GOD
The concept of God has occupied Jewish thought for millennia. From the biblical narratives to the Talmud, from the philosophical writings of Maimonides and Spinoza to the reconstructionist theology of Mordecai Kaplan, Jewish thinkers have continually wrestled with what God means and how the divine relates to human life. At HJUK, we see ourselves as part of that long and living conversation.
What is striking about this tradition is how much it has changed over time. The God described in the stories of the patriarchs looks quite different from the God proclaimed by the prophets, and both differ considerably from the abstract, philosophical God of medieval Jewish rationalism. Add to this the contributions of modern feminist theology, which has challenged deeply embedded assumptions about gender and divine imagery, and it becomes clear that there is no single, settled Jewish understanding of God — there never has been.
New theological ideas have rarely been welcomed without resistance. Spinoza was excommunicated for views that many Jewish thinkers today consider profound and even foundational. Time and again, what one generation condemned as heresy, a later generation embraced as insight. The result is a Jewish theological landscape that is genuinely pluralistic — sometimes beautifully so, sometimes uncomfortably so.
Importantly, Jewish identity has never been defined by adherence to a particular set of beliefs. The traditional definition of who is a Jew centres on lineage and practice, not on doctrine. There is no Jewish creed that one must sign. This has always left considerable room for individuals to work out their own relationship with the concept of God, and that freedom remains central to how we understand Jewish life at HJUK.
Some people assume that because HJUK does not use conventional prayer, we must be an atheist community. This is a misreading of who we are. Our approach is humanistic — meaning that we place human reason, responsibility, and experience at the heart of our values — but this does not rule out belief in God. What it does rule out is a particular kind of God: one who overrides the laws of nature, intervenes in human affairs, rewards and punishes, or issues commands from beyond. A God conceived in that way sits uneasily with a worldview grounded in scientific understanding and human accountability.
There are, however, many other ways of thinking about God that fit quite naturally within a humanistic framework. A number of our members hold a genuine sense of the divine — understood perhaps as the ground of existence, as the force behind meaning and connection, or simply as something that resists easy definition but feels real nonetheless. What unites these views is that they do not place final authority outside of human beings, and they do not ask us to suspend our reason or ignore what we know about how the world works.
Others among us find that the word God does not speak to their experience at all, and they are equally at home here. For them, Jewish identity is rooted not in theology but in history, community, culture, and shared ethical commitments.
At HJUK, neither group is more authentically Jewish than the other. What we share is a commitment to thinking honestly — about ourselves, about our world, and about the questions that have animated Jewish life across the centuries. Our services and liturgy are shaped by that commitment. They are designed not to hand answers down, but to create space for genuine reflection.
This means that God is very much a live topic at HJUK — discussed, questioned, and approached from many angles. We believe that open inquiry is not a threat to faith or to Jewish identity; it is an expression of the best of our tradition. The goal is not consensus on what to believe, but a shared willingness to keep asking, and to do so together as a Jewish community.