What Happens to Secular Jews?
Question
I am a Jew raised conservative in the New York City area. I recently took a job in the Dallas Texas metroplex which has a population of about 8 million people and consist of approximately 50,000 Jews. Most of my neighbors work colleagues and now friends are devout Southern Baptist. As soon as they find out that I am Jewish, They tell me that until I accept Jesus as the my lord and savior who died on the cross for my sins, I am going to hell. I then give them all the typical Jewish responses for example. We Jews don’t even believe in hell. But it really bothers me that these people who say they love me are Condemning me to a place which they believe is a place of terrible suffering for eternity. What should I say to them? I really don’t want to just abandon all of them. My second question is. I am a secular Jew like about 90% of the 15 million Jews on earth. I am not Torah observant. How do I get right with God and request forgiveness if I have no intention to follow any of the Torah commandments or laws? When I die. This is the Jewish rabbinical thought that I will go to Gehenna or some sort of purgatory place for proximately 11 months and then I will go to heaven is that where I am distant when I die?
Answers
Firstly, please accept my Bracha that you are successful in all your endeavors in Dallas!
Personally, I don’t think that what they are telling you actually warrants any reaction whatsoever. They are free to believe whatever they want and they can choose to worship however they want. As a Jew their belief system has no bearing on you and, whilst their concern is touching, please do not make the mistake of imagining that their concern is personal, that they are only worried for your spiritual wellbeing. Rather, their concern is really for their church and furthering their agenda in this world and you are simply another potential statistic for them. More than that, they are imposing their beliefs on you which – they would be horrified to hear – is an immeasurable chutzpah. As with so many religions around the world, if they would only feel comfortable within their own belief system they wouldn’t have a pressing need to missionize.
In all events, my feeling is that you should just let them continuing imagining that you are going to hell for eternity and not bother with trying to teach them about Jewish theology. On top of everything, it is my personal experience that Christian missionizers and “do-gooders” do not want to be distracted by the facts.
With regards to your second question about what happens to secular Jews, when the time comes for each person to be judged, Hashem takes every single detail into account. That means that a person who is struggling because of all kinds of internal and external factors will not be judged in the same way as someone who sinned because they didn’t care enough to Hashem’s Will. Someone who does not do Hashem’s Will because they are rebelling against Him will be judged differently to someone who does not know what they are supposed to be doing. Subsequently, that can lead to two people being judged for doing exactly the same sin and, due to their individual circumstances, the final judgement will be completely different for both of them. What is true, however, is that a secular Jew will be faced with the question of why they didn’t investigate their heritage (either at all, or more than they did). That is a question that will be painfully impossible to answer.
Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team