The Jewish Humanist, October, 1978, Vol. XVI, Number 2

The Future of The Birmingham Temple 

The Birmingham Temple is fifteen years old. 

Given the environment in which it grew up, its survival is both amazing and exciting. 

The source of its vital energy lies in two things-the determination and talents of its members-and the sense of mission which the possession of a unique philosophy bestows. 

Without Humanistic Judaism, the Temple would not have been able to recruit the members….who give it its unique character.  And without the need to justify its new philosophy, the congregation would never have been motivated to be creative. 

After fifteen years, The Birmingham Temple has achieved the edge of community respectability. 

It has a home of its own, with an attractive new addition under way.  It has a growing membership which includes some of the brightest young and old people in the community.  It has a large group of student alumni who derive a good part of their childhood memories from the Temple experience.  It has a wide audience of non-members who attend its programs.  It has spawned other congregations which rescue it from isolation and give it the image of a genuine….Jewish alternative. 

The achievements are considerable.  And remembering them for short periods of time is pleasurable and normal. 

But the very nature of Humanistic Judaism prevents us from spending too much time on nostalgia.  We are future oriented.  The accomplishment of yesterday is less important that (sic) the problem of tomorrow. 

What are the problems of tomorrow? 

What new creative answers will we have to come up with? 

There will be the need to deal realistically with the revolution in personal life style. 

The growing world of single people-divorced, widowed and deliberate-can derive no satisfaction from an ethic which finds fulfillment only in family life. 

There will be the need to deal with the aging of the Jewish community.  The decline in the bourgeois birth rate will shift a lot of attention from youth education to creative education for adults. 

There will be the need to communicate effectively with other humanists in our community so that we can cooperate against the increasing aggressiveness of fundamentalist religion. 

There will be the need to share our experience with other Jews in other places, who find Humanistic Judaism significant and want to do what we did. 

Above all, there will be the need to be present-oriented not past-oriented.  At a time when a lot of residual guilt will disappear with a generation of Jews who have no memory of traditional parents and grandparents, new ceremonies and rituals will have to be invented.  The emotional level of religious life will rise from nostalgia to aesthetic fulfillment. 

The next fifteen years will have enough problems to solve so that we will be rescued from boredom and complacency.