The motivation for religious behavior among Jews of different religious identities

The present study examined the content and structure of self-reported motivation for Jewish religious behavior - combining qualitative-phenomenological and quantitative-empirical approaches. Initial items were generated from comprehensive and detailed responses to a semi-structured interview and an open-ended questionnaire - administered to 44 interviewees. Based on this procedure, two parallel sets of 111 items were produced, and principal component factor analysis with orthogonal rotation was carried-out on the responses of a sample of 323 participants. The factor structures for each of these sets of items were highly similar to each other and consisted of the following five reliable factors: belief in a divine order, Jewish ethnic identity social activity, family activity, and upbringing. These factors appear to reflect the manner in which religious behavior can contribute to the satisfaction of a number of general human motives. Religious people attribute religious behaviors to their belief in a divine order; secular people seek a framework for family activity, and traditional people exercise religious behaviors to preserve a wider social framework related to Jewish ethnic identity and upbringing. These findings may partially explain the apparent anomaly of the performance of religious ritual by persons who identify themselves as secular.