5 Perplexing Things About Secular Orthodoxy
The arrival of Passover brings about the need to outline the guiding principles of what was – and may still be – the largest Jewish denomination in Israel: orthodox secularism.
This comes in spite of the fact that over the years this denomination hasn’t bothered others (and for the most part not even its own) with its Jewish laws and worldviews, because it considered them self-evident to any secular Israeli. This community hasn’t created a formal doctrine or Shulhan Arukh (a 16th century codification of Jewish law that is the traditional source for Jewish religious practice).
Today, the dual challenges facing orthodox secularism – a strengthening traditionalism on the one side; a Jewish revival on the other – are forcing it to do something it has no desire to do, especially with the crowds, humidity and general sense of Passover unease: explain itself.
Not everyone understands why secular people insist on circumcision and a bar mitzvah ceremony without believing in God; why they accept shopping malls closing on Shabbat but make a fuss every time a Chabadnik tried to convince them to lay tefillin at the entrance to one; why they read the Haggadah but fill the freezer with rolls and pita bread. In light of demographic and cultural changes, what used to be intuitive is now beginning to look like a series of internal contradictions. So what is the place of religion in the Israeli secular narrative?
http://forward.com/opinion/369159/5-perplexing-things-about-secular-orthodoxy/
