Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) is best known for his work The Prophets. As a rabbi, he spent his entire life seeking to speak to those who did not know God and to find a way to touch their heart and to lead them gradually, through his writing, teaching, and guiding, to Mount Sinai, and the Torah. He invited his listeners and his readers to wonder. "Awe" he said, "is a sense for the transcendence, for the refererence everywhere to Him who is beyond all things." Here are a few passages from a book of his essays:

Awareness of God is as close to him as the throbbing of his own heart, often deep and calm, but at times overwhelming, intoxicating, setting the soul afire.

In adding the creature, (man) is helping the Creator. In succoring the poor, he is taking care of something that concerns God. In admiring the good, he is revering the Spirit of God.

This, perhaps, is the secret of our history: to choose to remain in the wilderness rather than to be abandoned by him.

The Bible is a record of God's approach to His people.

To believe is to remember, not merely to accept the truth of a set of dogmas.

We have abdicated our role as fathers. Every father's dream is to be a "regular guy" rather than the bearer of a tradition. We have surrendered our responsibility to shape the inner life of our children to others.

What does it mean to be a Hasid? To be a Hasid is to be in love, to be in love with God and with what God has created. Once you are in love you are a different human being. Do you criticize a person you are in love with? The Haidim are in love with God. Even, strangely enough, in love with the world. The history of Hasidism is a history of being in love with God's story.

The human being is uniquely graced with the ability to search the soul and reflect. for what purpose am I alive? Does my life have a meaning, a reason? Is there a need for my existence? Will anything on earth be impaired by my disappearance? Would my absence create a vacuum in the world? And if we say that there owuld be a void and an impairment in the world, and that this means that my life has value beyond its simple existence, is it incumbent upon me to fulfill a purpose in this life? Do I exist that I might build or restore?

Notes from Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, essays Abraham Joshua Heschel and edited by his daughter, Susannah Heschel