Secular Spirituality: Passionate Journey to a Rational Judaism

More than half the people in the Western world lead non-- religious, secular lives. And many of these non-- religious people are seeking spirituality. Can you have spirituality without being religious? Can you have spirituality and still be rational? Is there an ethical dimension to spirituality? Do beauty and the arts fit into spirituality? Are science and spirituality in conflict? Can we learn from the mysticism of the past? Do Zionism and Israel have a spiritual dimension? Is spiritual the best word we can find for the experience? Can secular spirituality enrich my life? The International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism's 2001 conference explored the relevance of secular spirituality, its roots, progression over time, and expression in the arts, literature and science. This volume offers the collected proceedings of the conference. Included are presentations by noted author Andre Aciman; Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of the Humanistic Judaism movement; Yaakov Malkin, founder of the first Jewish community center in Israel, and other scholars.