"It is easy to be an atheist, a skeptic. My hope is that students will dare to be emotionally honest, instead of falling into an easy blase attitude...The most individualistic thing to do on the Harvard campus now would be to become a religious man."

This challenge was issued by Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, Associate Director of the Harvard B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation. He was thinking specifically of the mass of "non-committed" undergraduates who call themselves Jews because of Jewish birth, but who identify with neither their Judaic heritage, nor active religion.

Among those who indicated on the questionnaire that their background was Judaic, only 35 per cent would concede that they "professed Judaism as a religion, agreeing wholly or substantially with its beliefs and traditions." Forty per cent considered themselves Jewish because they were either "born of parents who considered themselves Jewish, even though you have discarded Jewish ideas," or "have interest in certain cultural features common to Jewish tradition." Significantly, no one reached by the survey stated that he completely rejected his Judaism, although one admitted that he was a "Jewish atheist." In total 42 per cent of the Jews polled did not believe in a "one-person God."

While over a quarter of the students at Harvard College are in some way identified with Judaism, only a tenth of them are members of Hillel. The others hold a wide variety of political and religious views, according to the questionnaire, and a large number indicated that their ideas were still in a state of flux. Some of their answers indicated a confusion, or at least a transition in many attitudes towards religion.

A case in point was the question, "I regard active connection with a synagogue as essential to my religious life." Many of those who replied in the affirmative were among the least frequent participants in synagogue activities. Significantly, the Orthodox Jews, whose religion is woven inextricably with daily life, indicated less than 15 per cent affirmative. Among Conservative Jews over 20 per cent regarded synagogue connection as essential, while Reform Jews showed the highest number affirmative, 30 per cent.

But the figures on actual attendance at services reveal that professed need for synagogue membership does not entail participation. Among the Orthodox who were polled about a third attend services weekly, or twice a month; the Conservatives' figures show that about 85 per cent attend synagogue no more than "several times a year," while among the Reform Jews the figure is over 90 per cent.

Rabbi Gold was somewhat disturbed by this "flirtation with commitment." "I do not favor the lack of earnestness indicated by casually picking and choosing ideas rather than determined searching." This searching--academic wanderings among new and different philosophies--is not eschewed by traditional Judaism; in fact, the pursuit of knowledge is revered as in perhaps no other religion.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,

And the man that obtaineth understanding....

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace.

She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her,

And happy is every one that holdeth her fast. (Proverbs 3:13-18)

"We should not stop at potentially dangerous ideas," stated Rabbi Maurice L. Zigmond, Director of Harvard Hillel. "We must study all the facts, for learning is basic, and learning gives the possibility of choice." Is it too optimistic to believe that such open inquiry will lead the Jew closer to Judaism? Zigmond says that he is not worried about Jews merely flirting with commitment "because there will be commitment at some time or another."

Very nearly two-thirds of the Orthodox, as well as Conservative and Reform Jews, indicated that there had been a period in which they reacted either partially or wholly against their religious tradition. However, in over half the instances, the reaction occurred during secondary school, rather than in college, as might be expected.

The University community, the curriculum, and the teaching attitudes offer a distinctly Christian tradition. Rabbi Gold maintains, though, that the prevailing faith, not only in American universities, but in Western civilization, is not even Judeo-Christian, but Greco-Christian. How does the Jewish student, with only a poor knowledge of his own faith, fare when he meets such foreign and challenging philosophies for the first time?