Quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel

We do not lealve the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions, We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore.

The plea is not to obey what He wills but to do what He is.

There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.

He is in need of the work of man for the fulfillment of His ends in the world.

The mystic experience is man's turning toward God; the prophetic act is God's turning toward man. The former is first of all an event in the life of man, contingent on the aspiration and initiative of man; the latter is first of all an event in the life of God, contingent on the pathos and initiative of God. From the mystic experience we may gain an insight of man into the life of God; from the prophetic act we learn of an insight of God into the life of man.

Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father who is in heaven.

The prophets make us partners of an existence meant for us. What was revealed to them was not for their sake but intended to inspire us. The word must not freeze into habit; it must remain an event. To disregard the importance of continuous understanding is an evasion of the living challenge of the prophets, an escape from the urgency of responsible experience of every man, a denial of the deeper meaning of "the oral Torah.

To the religious man it is as if things stood with their backs to him, their faces turned to God, as if the glory of things consisted in their being an object of divine care.

The central commandment is in relation to the person. But religion today has lost sight of the person. Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment. It has fallen victim to the belief that the real is only that which is capable of being registered by fact-finding surveys.

Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers. NOTES 1 Portions of this section are based on Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951).

There are five incomplete phenomena (or unripe fruits). The incomplete experience of death is sleep; an incomplete form of prophecy is dream; the incomplete form of the world to come is the Sabbath; the incomplete form of the heavenly light is the orb of the sun; the incomplete form of heavenly wisdom is the Torah.

Religion is an answer to man's ultimate questions. The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion becomes irrelevant, and its crisis sets in.

the wise.5 This view had been the fundamental feature of his image of the world and the basis of his conduct in life. It justified the structure of his economic existence. He could permit his livelihood to be assured by his brother's strenuous and dangerous work, so that Maimonides could devote himself to realizing his plans in peace and quiet. This view also had a place in his self-confidence and probably aroused a certain awareness of the relationship of providence to his own life.

That equality is a good thing, a fine goal, may be generally accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality .

The ultimate concept in Greek philosophy is the idea of cosmos, of order; the first teaching in the Bible is the idea of creation. Translated into eternal principles, cosmos means fate, while creation means freedom. The essential meaning of creation is not the idea that the universe was created at a particular moment in time. The essential meaning of creation is, as Maimonides explained, the idea that the universe did not come about by necessity but as a result of freedom.

So far, Maimonides had penned all his writings and letters in the Arabic which the Jews in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Persia were using at that time. However, like nearly all Jewish–Arabic authors, he employed the Hebrew alphabet.

is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.

The self-control of passion, the reshaping of his image of the world, the elimination of the sense of merit, the change of language, the effect of his profession on the structure of his life, all hint at the depth of this crisis.

Conceptual thinking is adequate when we are engaged in an effort to enhance our knowledge about the world. Situational thinking is necessary when we are engaged in an effort to understand issues on which we stake our very existence.

To understand the problem we must explore the situation.

Unless we are involved, the problem is not present.

There are three starting points of contemplation about God; three trails that lead to Him. The first is the way of sensing the presence of God in the world, in things;9 the second is the way of sensing His presence in the Bible; the third is the way of sensing His presence in sacred deeds.

Philosophers do not expend their power and passion unless they themselves are affected. The soul only communes with itself when the heart is stirred.

These three ways correspond in our tradition to the main aspects of religious existence: worship, learning, and action. The three are one, and we must go all three ways to reach the one destination. For this is what Israel discovered: the God of nature is the God of history, and the way to know Him is to do His will. To