I know that the mention of the word “tribal” is politically incorrect today. Reference to inherited belonging based on genetics is sometimes considered demeaning. However, in a world when so many traits have become commodities to be bought and sold at whim and where “virtual” defines so many experiences from Viagra-induced romance to wars conducted at internet play stations – "tribal" is an enviable attribute. Moreover, although originally only a tribal religion, Judaism has moved through periods of henotheism (My god is better than your god, just like my army is bigger than yours.) and metaphysical monotheism (Only my God exists, damn you!). Modern secularity rode to the rescue of Jewish identity, thus preserving it from a fate similar to the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian religions that vanished when their kingdoms were conquered.

As explained to me by Dr. Barry Kosmin, who directs a Hartford based institute on secularism, Jews believe that they have received a code of behavior to live by. They are relatively free to explain how their law was shaped, whether by divine revelation, historical process, or a combination of both. They don’t even have to believe in God to believe in practice of this law. These points were confirmed by my Jewish students at Brooklyn College.

Although this law is essential for Jews, Dr. Kosmin explained that it ought not be interpreted as a put-down of other religions. The tribalness of Jewish identity provides insulation from fanaticism. Rather than live by rote repetition of authoritarian impositions, most Jews today practice their religion by a set of freely chosen options. Their law and practices are meant for them, and are not binding on other religions. This secularizing principle allows Jews to be fervent in personal practice of their own faith but agnostic towards all others. Their religion was correctly categorized by Isaiah as a “light to the Gentiles,” but without the obligation of conforming all others to their faith.

In some ways, American Jews today resemble their medieval Spanish counterparts when that community was a model for the world. Thus enlightened, the Jewish faith is not burdened with the Christian notion that “Outside the Church there is no salvation;” or that only baptized Christians go to heaven. I think that is why few if any Jews try to convert Gentiles. In fact, Paul the Apostle is often better understood by Jewish scholars of 1st century CE theology (e.g. Alan Segal) than by some Christian thinkers, precisely on this account.

To the extent that secularism is different from militant atheism, this agnostic side of Judaism in America makes it the very model of a modern religion. Agnosticism, after all, has a live-and-let-live mentality because it does not rise or fall on the metaphysical certainty of its own infallibility. Militant Atheists, on the other hand, are logically bound to consider all believers to be some combination of stupid or ignorant or devious – a classic expression of the flaws in modernity as understood by a two hundred years old Eurocentric Enlightenment.

While Jews can be united by the premise of doing no harm to others, I think they also seek to add passion to the mix. Popular religiosity among Jews brings the faith alive for its practitioners. For several years, I was part of several discussions sponsored by the Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinas/os (PARAL) between Jewish and Latina scholars. The sociologists, Ariela Keysar and Ana María Díaz-Stevens of Union Theological Seminary, were just two of these women who approached matters with a keen sense of religious conviction to illuminate their sociological method. Their salient conclusions focused on the home-based nature of religious observance. The role of the woman in the household is crucial for both identity and continuity, said both sides. The preparation of festival meals, for instance, is often a more important dimension of Passover (or Easter) than attendance at temple (or church) services. And food is only one of several key notions of popular religiosity: celebration of the birth and naming of children; weddings and wedding ceremonies; funerals and grieving for the departed, are other rites of passage that maintain religious identity outside the formal institutions of religion. In fact, it has been argued in the essay, "The Matriarchal Core" by Prof. Díaz-Stevens that the less people go to church or synagogue, the more important become these home-based expressions of religiosity.

Informed by so many notable scholars of religion, I rest confident on the future of American Judaism.