Question:

Is Judaism an all-or-nothing deal?

I can't see myself becoming religious, but I’m starting to incorporate Jewish spirituality into my life. Is there a grey area between being totally religious and totally secular?

Answer:

Welcome to the grey area of Jewish souls. There are people who attend services every week but don't consider themselves religious, and there are people who are no longer on speaking terms with G-d, but would cringe at being called secular.

The religious/secular divide is foreign to Judaism. In fact, ancient Hebrew had no words to describe someone as either "religious" or "secular."

Rather than boxing people into religious or secular, Judaism has two other categories: those growing spiritually, and those who don't. We are either souls alive, or souls asleep.

More important than how high you have reached is how far you have moved. You'd be surprised; someone who may look holy could actually stagnate in this struggle, and someone you thought was “secular” is in fact a spiritual hero.

One person may pray every day, while another prays only once a week. But the first prayed every day all his life, while the second never prayed before at all. One is just treading water and one has taken a step forward. Who is achieving more?

It is pointless to compare one person's spiritual level to someone else's. We should rather compare our own spiritual level today to what we were yesterday.

Regardless of how often we pray, we each have to ask ourselves: Compared to this time last year, am I a more refined, more sensitive, more spiritually aware person? Am I on the way up in my soul development, on the way down, or just flat? What is my next challenge, my next step to becoming more refined?

Forget about becoming religious. Just come alive, climbing upwards in that shifting grey area, where my today is higher than my yesterday, and tomorrow will be even better.

Envision two people on different steps on a ladder. Who is higher?

Answer: It all depends on who is going up or down.