JewishGPS

New essay: Oh God! or Oh, God?

After publishing my recent piece on what we mean when we say “secular Jew,” I received a flood of thoughtful responses. What became clear very quickly is that many people were not reacting to a sociological label. They were reacting to a lived tension.

Again and again, people described Jewish lives that are deeply ethical, communal, historically rooted, and emotionally attached, yet routinely flattened into the word secular because they do not believe in God.

In the new essay, I look at:
• why belief has become an informal gatekeeper in modern Jewish life
• how Jewish texts themselves preserve multiple “God languages”
• what my research with Jewish teens revealed about how young people understand Jewish identity
• why wrestling with God might actually be the most Jewish posture of all

If you’ve ever wrestled with the language of belief in Jewish life, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

https://jewishgps.online/2026/03/05/oh-god-or-oh-god/