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Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays
Heschel's career as a scholar, author, activist, and theologian spanned nearly 40 years and involved him deeply in crucial world issues from the Holocaust to Vietnam to the Civil Rights Movement. This collection of 40 of his essays, edited by his daughter Susannah Heschel, touch on the necessity of bridging duty to God with duty to one's fellow humans. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
428 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1996
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About the author
Abraham Joshua Heschel
77 books623 followersHeschel was a descendant of preeminent rabbinic families of Europe, both on his father's (Moshe Mordechai Heschel, who died of influenza in 1916) and mother's (Reizel Perlow Heschel) side, and a descendant of Rebbe Avrohom Yehoshua Heshl of Apt and other dynasties. He was the youngest of six children including his siblings: Sarah, Dvora Miriam, Esther Sima, Gittel, and Jacob. In his teens he received a traditional yeshiva education, and obtained traditional semicha, rabbinical ordination. He then studied at the University of Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate, and at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, where he earned a second liberal rabbinic ordination.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 7, 2014
A very fine collection of Abraham Joshua Heschel's essays, reflecting on what is vital worship, the function and practice of prayer, considering religious authority and human purpose, and attending to peace and civil rights. Strongly recommended for those interested in theology and ethics, whether one ends up agreeing with Heschel or not, the reader is always drawn into deeper theological and ethical consideration.
December 5, 2018
Two themes: pondering the mystery of existence, and sharing in God’s mission.
July 30, 2022
I read this book when it was published and I loved it. It is one of the three or four books that deeply impacted and expanded my appreciation of my religion. Adding it to my Goodreads books reminds me to read parts of it again.
January 28, 2009
This is such a powerful series of essays on the religious life. I can't believe I waited this long to read it! I'm going to take my time and savor it. I would recommend it for every minister's library -- it's hugely inspiring, brilliant stuff.
March 6, 2021
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the great 20th century Jewish theologians. Beloved by Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements alike, antiwar activist and pursuer of social justice and racial equality (he marched in Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King), Heschel was something of a brilliant enigma.
Decades ago I had read Heschel's brilliant and groundbreaking theological works "God In Search of Man" and "Man is Not Alone" and was enthralled by his call for awe and radical amazement in the face of the miracle that is life.
This collection of essays contains some of his extraordinary turns of phrase but deals less with theology than practical issues of Jewish existence, practice and ritual. Despite the more mundane nature of the work, there are moments of transcendence in the pages. The essays were compiled by Heschel's daughter Susannah and in the introduction she describes her father as "a unique combination of a Hasidic voice of compassion and mercy, always seeing the goodness in other people, and a prophetic voice of justice, denouncing hypocrisy, self-centeredness, and indifference."
In these pages we see both. In a letter to President John F. Kennedy in June of 1963, he decried the lack of civil rights and justice for the African-American community and called for an urgent national response. "The hour calls for high moral grandeur and spiritual audacity," he said. This was the thundering voice of the prophet seeking justice for all those created in G-d's image.
He believed in the power of words, reminding the world that "the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria, and Hitler did not come to power with tanks and guns; it all began with uttering evil words, with defamation, with language and propaganda." A lesson we need to hear today.
But he was also a religious man of action including protesting the Vietnam war and marching with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma ("I felt my legs were praying", he said after the march).
Heschel had a remarkable way with words - words that inspire, words that make us dream for better, words that make us appreciate the miracle that is life and words both of humility and aspiration.
"In the realm of character, in the depth of the soul, in groping for a way out of a creeping sense of futility," he said, "in moments of being alone and taking account of our lives, we are all indigent and in need of assistance."
In talking of morality and living a moral life he commented that "To be or not to be is not the question. Of course, we are all anxious to be. How to be and how not to be is the question." And again, "fortunate is the person who sees with eyes and heart together." Perhaps he summed up his moral philosophy best in saying "The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets, the more powerfully it became clear to me what the lives of the prophets sought to convey: that morally speaking there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings."
In his compassionate Hasidic masters voice he also said, "what is the difference between lighting a fire and putting on the fur? When the fire is lit, I am warm and others are warm as well; when I wrap myself in fur, it is only I who am warm." And this, "There is no truth without humility, no certainty without contrition."
There are many other remarkable, beautiful and deeply insightful thoughts in this collection of his essays including much of his writing on interfaith cooperation and bridgebuilding. The nuggets make it worth reading. However, for those not steeped in Heschel's life or scholarship, there are also large stretches that I think will be less compelling. His writing can be arcane and difficult to decipher at times and for that reason, I wouldn't recommend this collection for the casual reader.
Decades ago I had read Heschel's brilliant and groundbreaking theological works "God In Search of Man" and "Man is Not Alone" and was enthralled by his call for awe and radical amazement in the face of the miracle that is life.
This collection of essays contains some of his extraordinary turns of phrase but deals less with theology than practical issues of Jewish existence, practice and ritual. Despite the more mundane nature of the work, there are moments of transcendence in the pages. The essays were compiled by Heschel's daughter Susannah and in the introduction she describes her father as "a unique combination of a Hasidic voice of compassion and mercy, always seeing the goodness in other people, and a prophetic voice of justice, denouncing hypocrisy, self-centeredness, and indifference."
In these pages we see both. In a letter to President John F. Kennedy in June of 1963, he decried the lack of civil rights and justice for the African-American community and called for an urgent national response. "The hour calls for high moral grandeur and spiritual audacity," he said. This was the thundering voice of the prophet seeking justice for all those created in G-d's image.
He believed in the power of words, reminding the world that "the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria, and Hitler did not come to power with tanks and guns; it all began with uttering evil words, with defamation, with language and propaganda." A lesson we need to hear today.
But he was also a religious man of action including protesting the Vietnam war and marching with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma ("I felt my legs were praying", he said after the march).
Heschel had a remarkable way with words - words that inspire, words that make us dream for better, words that make us appreciate the miracle that is life and words both of humility and aspiration.
"In the realm of character, in the depth of the soul, in groping for a way out of a creeping sense of futility," he said, "in moments of being alone and taking account of our lives, we are all indigent and in need of assistance."
In talking of morality and living a moral life he commented that "To be or not to be is not the question. Of course, we are all anxious to be. How to be and how not to be is the question." And again, "fortunate is the person who sees with eyes and heart together." Perhaps he summed up his moral philosophy best in saying "The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets, the more powerfully it became clear to me what the lives of the prophets sought to convey: that morally speaking there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings."
In his compassionate Hasidic masters voice he also said, "what is the difference between lighting a fire and putting on the fur? When the fire is lit, I am warm and others are warm as well; when I wrap myself in fur, it is only I who am warm." And this, "There is no truth without humility, no certainty without contrition."
There are many other remarkable, beautiful and deeply insightful thoughts in this collection of his essays including much of his writing on interfaith cooperation and bridgebuilding. The nuggets make it worth reading. However, for those not steeped in Heschel's life or scholarship, there are also large stretches that I think will be less compelling. His writing can be arcane and difficult to decipher at times and for that reason, I wouldn't recommend this collection for the casual reader.
September 30, 2023
One of the great spiritual and relgiious minds of his (and our) time. This publication of essays explores the intersection between faith and ethics, with the two groupings of essays at the beginning and the end (Existence and Celebration and The Holy Dimension respectively) forming a bookend with a strong emphasis on the nature of the transcendent, and in particular the convictions he holds as an orthodox Jewish mystic.
I loved the way he fleshes out the distinction between his faith in God and his faith in the story of Israel, something that flows outwars into the practical nature of his continued reflections on good, evil, humanity, creation, modernity, antiquity.. Even more pertinent is the way he formulates a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, drawing out their indebtedness to each other. He has a way of speaking directly and honestly with conviction without isolating, and I think that is a testiment to how this man of God entered the deeply cut and sharp divides of the world he occupied, a world that doesn't look all that different from our own.
At one point he writes that, "the major religious problem today is the systematic liquidation of man's sensivity to the challenge of God." By which he means, the more we reduce the challenge of God to the answers of modernity, the more we reduce ourselves. Or in true Jewish form, we reduce "humanity" to the answers of modernity, thus closing ourselves off to the necessary mystery that leaves us open to knowledge and, indeed, life. These things remain insperable. "The most radical question we face does not really concern God but man... The world we live in has become a single neighborhood, an the role of religious commitment, of reverence and compassion, in the thinking of our fellow man is becoming a domestic issue." The context of this sentiment is a reflection on the once isolation of the story of Israel to its own failures and its own continued call to faithfulness being set within a world that modernity has now made small. If the point of Israel's story in antiquity was to be a people for the world, a people through whom God who remake a fallen world in His own image, the point of Israel's story today is to be part of this remade world bearing witness with the whole to the truth that God is doing what He promised to do. What's so curious about this statement is that he begins with the Jewish-Christian relations. What better vision to bring these two stories into harmony across the differences. For Heschel, if such a truth is to be bound to an orthodox faith, it is to be bound to such a faith by way of the prophetic Tradition, one built on entering into the everyday workings of society and speaking words of imminence regarding a way of life commited to matters of justice. Here we find the intersection between the truth of transcenence and the necessity of earthly matters. For a Jewish perspective, eternity is a truth that formulates itself in the here and now, informing a kind of reality rather than linear projections based on beginnings and endings. "The Philosophy of Jewish living is essentially a philosphy of worship... our greatest problem is not how to continue but how to return." A poignant word that ends with this proclomation- "This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the threads of temporality into the fabric of eternity."
I loved the way he fleshes out the distinction between his faith in God and his faith in the story of Israel, something that flows outwars into the practical nature of his continued reflections on good, evil, humanity, creation, modernity, antiquity.. Even more pertinent is the way he formulates a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, drawing out their indebtedness to each other. He has a way of speaking directly and honestly with conviction without isolating, and I think that is a testiment to how this man of God entered the deeply cut and sharp divides of the world he occupied, a world that doesn't look all that different from our own.
At one point he writes that, "the major religious problem today is the systematic liquidation of man's sensivity to the challenge of God." By which he means, the more we reduce the challenge of God to the answers of modernity, the more we reduce ourselves. Or in true Jewish form, we reduce "humanity" to the answers of modernity, thus closing ourselves off to the necessary mystery that leaves us open to knowledge and, indeed, life. These things remain insperable. "The most radical question we face does not really concern God but man... The world we live in has become a single neighborhood, an the role of religious commitment, of reverence and compassion, in the thinking of our fellow man is becoming a domestic issue." The context of this sentiment is a reflection on the once isolation of the story of Israel to its own failures and its own continued call to faithfulness being set within a world that modernity has now made small. If the point of Israel's story in antiquity was to be a people for the world, a people through whom God who remake a fallen world in His own image, the point of Israel's story today is to be part of this remade world bearing witness with the whole to the truth that God is doing what He promised to do. What's so curious about this statement is that he begins with the Jewish-Christian relations. What better vision to bring these two stories into harmony across the differences. For Heschel, if such a truth is to be bound to an orthodox faith, it is to be bound to such a faith by way of the prophetic Tradition, one built on entering into the everyday workings of society and speaking words of imminence regarding a way of life commited to matters of justice. Here we find the intersection between the truth of transcenence and the necessity of earthly matters. For a Jewish perspective, eternity is a truth that formulates itself in the here and now, informing a kind of reality rather than linear projections based on beginnings and endings. "The Philosophy of Jewish living is essentially a philosphy of worship... our greatest problem is not how to continue but how to return." A poignant word that ends with this proclomation- "This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the threads of temporality into the fabric of eternity."
August 13, 2017
I am surprised, not to read of his call for such a thing, but at never having heard of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's call for the creation of an office to oversee the moral behavior of United States armed forces in times of war. I see that modern Rabbis were not the first to have to justify their speaking out on political matters, either (as one rabbi recently argued for being allowed, over the objections of congregants, to give sermons on political topics).
I am also dismayed to learn that even as early as 1965 it was clear that war crimes were taking place in Vietnam, but I love the closing sentence of Rabbi Heschel's essay on The reasons for my involvement in the Peace Movement: "For all the majesty of the office of the President of the United States, he cannot claim greater majesty than God Himself."
(a bit like the scene in the first episode of Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Turkish pronunciation: [muhteˈʃɛm ˈjyzjɯl], English: The Magnificent Century)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhte%C...
in which his new subjects shout at the incoming Sultan to remember that he is not above God. Nice!)
I am also dismayed to learn that even as early as 1965 it was clear that war crimes were taking place in Vietnam, but I love the closing sentence of Rabbi Heschel's essay on The reasons for my involvement in the Peace Movement: "For all the majesty of the office of the President of the United States, he cannot claim greater majesty than God Himself."
(a bit like the scene in the first episode of Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Turkish pronunciation: [muhteˈʃɛm ˈjyzjɯl], English: The Magnificent Century)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhte%C...
in which his new subjects shout at the incoming Sultan to remember that he is not above God. Nice!)
July 2, 2018
A wide-ranging survey of Heshel's thinking, speaking, writing and passions.
I appreciated reading short samplings in areas in which I might not study his longer works.
Not at all the central take-away, but it was interesting to me that he had an astute critique of Buber as a theologian while giving him credit for being one of the popularizers of Zionism. Buber's bi-national strain of Zionism would hardly be recognizable as Zionism at all in the current political terrain.
In this (and elsewhere in my readings of Heschel) I've only seen Heschel extol the miracle of Jewish return to the Holy Land and even specifically to the Temple mount. If he was familiar with Buber's brand of Zionism, he would have known there was a social justice critique of the actual Jewish settlement of Palestine. I wonder had Heschel lived longer would he have heeded the prophetic call and ended up closer (and more vocally) to --for example -- the political space now occupied by Jewish Voice for Peace or If Not Now...
I appreciated reading short samplings in areas in which I might not study his longer works.
Not at all the central take-away, but it was interesting to me that he had an astute critique of Buber as a theologian while giving him credit for being one of the popularizers of Zionism. Buber's bi-national strain of Zionism would hardly be recognizable as Zionism at all in the current political terrain.
In this (and elsewhere in my readings of Heschel) I've only seen Heschel extol the miracle of Jewish return to the Holy Land and even specifically to the Temple mount. If he was familiar with Buber's brand of Zionism, he would have known there was a social justice critique of the actual Jewish settlement of Palestine. I wonder had Heschel lived longer would he have heeded the prophetic call and ended up closer (and more vocally) to --for example -- the political space now occupied by Jewish Voice for Peace or If Not Now...
October 20, 2021
I chanced upon this collection of essays and speeches via a footnote in another book and I'm so glad I did. I have only read about 1/4 of this book and already it is proving a treasure trove. Most of the essays were written in the 1960s and 1970s but they are relevant to today--and how. Abraham Heschel was a giant. He campaigned with Martin Luther King. Heschel was a man of God who taught /teaches us how to live as people of God. His writing is clear, direct and practical. It is also challenging. Would that there were more like him.
September 7, 2018
The essays suggest strong theological proposals without specific denominational value. Thus, quite universal.
February 13, 2019
Interesting essays by a master scholar.
January 20, 2020
Pure heschel
What a wonderful series of writings by a great theologian. His work inspired. A series of essays that should all be read of you are interested in theology.
What a wonderful series of writings by a great theologian. His work inspired. A series of essays that should all be read of you are interested in theology.
February 22, 2020
A diverse collection of Abraham Joshua Heschel's shorter writings, compiled after his death. Worth reading.
March 25, 2021
Incredible - forgotten hero and prophet for Civil Rights, against Vietnam War - soaring, piercing half poetry half prose
November 13, 2008
Inspiring, thought-provoking essays pulled from all periods of Rabbi Heschel's life. I connected most with his social justice works, but found plenty of inspiration from his strictly religious ones as well.
Many of the essays date from the time leading up to or immediately following the establishment of Israel, and are written for a Jewish audience. While I have some basic knowledge of Judaism, I was out of my element with a lot of the terminology, and had to go off to look things up repeatedly. As I continue to educate myself about other faiths, I anticipate returning to these essays with a better framework, as I can't help but feel I missed out on quite a bit. Despite these personal difficulties, Rabbi Heschel's incorporation of his incredibly strong faith into every aspect of his life was inspiring to read, and provided a very fertile ground for exploring the relationship between my own faith and my life.
Many of the essays date from the time leading up to or immediately following the establishment of Israel, and are written for a Jewish audience. While I have some basic knowledge of Judaism, I was out of my element with a lot of the terminology, and had to go off to look things up repeatedly. As I continue to educate myself about other faiths, I anticipate returning to these essays with a better framework, as I can't help but feel I missed out on quite a bit. Despite these personal difficulties, Rabbi Heschel's incorporation of his incredibly strong faith into every aspect of his life was inspiring to read, and provided a very fertile ground for exploring the relationship between my own faith and my life.
April 10, 2010
Reading books by Heschel can feel a bit overwhelming. This book is filled with short essays. They are much more manageable for those of us who need to take in the ocean one cup at a time. Brilliant, witty, quickly read, slowly digested.
March 16, 2008
I love these essays by Heschel (Jewish Rabbi, teacher, author, activist, etc.). Great thinker...lived with great passion and courage...writes poetically. Essay, Yom Kippur is one of my favorites.
January 15, 2015
Rabbi Heschel is one of the two writers who inspire me to be a better Jew every time I read their material
May 5, 2014
Heschel writes on Jewish theology and culture in a way that makes it universal.
December 15, 2013
If ever there was a tile more descriptive of a book's contents ...
September 20, 2015
This is a magnificent book. The title is conspicuous on the bus.
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November 12, 2014I confess that I didn't read every essay in this collection, but the ones I did read were excellent. Particularly thought-provoking for me were Heschel's essays on Jewish-Christian relations.
December 2, 2016
A wonderful book I turn to for inspiration and comfort
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews