LSD, mind you).

Korb: My life of religious discipline – from an early vocation-gone-bad, to severe food and sex proscriptions, to my understanding of a facial tic as a God-given marker of my distinctness – was never a difficult one, spiritually. It sounds counterintuitive, but when discipline shapes your life, when you know what you have to eat everyday and that God doesn't want you sleeping with anyone until you're married, you take great comfort in that. When your face keeps your moral temperature by flashing under the pressure of any contact with sin, there's never any struggle. Eat vegan, no sex (or, no "intercourse" but lots of sex), be good.

As I abandon that life under God's safe protection and my own obsessive control, my spiritual life becomes more of a struggle. I'd always kept myself above the fray of living in the world, afraid of the mess and pain. I'm in it now, and it's good for me. Sex is more meaningful when you risk real relationships and struggle against monogamy (I've recently been engaged). Food tastes better when you pay attention to where the meat comes from (I've recently been hunting).

Reading across the divide: The book has been praised by athiests and believers alike What is the best single bit of feedback you've gotten about the book?

Bebergal: For me, it was when our editor told us that she had full confidence that we were going to write a great book, but when she read the completed manuscript it was better than the book she thought she was going to get from us. But I do also have to say equal to that was when my father-in-law, who is a devout atheist and fierce literary critic, finished the book and said that he could really identify with the idea that faith begins in wonder, and that he understood the power and importance of religious language.

Korb: My mother and an editor friend, both Catholics, said the same thing to me after reading the book and learning of my atheism: "I hope you're wrong." At first I laughed this off, saying, "Yeah, me too." But one night while Peter and I were discussing the book at Harvard Hillel I realized something about their remark that I'd missed in so quickly dismissing it. Neither my mom nor this friend was insisting anything. They have a hope for me and for themselves. A Christian hope. And they're no more, and no less, sure about God than I am.

The Christian hope I have doesn't require – and, in fact, does better without – any actual God or afterlife or judgment. I hope for salvation here. And for my sake, I hope that hope is, as I insisted with my friend, "as Christian as anything."

What do you most hope Jewish readers will take away from The Faith Between Us?

Bebergal: I hope that Jewish readers will identify a bit with the internal struggle of simply being religious. I grew up extremely secular (the old joke, I think Billy Crystal once used it, is "My parents believe in the Ten Commandments but we only had to pick five.") I have been observant, and even that in my limited way, for only about 15 years. I worried that I had nothing to say about Judaism that would be important. But then I realized that my whole life is about being Jewish, with all the struggles, questions, doubts, food, jokes.

I also think that I want to start a conversation, which is not often one discussed in Jewish circles, about the question God. The emphasis is often on observance, law, and Israel. But I want to start talking about what is God to us as as individuals, and how we take those beliefs into our communities and synagogues. Even though I was born Jewish, and culturally this was very important in my home, I came to Jewish practice by way of belief, by way of God.

Korb: Starting with Peter, Jewish readers were a huge help to me in the writing of this book. They helped me to clarify my own thoughts, as I wrote, about what it means to be faithful. And as I considered a potential Jewish audience, I knew I had to be clear in how I told stories and described ideas that, while perfectly familiar to me, might seem crazy to them. And for that, one thing I'd like a Jewish reader to take away from Faith is a "Thank you."

That said, I hope a Jewish reader could find real meaning in the Christian stories I rely on while telling my own story. I hope I'm clear enough. And I hope they're open-minded enough.

What do you each wish was different about both Judaism and Christianity?

Bebergal: Well it depends on if you mean historically or today. My biggest frustration though is with Hasidism. I deeply respect their knowledge and spiritual aptitude, but can't abide by much of their views on the world we live in. I wish there weren't such deep divisions over things like gays, evolution, and Israel. But this is the history of Judaism, these deep divisions. It's amazing to think about Jews having a civil war in the 60s C.E. We still have this same conflict between secularism and religion. But thank God that the Judaism I practice and understand is both worldly and spiritual, rational and mystical.

Korb: God help us. Religions in general would be better if they emphasized belief less and faithfulness more.

* * *

ALSO IN JEWCY: Read an excerpt from The Faith Between Us

I can personally vouch for David F. Smydra's insightful post into the reasons mainstream media fails at substantively covering religion. It was the summer of 1999, a year after graduation, and in the pre-millennial madness that enveloped God's city – the sanatorium averaged two messiahs a month the years before, it was getting seven a week at the time – I lost my bearings somewhere around the Damascus Gate. Only in Jerusalem can one feel so lost.

It happens to most at some point, my editor at the Jerusalem Post explained, "The book of psalms calls Jerusalem the City of God and Zechariah calls it the City of Truth – but which God and whose truth?"

The city and the country itself forces one to wrestle with these eternal questions. And without answers, the lines between fact and faith, religion and politics, the sacred and the secular blurred, leaving behind a conflicted and confused young reporter.

My parents are Israeli-born, but raised their children in America. I've been straddling borders religious, national or otherwise all my life. I thought I was as well equipped as anyone to deal with whatever Israel threw at me: a degree in philosophy from Vassar, a thesis on Kierkegaard and Jewish thought, and a six-month research and ethnographic study at Hebrew University.

It wasn't enough to cover religion in Israel. While interviewing a Sufi mystic in Ramallah, the man leaned over and whispered, "Hamas will some day live by the words of Rumi and not the sword of Allah." If I had known then that he was referring to the 13th century poet Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi, who preached tolerance, I would have recognized the importance of his statement. A Palestinian religious leader was, in effect, condemning his own. It didn't make the paper, because I didn't realize what was meant till much later.

Many of my colleagues had similar experiences. The American Press, by and large, lacks a critical perspective informed by knowledge. To a journalist, skepticism is the pillar in which all else is built. But how can one honestly question doctrine or deed without an understanding of either?

In Israel, my experience as a journalist begged the question of how religion is covered. In America, it's why religion isn't covered enough.

After a year, I left the Jerusalem Post to help start a media venture started by CNN executives targeting Baby Boomers, a demographic in hot pursuit of 'what it all means.' I interviewed Deepak Chopra, Rabbi Harold Kushner, leading academics and other figures in the spiritual marketplace, and I came to understand that you cannot grapple with America, its history and contemporary forces, without understanding the nature and history of its religious life.

Spotty religious reporting isn't a new thing. Louis Cassels wrote a much-read syndicated religion column from 1959 to 1973 for United Press International. He admitted that the worst error he remembered making was repeating the historically discredited claim that Islam was spread forcibly by the sword during religion's years of early growth, "My error stemmed from plain ignorance rather than malice."

Faith matters, and not only within the walls of a church, synagogue or mosque. There is Bible study at a Houston oil and gas company. Weekly yoga at dot-coms. Torah class at Microsoft and Islamic study at Whirlpool. In this year's presidential elections, there are relentless invocations of the Almighty. So why isn't coverage better? Why do editors show such a disregard when pitched with a religion story?

A media and religion survey by the First Amendment Center found that 76% of religion writers felt that formal training in religious studies is either helpful or essential. Sadly, 6 out of 10 writers said they had no such training.

Much of the media views religion suspiciously, or worse, as irrelevant. Journalists deal in matters of fact, religion in matters of faith, and rarely the twain shall meet. When they do, it's usually because religion intersects with politics or scandal. The latter usually determines the treatment of the former and as a result neither is dealt with wisely. So it's not just a question of giving religion more prominence, but encountering it with more understanding.

More important than the sort of knowledge one gains in the academy is what you might call religious street smarts or pew-level understanding. Contending with the powerful convictions and lofty ideas inherent to the beat require an intellectual grounding supported by a naive narrator's immersion into the experience of faith -- what journalists covering a war call "embedded." The "small" stories, the quiet, daily influence of religion on people's lives are as important as the larger issues that arise from covering belief systems or religious philosophy.

Is anyone doing a good job? There are a handful. Jeff Sharlet, editorial adviser to Jewcy, may be among the finest. His investigative reports from the evangelical front lines appearing in publications like Rolling Stone and Harpers are the very embodiment of pew-level reportage that are also intellectually grounded. His daily review of religion and the press, called The Revealer, is one of the better religion sites on the Web.

Here's a snapshot of what Sharlet, and his colleagues at The Revealer, find worthwhile elsewhere on the Web:

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion looks at "religion in the news" from a perspective that's not so much liberal as relentlessly skeptical of absurdity, and intrigued by belief.

Casing the Promised Land offers an intelligent roundup of religion news from a center-left perspective.

Christianity Today's blog is a superb resource regardless of your faith or lack thereof. Regular blogger Ted Olson roams far and wide and has the wisdom to bring back more than just the controversy of the day.

DeepBlog: Not a God beat blog itself, but a good directory to the blogosphere with a growing list of "Spiritual Blogs."

Direland, a sharply written politcs and media blog by journalist Doug Ireland, occasionally runs a "theocracy watch" colum

On Religion is an excellent newsclipping service -- terrific links to the hot topic of the moment and good finds from the lesser-known press.

OpEdNews's Religion and Politics page publishes a fine collection of original, politically progressive religion essays as well as links to other noteworthy religion articles.

The Raving Atheist, "An Atheistic Examination of the Culture of Belief [on] How Religious Devotion Trivializes American Law and Politics," is an intensely intelligent, often funny, and all around well-made blog that's good enough for true believers as well as godless folk.

Relapsed Catholic is a fierce godblog without mercy for liberals or unbelievers, by Kathy Shaidle, a Canadian journalist and poet with a sharp eye for the absurd and compelling.

Brian Flemming is the man behind Bat Boy: The Musical, and his blog is everything you'd expect from a man with such interests. Which, naturally, include religion, commented on from a smart, liberal perspective. Mostly limited to the news of the day, you'll find original ideas here, and, if you care to do some free associating with Brian's other interests, genuine inspiration.

Makeout City's Jay McCarthy understands the art of linking and the collage possibilities of threading together fragments from around the web -- whether they're his own thoughts or collected ideas from others, his posts are always essays. Jay is a man who gets the Montaignesque potential of blog. He often comments on religion, a subject in which Jay has read widely and eclecticly.

The Claremont Review of Books, put out by the conservative Claremont Institute ("a new, reinvigorated conservatism, one that draws upon the timeless principles of the American founding, and applies them to the moral and political problems that we face today") is an interesting, intellectual read, whether or not you agree with their purpose, to help conservatism "understand its own majestic purposes, and become a more effective political force."

Nth Position is a webzine that advertises "high weirdness" in all areas of inquiry; investigate their "strangeness" category for manifestations of the divine. Excellent writing and surprisingly good reporting (given that there's limited cash behind this fine endeavor).

Oliver Willis bills himself as "kryptonite to stupid," and we can testify to that slogan's truth. Hey, wait -- does that make us dumb? Nah. It just means Oliver is really smart. His popular blog is mostly political talk from a "center-left" perspective, but we think it's relevant to Revealer readers because Oliver gets the role of religion in American politics. That is, he gets that it has one, whether we like it or not, and that Dems and liberals in the U.S. are blind to its full influence and importance beyond the borders of New York and L.A.

One Inch Ahead features an interesting confluence of spirit and flesh--in the occasionally religious musings of a long distance runner.

As campaign season heats up, the candidates'
"religious beliefs" will increasingly become part of the American conversation. The media isn't likely to be of much help. If Iraq is your issue, you can count on an endless parade of articles describing just about every aspect of the war; the same won't be true of the candidates religious beliefs and practices.

I understand why religion reporters so frequently give up the beat, and why their story ideas meet with skepticism from editors. Because while reporters are forced to think about the outside world, religion forces us to consider the interior world.

Consider how a reporter goes about his beat. If it's education, then he visits the school district and reports on what teachers and staff and students tell him. But if it's religion, going to a church, mosque or temple doesn't work quite as well. Private conversations with God aren't all that accessible to reporters. The First Amendment gives reporters the freedom to ask questions of whomever they please; it doesn't bestow magical mind-reading powers.

Take abortion, for example. How often does a reporter really attempt to get inside the head of a Christian evangelist pro-life advocate? Or Palestinian-Israeli relations. How often does a reporter ask a person in that dispute, "What do your prayers with God tell you about this situation?"

Very rarely. And that's because editors are bred to treat with skepticism any reporter's attempt to get inside a source's head. This works in 90 percent of journalism because reporters and editors have to guard against the possibility that the source is bullshitting them. And more often than not, that type of maneuver can be checked against empirical, verifiable, external facts and evidence. Not so with religion. If a source tells a reporter that she's voting for Huckabee or Edwards because her prayers guided her in that direction, how could a reporter possibly call bullshit?

As this process unfolds, I'd love to see reporters really dig into religious issues. Not so much what the candidates believe, but what Americans believe -- remembering, also, that no belief at all is still a belief in something. Because the campaign offers a high-profile opportunity for journalists to get it right, to set the agenda, to bridge the interior to the external. People vote not always for what they suspect will affect their surroundings, but also for what they hold closest to their souls. I've seen countless stories so far on how Iraq, the economy, and health care are helping voters sort out their presidential preferences. But I haven't seen a single story where reporters really interrogate a number of Americans about their religious beliefs.

Good reporting, no matter the subject, challenges our assumptions and adds nuance to our understanding of the world we live in. Informed, accessible coverage of "religious beliefs" must be part of of this process.

I was hoping to write about sex today, but then I read an Op-Ed from the Jewish Journal about why Jerusalem should be divided. Grow Up: And own up

An Orthodox rabbi's plea: consider a divided Jerusalem
By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky

The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one. The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, including Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis conference occurs. And last week, as I read one e-mail dispatch after another from these organizations, I became more and more convinced that I could not join their call.

It's not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It's rather that the time has come for honesty. Their call to handcuff the government of Israel in this way, their call to deprive it of this negotiating option, reveals that these organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.

These are extremely difficult thoughts for me to share, both because they concern an issue that is emotionally charged, and because people whose friendship I treasure will disagree strongly with me. And also because I am breaking a taboo within my community, the Orthodox Zionist community. "Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital" is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence. It is an article of faith, a corollary of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. It is not questioned. But this final reason why it is difficult for me to share these thoughts is also the very reason that I have decided to do so. This is a conversation that desperately needs to begin.

No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.

Later in the article Kanefsky writes

The Religious Zionist leadership (similar to today's Evangelical supporters of Israel) made a different judgment, namely that settling the Biblical heartland would further hasten the unfolding of the messianic age. Thus, the Arab population already there was not our problem. God would deal with it. This belief too -- reasonable though it may have seemed at the time -- has also turned out to be wrong. To tell the story honestly, this mistake too must be acknowledged.

(Emphasis mine)

Full story

I agree with Rabbi Kanefsky’s politics, and I think his writing is brave and important, but what really caught my eye was the part that I highlighted.

There’s a sense in a lot of Jewish communities that we can pretty much screw around as much as we want, and as long as we’ve got generally good intentions we can safely expect God to clean up our mess. We’ve written about repentance quite a bit on FaithHacker, but I just want to make it clear that there’s nothing in any Jewish theology that I’m aware of that would sanction someone screwing up with the understanding that God would fix it.

I seem to know a lot of people who operate under the assumption that they can just square things away with God later, or what God will just cover whatever their tab has become, and it makes me crazy. Those people are why atheists walk around talking about how God is for weak people. If you fuck something up, it’s your responsibility to deal with it. If you want to go to God for help that’s certainly fine, but to expect that going to God makes everything hunky dory is immature, and I’m so glad to see Kanefsky calling Religious Zionists and Evangelicals out on that.

I finished reading an interview with Norman Mailer that’s in last week’s New York Magazine on the plane back to Nashville, and it’s fascinating and fairly bizarre. He thinks weird looking fish are cosmic mistakes. Still, part of me kind of wishes he would come out and say something seriously whack-o that would be really interesting and controversial, instead of the whole ‘technology is evil’ crap that, frankly, I got plenty of in high school. Anyway, here’s a little bit of Mailer’s thoughts:God: uses a Mac

Much of the world’s present-day cosmology is based on such works of revelation as the Old and New Testament, or the Koran, but for me, revelation is itself the question mark—not God’s word, but ours. I confess that I have no attachment to organized religion. I see God, rather, as a Creator, as the greatest artist. I see human beings as His most developed artworks. I also see animals as His artworks. When I think of evolution, what stands out most is the drama that went on in God as an artist. Successes were also marred by failures. I think of all the errors He made in evolution as well as of the successes. In marine life, for example, some fish have hideous eyes—they protrude from the head in tubes many inches long. Think of all those animals of the past with their peculiar ugliness, their misshapen bodies, worm life, frog life, vermin life, that myriad of insects—so many unsuccessful experiments. These were also modes the Artist was trying—this great artist, this divine artist—to express something incredible, and it was not, for certain, an easy process. Sometimes a young artist has to make large errors before he or she can go further.

Full story

If you’re looking for another and perhaps more accessible look at who/what God is all about, try the awesome and incredibly comprehensive Walking with God curriculum available as a free download from the Ziegler Rabbinical School website. I’ve only spent significant time with the Modern Jewish Thought section, but it’s pretty amazing. Doesn't involve any fish, though. Bummer.

I'm here because I have a Loved One in Jewish Rehab. It has caused me to think harder about being a Jew. I still don't believe in god, but I'm enjoying the services and the feeling of being part of a community.

Was it inevitable? As of Monday, the Vatican has its own airline. Of course, this isn't your usual commercial undertaking; it's a practical response to spiritual matters.  Sounding a lot like a CEO (or is it the CEOs that sound like him?), Father Cesare Atuire of the Vatican pilgrimage office explained: "The spirit of this new initiative is to meet the growing demand by pilgrims to visit the most important sites for the faith". How much to the Holy Land? Unclear, undecided. However, noted Father Atuire, it is important to “bear in mind that the customers will be pilgrims and do not have a great deal of money to spend.” 

 Certainly this is part of the continued attempt by the Vatican to reconcile its rootedness in tradition with modernity, expressed in Benedict’s first encylical, “Deus et Caritas” ("God is Love"). More saliently, however, it seems like a response to the central religious experience of Islam, the Hajj, which sent two million Muslims to Mecca in December 2006, and even, maybe, to the more familiar—and incredibly successful—Birthright, which sends many of us financially fortunate pilgrims to Israel for free.

 What’s the difference between sightseeing and soul-searching? When does a religious pilgrimage become spiritual tourism? Or has modernity rendered the two the same thing? Is the Vatican doing this for the pilgrims or for itself (or is that really the same thing)? Religion can certainly seem like shopping—though, really, I think that it’s the other way around, that shopping can seem a lot like religion.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who will serve as the official tour guide for the tour group making the inaugural flight to the shrine in Lourdes, France, justified the Church’s newest accommodation, saying that “the way to make pilgrimages can change over time, but their deepest meaning remains the same: to look for a deeper contact with God.” Whether the Vatican can keep up with competing airlines like Dublin-based Ryanair—which boasted in a staement:  “Ryanair already performs miracles that even the pope’s boss can’t rival, by delivering pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela for the heavenly price of 10 euros”—remains to be seen.  I suppose it’s the consumer’s choice.

Today is the first day of the last month of the Jewish year, Elul.  Since this is the month before we beg forgiveness from God for totally screwing each other and God over for the past year, we’re supposed to spend Elul focusing on being better people and making marked improvements in our religious practices. It’s kind of a scary time.  Every morning we get a nice little blast of the shofar to remind us of what’s coming up in a few weeks, and if you’re spehardic you start saying selichot (supplicatory prayers), tomorrow morning (if you’re ashkenzai you’ve got a couple of weeks left before that begins).  And we’re not talking a couple of measly paragraphs of half-assed apologetic lip service-- we’re talking upwards of an hour of heavy scary stuff.  The threat of not being inscribed in the Book of Life is a pretty terrifying possibility to those who take this kind of thing seriously, and it’s not generally treated with much levity.
Here's The Word Elul: so you can follow along with all my fancy acronyms
In this spirit Elul is often said to be an acronym for the famous words from the Songs of Songs, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  (In Hebrew, “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li.”)  The point is that we are in a serious relationship with God, and as such we have obligations to God.  If we’ve been somewhat careless with our connection to the Big Guy, this is meant to be a wakeup call and a reminder to get back with the program.

But I’ve heard other interpretations of Elul, as well.  Besides being an acronym for that verse in Song of Songs, it’s also an acronym for part of a verse in the book of Esther.  At the end of Esther we’re told, “-the same days on which the Jews enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy.  They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking and as an occasion of sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.” (Esther 9:22)  The end of this verse, “sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor” also works as an acronym for Elul (in Hebrew it’s “Ish l’re’eihu v’matanot l’evyonim.”)   
What's Your Weight on the Mitzvah Scale?: Honestly, this totally freaks me out
If we take this verse to heart we’re reminded that the month of Elul is a time when we really have to get things together in our interpersonal affairs.  Whether it’s a fight with a coworker of family member, or a failed commitment to give more money to tzedakah, Elul is about living up to our relationships with each other.  And I’m not saying that’s any easier than trying to path things up with God, but I do think that once you’ve made the effort to smooth over whatever happened at Thanksgiving with your Uncle Harry you’re more likely to feel more successful when you ask God for forgiveness on Rosh Hashana.  It’s obviously not a foolproof plan, but I’ve found that if I really commit myself to my friends and neighbors during Elul I feel a lot more prepared for Rosh Hashana than I do if I focus only on all those times I said shma way after the correct time. 

Anyway, wishing everyone a hopeful and fulfilling Elul.

Recent polemics by proud and angry atheists have gotten many of us—faithful and skeptical alike—thinking better of belief in God. Books like Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, and most recently, Christopher Hitchens’s God is Not Great argue that it is simply unreasonable to believe. Science can debunk the historical or biological claims of any sacred text, they say, and religious morality contradicts the modern zeitgeist. Even when the scriptures do present us with a moral innovator, faith alone rarely compels believers to live accordingly. These angry atheists reserve some of their sharpest criticism for religious moderates, arguing that a reasoned and critical respect for religion simply provides comfort to the enemy. The slope between Jimmy Carter and Jerry Falwell—or, for that matter, between Reza Aslan and Osama bin Laden—is simply too slippery. Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens are not ...

I just read a fascinating article in The Economist about the correlation between religion and happiness. While most religions do seem to preach a kind of emotional maturity and commitment to moral life, it’s not clear why such an existence, or even efforts towards such an existence would make someone happy. Nevertheless, according to the article, researchers have found that being religious can have a huge effect on one’s satisfaction with life:If You Wanna Be Happy For the Rest of Your Life: Believe in God. Or not.

Dalia Mogahed, who oversees Gallup's research on Muslim opinion, has made some stark observations about [a global investigation of well-being]. There are, she notes, many Muslim countries where men and women alike are fed up with life. But of the ten places with the highest correlation between being female and (relatively) satisfied, nine are mainly Muslim: Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Palestine, Jordan and Morocco.

Full story

I’m embarrassed to admit that I was shocked to see places like Bangladesh and Palestine on that list, considering the way I generally assume women live in those countries. There are undoubtedly thousands of women who are overjoyed to live under a burka, just as there are thousands of Jewish women who think sheytls are just one way of respecting and demonstrating love for God. It’s a strange idea to me, but one I consciously remind myself to consider.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways that God can make us happy and miserable since I spent some time at Footsteps on Sunday. Here’s the Footsteps mission statement:

Footsteps provides educational, vocational and social support to those seeking to enter or explore the world beyond the insular ultra-religious communities in which they were raised. People from the ultra-orthodox and Chasidic communities who choose to enter mainstream America currently do so as new immigrants in every sense. They face cultural disorientation and isolation coupled with a lack of practical and marketable skills. Founded in December 2003, Footsteps aims to assist individuals who choose to make this difficult transition.

On Sunday I was able to talk to some Footsteppers about religion, God and tradition, and it was clear that though they were raised in heavily religious atmospheres, God, Judaism and tradition made them miserable. It’s hard not to wonder how anyone could be happy in the situations they described, childhoods of poverty, with strict rules and ordinances governing every moment, and little time for levity, if at all. But then, the Footsteppers are the minority—most of their friends and family members seem perfectly content to live in the ultra-Orthodox world. And that, too, must be a legitimate point.

People ask me all the time why I maintain an observant lifestyle when no one is looking over my shoulder, and no one cares whether I keep Shabbat or don’t. And for me the answer is simply because being observant makes me happy. I like Shabbat, and I like davening, and I like hanging out with other Jewish people. I recognize that that’s a fairly shallow way of looking at and maintaining a religious life, but I’m not interested in reading Kant or Heidegger to understand my own theology. For me, it’s enough to be happy. I wish I could say that even when God doesn’t make me happy I’ll be on board with the Torah and mitzvoth a hundred percent, but I honestly don’t know. Part of me is embarrassed never to have hated or seriously doubted God, but mostly, I am just relieved.

For a number of reasons I’m friends with a lot of people who are constantly being tormented by crises of faith. There are smart, educated, engaged Jews who are passionate about Judaism most days-- until they find themselves rubbing up against the edges of acceptability within their own communities. Maybe they fall in love with someone who’s not Jewish. Maybe they become frustrated by a closed-minded understanding of Biblical criticism and archeology. Maybe they have a bad experience with a member of the clergy. Maybe chicken parmesan suddenly looks really appealing. Whatever the impetus, the crisis it brings on is intense and frustrating. Men and women who have devoted years of their lives to Jewish study and education, who are active members of a community, who regularly pray, give tzedakah, and are involved in various social justice programs, suddenly lose motivation, and feel alienated and angry. And for a few days, or a few weeks, or months, or years, they distance themselves from everything that they once used to identify themselves. Depending on their background, their families begin to freak out. Some of their friends edge away, suddenly uncomfortable with someone they’ve known for years.
Freak. Out.: It's normal
By all accounts and purposes, I should be one the people having a theological crisis at minimum once a week. The way I live, constantly negotiating between halachic rulings, contemporary moral imperatives, and my own ill-fated desires seems like it should be a religious nightmare in the making. But instead I’m the girl listening to everyone else’s trauma. I’m the one people call in the middle of the night when they’ve just slept with a goy for the first time, and they’re worried about going to Gehinnom. Against all odds, I’m the well balanced one. And because I’ve somehow been cast in this role as frum zen guru, I’ve come up with some tips for people going through a rocky patch with God. So whether you need them for yourself or for a friend I hope they’ll provide a little relief.

1. Don’t abandon your community
Chances are, this crisis is a temporary thing. Though you’re feeling tormented today, by next Wednesday, or a month from now, or next year, you’ll be over it. You might not end up in exactly the same place as you have been, but just in case, it’s important to maintain a connection to your community—whether it’s a synagogue, an indie minyan, a group of friends from camp, or the Jews in your neighborhood. You want to keep these people around for practical reasons (you will, for instance, want their casseroles if someone n your family gets sick, or dies). They will feed and comfort you in times of crisis, and cheer you on when things are going swimmingly. Alienating them will only end up badly. If you really can’t stand to attend services anymore, or you’ve decided that camp ruined your like and you refuse to go back for a reunion, try to do something that keeps you in the loop—even if it means you’re consciously shifting yourself into a less public or involved position. Show up just for Kiddush. Go out to dinner with camp friends. Keep in mind that many of your friends have gone through similar ordeals, and they’re probably willing to be pretty tolerant of whatever you need to do or not do. As long as you don’t bring crab to a Shabbat dinner, there’s no reason you can’t maintain your position in the community.

2. Don’t join another community right away
Hare Krishna is not a good idea. Neither are Jews for Jesus. Having a crisis on Shabbat afternoon and then leaving Saturday night to run off with the circus is probably not going to turn out well. Respect the speed of your own transition, and accept that you may need some space from any kind of theological community for awhile.

3. Don’t use this time to experiment with new substances
Replacing a Judaism habit with a crack habit is probably not going to work out well for you.

4. Consider God
For some reason, most of my friends who struggle with the pulls of halacha and modernity don’t consider their struggles to have much to do with God at all. And that confuses me, because it seems like God is at the center of Judaism, and if I’m having a problem with Judaism it’s because I’m having a problem with either my own or someone else’s interpretation of what God wants. Think about where God fits into your religious life, and think about allowing space for a God that trusts you to live your life the best way you can. Consider that you might let God down without being smited from the face of the earth with a bolt of lightening. Consider how much you care about letting God down—if at all. (I don’t mean this in a pretentious way. I frequently decide that I just can’t do whatever I think God would prefer. And I’m sorry about it, but I accept it, and move on, and hope that next time I’m more up to the challenge). If you don’t believe in God, try and pin down why, and whether or not you still want to be around/involved with people who don’t feel the same way. There’s no reason an atheist can’t be an active member of a Jewish community.

5. Work out
Okay, this is kind of cheesy, but I find that going to the gym makes me feel calmer and more able to deal with my problems no matter what kind of crap is going down in my religious, academic or personal life. If you’re not too intimidated or annoyed by the idea of a yoga class, I highly recommend them. To find a yoga studio near you, try Om Pass.

6. State your needs
I’m big on just asking for what you want instead of beating around the bush. I think it’s highly effective everywhere from the bedroom to the boardroom to the beit midrash. When your theology is falling apart, think about what you want from religion. Do you want a comforting picture of the afterlife? Do you want Jewish culture and no religion whatsoever? Do you want Jewish learning, but no sense of obligation to the commandments? Do you want the advantages of being a member of a tight-knit community? When you can state clearly what you really want from Judaism, and what you don’t want, too, then you can start looking for ways to maintain your identity as a Jew without ignoring the problems that brought you to the edge of your faith.

7. Stop worrying about being a hypocrite
Everyone’s a hypocrite. You need to be honest and dignified with yourself, but it’s completely reasonable to say something along the lines of, “I think halacha is really important, and not something that I’m comfortable disregarding, but I’m all for gay rights, gay marriage, and gay pride.” Accepting that you’re going to struggle with something is a nice way of keeping your head from exploding.

8. Respect your own decisions, and everyone else’s, too
You might decide that you can’t participate in a community because of its position on Israel, homosexuality, social justice, kashrut…whatever. Flaunting your new self in the faces of former friends and acquaintances is a quick and easy way to burn bridges and look like an idiot. Try to be cool with people whose journeys haven’t coincided with yours. If you need to, I recommend spewing hatred into a journal. Harmless, but highly effective.

9. Seriously, chill out
It happens to the best of us.

If you think that a mitzvah is a good deed then you've come to the right blog.

Let's start by addressing common misconceptions:

• A mitzvah is not a good deed.
• A mitzvah is not a commandment.
• A mitzvah is not helping someone.
• There are not 613 mitzvahs or mitzvot.

I'm not saying that a mitzvah isn't related to good deeds, but they are not the same.

So what is it already? A mitzvah is a certain type of transcendent connection that you create when you do some actions (such as good deeds) with the right frame of mind.

Let's take the most basic example:

You're walking outside and a stranger asks you for a handout. You give him a dollar. Did you do a mitzvah? Let's say for the sake of discussion that he uses the money to buy food to stay alive.

Survey says: You definitely did a good deed. But you didn't do a mitzvah!

It's not a mitzvah until you have in mind as you had him the dollar that you're doing a holy act that unites heaven and earth and imitates God as it were.

A person can spend their entire life helping others and never do a mitzvah. If you are doing good things without knowing it, without consciously choosing, it means that you had parents who gave you good habits. It doesn't make you a spiritually-oriented person.

Judaism says that you were put on this planet for a purpose. Actually, you have two purposes, your meta-purpose and your specific purpose. Your meta-purpose is the same as mine, it is the general purpose of human existence. Your specific purpose is the details of how you are going to realize that meta-purpose.

Our meta-purpose is to transcend the auto-pilot and perceive the hand of God in every transaction of Nature and of Man. What makes this constant awareness so hard is that we have these bodies that have physical cravings and distract us from the spiritual awareness. One solution to this problem is to unite body and mind by focusing like a laser on the transcendence of the body's action.

To put it simply, when I do a mitzvah with the proper focus - called kavanah - I am fulfilling my purpose in this life (in at least the general sense).

Now, how many mitzvahs are there? As I mentioned above, if you say 613, then you've come to the right blog to get your head fixed. Before I tell you the actual number, let's clarify one point: regardless of the number, the fact that there are a set number of mitzvahs means that there are x number of channels through which you can connect your physical existence to the Source in order that your existence be meaningful and not a pointless sham.

Each one of those channels is a unique opportunity to give your life transcendent meaning. So, for instance, giving tzeddakah gives you a different connection than not eating meat and cheese together.

But the uniqueness of a mitzvah compared to another mitzvah is only one facet. Another facet is the way you give tzedakah (or any other mitzvah). Your way is different from the way in which I do it. In order for us to bring the world into harmony, the world needs both your expression and mine of that mitzvah. If either of us fails to do a mitzvah, then our collective karma is lacking one connection that it would have otherwise had.

Therefore the true number of mitzvahs is really 613 times the number of Jewish people. Your mitzvahs affect me and mine affect you.

A mitzvah to the soul is like food to the body: it's good for you to do, but how you do it is just as important as what you do.

Below are three videos to compare and contrast. The first is a player piano recording of Scott Joplin himself playing "Maple Leaf Rag". It's undoubtedly a work of genius.

The second is a human being playing the same song. Which is more enjoyable for you to watch?

The third is a different human playing a different fast song.

What do you think? It seems to me that the contrast between these performances compares to doing a mitzvah on auto-pilot versus with all your heart and soul. You can test this: In the next 30 minutes, try to find a mitzvah to do, and do it with the awareness that you are creating a transcendental connection while you do it. Then let us know below on how it went.

I’m creating an SIQ-test. It stands for “Spiritual IQ”. So far, I've only written one question:

What was the greatest impediment to Jewish spirituality in all of history?

A. Idolatry
B. The destruction of the Temple
C. Persecutions
D. False messiahs
E. Economic prosperity
F. None of the above

What do you say? I vote for F, none of the above.

This is because I believe that the greatest stumbling block to Jewish spirituality in all of Jewish history was...

A guy named Michelangelo.

Well, it wasn’t really him as much as something he created: Michelangelo gave us (quite literally!) a cartoon image of God. Do you know what I’m talking about? The Sistine Chapel image of God creating Adam? God is depicted as an old man with a long white beard:

So for the past 500 years we have been saddled with this cartoon image, and the word “God” has become for many associated with the old man and long white beard.

If you think about it, though, didn’t Michelangelo have a point? After all, it says in Genesis that God made Man in His image....So doesn’t that mean that God looks like us?

Well, no.

The God that Jews have always imagined is an Infinite, unknowable...something. I don’t even want to say “being” because the word “being” like any word, begins to define or limit God and we’re talking about something that is non-definable, not finite, a.k.a., infinite.

So, when Moses asks to see God in Exodus 13, God says, “No one can see my face and live” - this limit of human perception is consistent with an Infinite God.

A close reading of Genesis leads to an even deeper idea about God. Genesis describes humanity as made “in the image of God”. So according to the Torah, it is we who have God’s characteristics, not the other way around. Yes, God has a “hand”, but our hand is only an image of that. We don’t know what God’s “hand” looks like because our entire perception is trapped within the framework of this physical realm, and God is transcendent.

Therefore, the only way for us to glimpse what is meant by God’s hand is via some kind of transcendental technique, such as meditation. That’s what Micah and Isaiah and other sages were doing when they glimpsed God. But they weren’t seeing God’s essence, only a spiritual projection that is more subtle than this finite world (which is also a projection) but not God’s true essence, which is likened to seeing God’s face.

In other words, God isn't anthropomophic. We are theomorphic.

I’ll end these holy thoughts with two tools, one practical and one amusing.

The practical tool is a superb on-line test you can take at beliefnet.com to determine your religious affinity. It is remarkably well-designed; someone put a lot of thought into it. Here’s the online test. After you take it, please share your results in the comments section below. My own results were a surprise, which I'll share after a few other people get a chance to comment.

The amusing tool is this video series on youtube – the later episodes are not quite Jewish, but the first one (below) is universal. If you subscribe to my Friday Table Talk blog then you saw this already.

Roll over Michelangelo. The God of the 21st Century wears black-rim frames and sports a goatee.

Tomorrow: What’s a mitzvah and what difference does it make?

God: Is right here waiting for youOkay, I try not to link any one site too often in too short a time span. But John Spalding is on a roll over at Soma Review. He’s found us an amazing Youtube flick that proves—once and for all—the existence and divine genius of God!

Not only that, Kirk Cameron has a cameo…

I know this is totally dumb. I know. And I laughed my ass off.

But... (and you may lose all respect for me when I say this) as dumb as the video is, and as much as I know it isn't "proof" of anything... I have moments when I realize things like this myself. Personal moments, when something very physical and small reminds me that the world can't be an accident. Reminds me that the world fits together too nicely.

Good sex. Hard boiled eggs when you're in a hurry. What salt water does to my hair. Peanut butter and milk. Giving birth. Aloe. Fingernails.

Now, I don't get into debates with atheists, and I don't think one can prove God to anyone else, but I feel it's worth taking a second to admit to this... since I post a lot of sarcastic bits on this site, and this is a chance to cheese out.

The way a banana fits the hand is exactly the kind of thing that makes me believe... in something. As good an argument as anything, when one isn't making an argument out of it.

Call it God, or call it lucky agriculture... either way it makes me think the universe has an order I can believe in.

Anyone have any other dumb confessions for faithhacker? Anyone else ever have a moment of "Wait, THIS can't be just an accident!" Or am I all alone? AThe single Jew who can see a point in the freaky evangelist's dumb proof?

I'm sorry, I'm a plagiarist. But there's just no improving on Troy Patterson's clickable headline:

In Cameron's introductory remarks at the debate—which can be seen at something like its full and numbing length at abcnews.go.com—he coolly claimed that "the existence of God can be proven 100 percent, absolutely without the use of faith." First, I grew excited at this promise, then began to wonder why no theologian, philosopher, or sitcom star in recorded history had done it before—Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Tina Yothers, whoever—and realized I was in for a letdown. Comfort's cadences were not even those of a preacher but of an infomercial host, and the God Squad had but three arguments on behalf of the big guy: All things have makers; the human conscience is evidence of a higher moral power; if you read the Gospel, then Christ will be revealed to you. For reasons too stupid to type, this was not an airtight case, and the atheists made quick work of it in tones of juvenile sarcasm.

I'm too lazy to troll through the ABC News site, so I tried typing "Kirk Cameron" into YouTube and this is what came up. Enjoy. 

Benny Hinn: Is not a religious studies expertI just read this story at the New York Times, about the growing popularity of faith and spirituality on campus... and while that there may be a religion trend right now, and while I'm all for faith and spirituality... 

when I read this bit:

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

I couldn't help thinking, "Whoa!  I think that's a load of crap..."   

I don't mean that kids don't believe in God, I just do NOT believe that 80% of college kids believe in God.  Not really.   Though maybe they think it's kind of neat to be thinking about God, or thinking they might someday want to pray to God.

Think about this... if 80% believe in God, and only 66% pray, why don't the other 14% pray?  Do they HATE God, or do they all belong to some religion I've never heard of where God doesn't want you to pray?

 My gut tells me they answer "yes" to the question because they aren't atheists.  Because they God is a neat idea.  Because they wernt to Sunday School when they were 5.  And because, as we all know, there's a trned... and kids are trendy.  Of course, my reaction is not academic... or based in ANYTHING, really. It's just my reaction, but I'm not sure I'm wrong. 

See, the story goes on to explore the "WHY?" of such numbers.  It mentions a rise in religious studies enrollment, a rise in evangelical attendance at secular schools, and a rise in Christian student groups on campus.   

And that's all true.  But are these very differen types of numbers actually realted to one another directly?  There's more beneath the surface, and what I really want to know is what we're pointing to when we acknowledge this trend.  What are we saying?  It seems pretty general to look at all of this as, "Campus is just more religious."

For instance... What do we think is the nature of claiming an evangelical  religious belief system... or an academic religious interest?  I'm not sure these two things  are related.

In the world today, surrounded by religious evangelical extremism and violence related to that kind of faith, it makes complete sense that secular-ish students are trying to understand religion.  But I don't see what those "religious studies" numbers necessarily have to do with the simultaneous rise in the number of kids attending Campus Crusade for Christ meetings. Faith is a trend right now.  But the kids studying faith in the world, and the kids devoting themselves to worship... do they have to be the same kids?  Do we have to merge these populations in the study of faith?  Do they describe one trend, or several different reactions to a set of events?

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear, and I'm not sure I can divorce my strong reaction from my own personal experiences as a college kid.  But somewhere in my gut, I have to say I think 80% seems awfully high.

Depending on how we're defining "God" of course.  And "pray".  And "believe". 

Do you "believe" in God?  Do you pray? 

I don't, not really, though I'm reaching toward such things. 

But I don't think, as someone "interested in faith and prayer", that  I would answer a survey in the affirmative if I were asked such questions...

Though I'm not 18 and living in a climate, a trend, a "rising tide" of faith.