Reconstructionist and Secular Judaism

I've always been confused as to what Reconstructionist and Secular Judaism is. It has made me question it's legitamacy, mainly because I was only so familiar with Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism. Reconstructionism and Secularism take Judaism in a different direction, but that's not necessarily a bad thing at all. These two other denominations help bring out other aspects of Judaism that the first three don't capitalize on as much.

Secularism stresses freedom over commandments and they share this belief throughout the majority of Jews in Israel as well as around the world. Secular Jews beleive in more humanistic values and give a more pluralistic and historical approach the concept of Judaism as a culture. The explanation on the belief of God is a little confusing here. Secular Judaism refers to God a s a "literary hero" who functions in the collective reality and history of Judaism. It doens't really explain so much about God being an authoritative force from above, but it did mention, that he was there throughout all of history (Malkin, 2). However, Malkin notes that Secular humanist Jews live according to their beliefs and judge themselves and others by human values that constitute these beleifs. They may not directly believe in God, but rather they believe that man and woman created God, with the aknowledgement that God is central to the Bible. The Jewish humanists believe that these values of humanism are compatible with what they see is Judaism. They believe their freedom of choice for themselves helps them realize their Jewishness (Malkin, 3).

Reconstructionist Judaism is seen as the product of the collective experience of the Jewish people. It also teaches that Judaism is not just a religion, but a culture, and that without anything that Jewish or Israeli culture provides (such as Hebrew, Jewish literature, history, dance, music and visual arts), it wouldn't be able to survive (Kaplan, 1). The Jewish cultural values make us aware of our belonging to the Jewish people as well as the Jewish and Israeli community, and through that Kaplan considers the Jewish community in Israel central to Jewish life because of it's cultures in the country. Judaism wouldn't be Judaism today without it.

These two denominations focus on something very important: culture. Believing in God isn't always a center staple for practicing Judaism. A lot of it comes from the culture of Judaism itself. So long as the value of Jewish culture is kept to be cherished like it always has, Judaism as a whole, will keep on living a good and long life.