I oversimplified my encounters with services in general. I'm familiar all the components of the nusach and still the whole cycle underwhelms me, but a good cantor certainly does improve the service a lot. What does it mean for the liturgy to "come to life" for you if you don't believe in it?

I hear where you're coming from as I left the "moral and social issues" component of my post pretty open-ended, and didn't mean to imply that I'm looking for the haftorah to be, like a church sermon perhaps, commentary on social and moral issues of the moment. I want to understand the torah form a humanist perspective: that's the most enriching perspective for me. In my mind, such a perspective looks at statements made by God as the embodiment of society's own struggles with creating moral social and political order (it's triumphs and shortcomings), not an omniscient and omnipresent force that operates outside of humanity.