As Rosh Hashanah nears, a rabbi invites Jewish skeptics to ‘Pretend You Believe’

(RNS) — Rabbi Noa Kushner has written a provocative new book for Jewish skeptics. It’s called “Pretend You Believe: How to Enter Religion.” In it, she asks readers to go on a thought experiment: Engage with God like you would a character in a novel. See where it leads.

Kushner is a San Francisco rabbi and the founder of an innovative synagogue called The Kitchen . She grew up in an observant family, and her father, Lawrence, is also a rabbi. But she wrote this book for the many people she has encountered who want religious belonging but confess they are “secular,” “atheist” or “culturally Jewish.”

Rabbi Kushner’s new book comes out in October. But RNS invited her to talk about it ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, which begin Friday (Sept. 11). That’s a time when many Jews reflect on their relationship to their faith and to God.

Yonat Shimron: Rabbi Kushner, welcome. I’m so glad to meet you.

It sounds like a big part of your life as a rabbi is attending to people who want or need a rabbi at some point in their life, but they’re not really religious. Your advice to them is kind of counterintuitive: Don’t worry about belief in God, start doing religious…