It is indisputable that a disproportionate amount of secular Jews self identify as atheist or agnostics…

Now, it is undeniable, and Hitchens agrees, that Jews have traditionally been deeply analytical questioners. One has only to study the Talmud (the magnum opus on Jewish law canonized in the fifth century) to recognize this. In fact the entire genre of rabbinic literature is full of questions, arguments and intellectual query…

The Jewish mystics wanted to understand what the Bible meant when it said that God is one. They question how one unified God was able to create a universe so fragmented. The question of why a God would care what humans do (or don’t do) is a question that Jewish mystics prominently ask.

These are questions that atheists also ask. It is fair to say that most Jewish metaphysicians were skeptics at heart. They doubted the simplistic way of understanding the Bible. But their motives for asking these existential questions were different than those of the atheist. For the mystic intellectual inquiry brings a deeper appreciation and understanding of the truth inherent in the words of the Bible. The atheist, conversely, questions in order to disprove. The fundamental quest for truth, however, remains similar.

In my view, many secular Jews become atheists because of a lack of Jewish knowledge… Most contemporary Jews—if they are given a Jewish education—discontinue all formal Jewish education at around age thirteen…

Thus, most secular Jewish adults, at best, have a thirteen year olds concept of how Judaism perceives God… Indeed the concept of God I believed in at age thirteen has little resemblance to what I believe in today after many years of study.