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Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a Polish-born theologian, educator, and philosopher who sought to build a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of ancient Jewish tradition. Among other posts, he held the chair of professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York City.
With his birth in Warsaw, Poland, in 1907, Abraham Joshua Heschel entered a family that counted back seven generations of Hasidic rabbis. His father was Rabbi Moshe Mordecai, and his ancestors helped to found the Polish Hasidic movement, a Jewish sect of mystics, in the eighteenth century. Both his father and his mother, Reisel Perlow Heschel, instilled in him a love of learning as he grew up in the orthodox ghetto of Warsaw. As a young man, he wrote poetry, and his collection of Yiddish verse was published years later (1933) in his home city.
Student and Teacher Years
Following a traditional Jewish education in Warsaw, Heschel went to Berlin, where he studied at the university and also taught the Talmud, during 1932-33, at the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums. He earned his PhD degree from Berlin University in 1933 and accepted a fellowship at the Hochschule, graduating the following year. Over the next three years, three published works established him as a scholar and author of note: Maimonides: Eine Biographie, concerning the medieval Jewish philosopher (1935); Die Prophetie, on Hebrew prophesy (1936); and Don Jizchak Abravalel, about the fifteenth-century Jewish statesman of Spain (1937).
In 1937, Heschel went to Frankfurt am Main to teach at the noted Judisches Lehrhaus. But war clouds were gathering in Europe, and he was deported from Nazi Germany in 1938. He returned to Warsaw for a few months of teaching at the Institute of Judaistic Studies, but the Nazi invasion of his homeland forced him to London where he founded the Institute for Jewish Learning.
The United States had not yet entered World War II when Heschel arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he joined the faculty of Hebrew Union College in 1940. Five years later he took the chair of professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. Heschel, who became an American citizen in 1945, married concert pianist Sylvia Straus in 1946, and they had one daughter, Hannah. He remained at the Jewish Theological Seminary until his death in New York City on December 23, 1972.
Teachings and Published Works
Abraham Heschel wished to construct a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of ancient Jewish tradition and teachings. In traditional Jewish piety, he observed an inner depth of devotion that he sought to convey to twentieth-century humans. "The Jew is never alone in the face of God, " he said, "for the Torah is always with him."
Heschel's concern for the piety of the individual involved him in the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s and early 1970s to end discrimination against blacks in America. He was one of the first religious leaders in the United States to speak out against the escalating war in Vietnam. And he risked the wrath of fellow Jews by meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in Rome to discuss Jewish feelings concerning Vatican Council II. Some Jewish leaders objected to the trip, but Heschel felt it important that Jewish approval be added, if possible, to some of the Council's decrees, such as the denial of any Jewish guilt in the crucifixion of Jesus.
In addition to his teachings, Heschel is well known for his writings. They include: his magnum opus, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951), The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (1951), Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (1954), God in Search of Man (1955), The Prophets (1962), Who Is Man? (1965), and The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (1966). These books provide insights into his existentialist philosophy of Judaism with its central concept based on a "theology of pathos, " in which God is a god of pathos, "revealed in a personal and intimate relation to the world. … He is also moved and affected by what happens in the world and reacts accordingly." This divine pathos, in turn, evokes a human response of sympathy for God, by which "man experiences God as his own being" Heschel's "religion of sympathy."
The element of time occupies an important place in Heschel's theology, since "Time is perpetual innovation, a synonym for continuous creation, " and human existence in time is communion with God and a reaction to the continuous action of God. From this concept of time, Heschel derived his theory of human freedom as "a spiritual event." According to Heschel, the individual learns about God not by reason and intellect, but through experience, divine revelation, and sacred deeds, all of which enable the individual to form a relationship - a "leap of action" rather than of faith - with God.
In addition to his scholarly and philosophical writings, Heschel authored several works on Jewish life in eastern Europe. Chief among them is The Earth Is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in East Europe (1950), in which he theorizes that the "golden age" of European Jewish life was in the Jewish culture of eastern Europe. In the 1960s Heschel was active in the movement to aid the Jews of the Soviet Union.
Further Reading
An excellent introduction to Heschel's thought is in Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism, from the Writings of Abraham J. Heschel, selected, edited, and introduced by Fritz A. Rothschild (1959); See also: Who's Who in America, New York Times, Dec. 24, 1972.
| Encyclopedia of Judaism: Abraham Joshua Heschel |
(1907-1972). Scholar and philosopher of religion. Born in Poland into a distinguished line of Ḥasidic rabbis, he received a thorough talmudic training, to which he added intense study of ḥasidism and
Heschel's books cover almost every aspect of classical Jewish thought. His first major work was on the biblical prophets. This was followed by writings on medieval Jewish philosophers, including Saadiah Gaon, Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides. He also wrote extensively on Kabbalah and Ḥasidism, while one of his last works, Torah min ha-Shamayim, examines in depth the different schools in rabbinic methodology, exegesis, and philosophy. His other important books include The Sabbath (1951), Man Is Not Alone (1951), Man's Quest for God (1954), God in Search of Man (1956), Who is Man? (1962), and Israel: an Echo of Eternity (1969).
Heschel taught that Judaism is not a religion of reason only, for this would describe it as a philosophy. Nor is it only a culture of religious experience, which would make it a psychological system. He sought to explain Judaism as a combination of both elements---philosophical and experiential. Above all, Judaism is a teaching with a living relationship between God and man. On God's side there is Divine concern and Divine passion for His creatures, while the nature of true religion is man's response to God's bond with him. The root of Jewish observance lies in the expression of this human response with love and devotion. When man rises to the holy dimension of his meeting with God through the acceptance of the Divine will, he also shows the true character of human freedom. Jewish history is the record of Israel's successes and failures to respond to God's call, and the Bible is the book containing that record.
Heschel attempted to examine the classic sources of Judaism to show their relevance to modern problems. He insisted that Jewish ethics must guide Jewish behavior in all aspects of social concern. His enthusiasm for the relevance of Judaism brought him to a position of leadership in the United States in the Civil Rights Movement and in other humanistic causes. Heschel was also active in Jewish-Christian dialogue and was involved in the high-level discussions which led to the Vatican II statement introducing a more theologically liberal Catholic attitude toward Judaism and the Jews.
His views on the central question of Revelation place him in a position which is neither fundamentalist nor extreme liberal. On the one hand, he taught that the assumption that every iota of the Law is of Mosaic origin revealed at Sinai is a misreading of the rabbinic concept of Revelation. On the other hand, he emphasized that Judaism is built on the certainty that God made His will known to His people. This approach to Revelation did not diminish for him the basic importance of Halakhah, the laws of rabbinic Judaism. He argued that these are like the musical notes without which the great symphony of Judaism in all its holy dimensions could not be played.
A special emphasis in Heschel's writings is seen in his description of the holiness of time. Judaism has not given to the world holy places---temples or cathedrals. Judaism created, instead, palaces in time, the Sabbath and the festivals.
Heschel's last book was a work on the Hasidic master Menahem Mendel of Kotsk (the Kotsker Rebbe) and in a way this biography reveals something about Heschel the man. Whereas the founder of Ḥasidism, Israel Baal Shem Tov, had upheld the value of joy, Menahem Mendel lived a life filled with near pessimism and despair. Heschel himself wrote that he was "at home with the Baal Shem but driven by the Kotsker Rebbe ... living both in fervor and horror, with my conscience on mercy and my eyes on Auschwitz ... My heart was in Medzibezh (the center of the Baal Shem's activity); my mind in Kotsk."
From seminary lectern, lecture platform, and through his numerous writings Heschel influenced generations of rabbis and teachers, thousands of people, Jews and non-Jews, and left a lasting impression on students of Judaism all over the world.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Abraham Joshua Heschel |
Heschel, Abraham Joshua (hĕsh'əl), 1907-72, American Jewish philosopher and theologian, b. Warsaw, Poland. He succeeded Martin Buber as director of the Central Organization for Jewish Adult Education in Frankfurt and then taught in Warsaw and London before going to the United States in 1940. He taught philosophy and rabbinics at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, and in 1945 became professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, where he remained until his death. He developed an influential philosophy and theology that sought to renew the ability to grasp the reality of the relationship between God and humans, and of the holiness of life. He played a significant role in the civil-rights movement and in the Christian-Jewish dialogue. Heschel's major works are Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951), God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (1955), The Prophets (1962), Who Is Man? (1965), Israel: An Echo of Eternity (1969), and A Passion for Truth (1973).
Bibliography
See M. Friedman, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Elie Wiesel (1987); D. J. Moore, The Human and the Holy: the Spirituality of Abraham Joshua Heschel (1989).
| Quotes By: Abraham J. Heschel |
Quotes:
"Self-respect is the root of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."
"It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?"
"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge."
| Wikipedia: Abraham Joshua Heschel |
Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.
Contents |
Biography
Abraham Joshua Heschel was descended from preeminent European rabbis on both sides of the family. [1]. His father, Moshe Mordechai Heschel, died of influenza in 1916. His mother Reizel Perlow, was a descendant of Rebbe Avrohom Yehoshua Heshel of Apt and other dynasties. He was the youngest of six children. His siblings were Sarah, Dvora Miriam, Esther Sima, Gittel, and Jacob.
After a traditional yeshiva education and studying for Orthodox rabbinical ordination semicha, he pursued his doctorate at the University of Berlin and a liberal rabbinic ordination at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. There he studied under some of the finest Jewish educators of the time: Chanoch Albeck, Ismar Elbogen, Julius Guttmann, and Leo Baeck. Heschel later taught Talmud there. He joined a Yiddish poetry group, Jung Vilna, and in 1933, published a volume of Yiddish poems, Der Shem Hamefoyrosh: Mentsch, dedicated to his father. [2]
In late October 1938, when he was living in a rented room in the home of a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland. He spent ten months lecturing on Jewish philosophy and Torah at Warsaw's Institute for Jewish Studies. [2] Six weeks before the German invasion of Poland, Heschel left Warsaw for London with the help of Julian Morgenstern, president of Hebrew Union College, who had been working to obtain visas for Jewish scholars in Europe.[2]
Heschel's sister Esther was killed in a German bombing. His mother was murdered by the Nazis, and two other sisters, Gittel and Devorah, died in Nazi concentration camps. He never returned to Germany, Austria or Poland. He once wrote, "If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated."[2]
Heschel arrived in New York City in March 1940. [2]He served on the faculty of Hebrew Union College (HUC), the main seminary of Reform Judaism, in Cincinnati for five years. In 1946, he took a position at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), the main seminary of Conservative Judaism, where he served as professor of Jewish Ethics and Mysticism until his death in 1972.
Heschel married Sylvia Straus on December 10, 1946, in Los Angeles. Their daughter, Susannah Heschel, is a Jewish scholar in her own right.
Ideology
Heschel explicated many facets of Jewish thought including studies on medieval Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and Hasidism. According to some scholars, he was more interested in spirituality than critical text study, which was a specialty of many scholars at JTS. He was not given a graduate assistant for many years and was relegated to teach mainly in the education school or Rabbinical school, not the academic graduate program. Heschel was particularly looked down upon by his colleague Mordechai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, and many students who attended JTS in the 50s sympathized with Kaplan over Heschel. [3]
Heschel saw the teachings of the Hebrew prophets as a clarion call for social action in the United States and worked for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War [1]Heschel was an activist for civil rights in the United States.
He also specifically criticized what he called "pan-halakhism", or a focus upon religiously-compatible behavior.
Influence outside of Judaism
He is among the few Jewish theologians widely read by Christians.[citation needed] His most influential works include Man is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Sabbath, and The Prophets. He is quoted a frequently in the Christian book Keeping Sabbath Wholly by Marva J. Dawn
He was chosen by American Jewish organizations to negotiate with leaders of the Roman Catholic church at the Vatican Council II. Heschel persuaded the church to eliminate or modify passages in its liturgy that demeaned the Jews, or expected their conversion to Christianity.[citation needed] His theological works argued that religious experience is a fundamentally human impulse, not just a Jewish one, and that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth.[4]
Published work
The Prophets
This work started out as his Ph.D. thesis in German, which he later expanded and translated into English. Originally published in a two-volume edition, this work studies the books of the Hebrew prophets. It covers their life and the historical context that their missions were set in, summarizes their work, and discusses their psychological state. In it Heschel forwards what would become a central idea in his theology: that the prophetic (and, ultimately, Jewish) view of God is best understood not as anthropomorphic (that God takes human form) but rather as anthropopathic — that God has human feelings.
The Sabbath
The Sabbath: Its Meaning For Modern Man is a work on the nature and celebration of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. This work is rooted in the thesis that Judaism is a religion of time, not space, and that the Sabbath symbolizes the sanctification of time.
Man is Not Alone
Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion offers Heschel's views on how man can apprehend God. Judaism views God as being radically different from man, so Heschel explores the ways that Judaism teaches that a person may have an encounter with the ineffable. A recurring theme in this work is the radical amazement that man experiences when experiencing the presence of the Divine. Heschel then goes to explore the problems of doubts and faith; what Judaism means by teaching that God is one; the essence of man and the problem of man's needs; the definition of religion in general and of Judaism in particular; and man's yearning for spirituality. He offers his views as to Judaism being a pattern for life.
God in Search of Man
God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism is a companion volume to Man is Not Alone. In this book Heschel discusses the nature of religious thought, how thought becomes faith, and how faith creates responses in the believer. He discusses ways that man can seek God's presence, and the radical amazement that man receives in return. He offers a criticism of nature worship; a study of man's metaphysical loneliness, and his view that we can consider God to be in search of man. The first section concludes with a study of Jews as a chosen people. Section two deals with the idea of revelation, and what it means for one to be a prophet. This section gives us his idea of revelation as a process, as opposed to an event. This relates to Israel's commitment to God. Section three discusses his views of how a Jew should understand the nature of Judaism as a religion. He discusses and rejects the idea that mere faith (without law) alone is enough, but then cautions against rabbis he sees as adding too many restrictions to Jewish law. He discusses the need to correlate ritual observance with spirituality and love, the importance of Kavanah (intention) when performing mitzvot. He engages in a discussion of religious behaviorism — when people strive for external compliance with the law, yet disregard the importance of inner devotion.
Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets
Heschel wrote a series of articles, originally in Hebrew, on the existence of prophecy in Judaism after the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. These essays were translated into English and published as Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets: Maimonides and Others by the American Judaica publisher Ktav.
The publisher of this book states, "The standard Jewish view is that prophecy ended with the ancient prophets, somewhere early in the Second Temple era. Heschel demonstrated that this view is not altogether accurate. Belief in the possibility of continued prophetic inspiration, and in its actual occurrence appear throughout much of the medieval period, and even in modern times. Heschel's work on prophetic inspiration in the Middle Ages originally appeared in two Hebrew long articles. In them he concentrated on the idea that prophetic inspiration was possible even in post-Talmudic times, and, indeed, had taken place at various times and in various schools, from the Geonim to Maimonides and beyond."
Torah min HaShamayim
Many consider Heschel's Torah min HaShamayim BeAspaklariya shel HaDorot, (Torah from Heaven in the light of the generations) to be his masterwork. The three volumes of this work are a study of classical rabbinic theology and aggadah, as opposed to halakha (Jewish law.) It explores the views of the rabbis in the Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash about the nature of Torah, the revelation of God to mankind, prophecy, and the ways that Jews have used scriptural exegesis to expand and understand these core Jewish texts. In this work Heschel views the second century sages Rabbis Akiva ben Yosef and Ishmael ben Elisha as paradigms for the two dominant world-views in Jewish theology
Two Hebrew volumes were published during his lifetime by Soncino Press, and the third Hebrew volume was published posthumously by JTS Press in the 1990s. An English translation of all three volumes, with notes, essays and appendices, was translated and edited by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, entitled Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. In its own right it can be the subject of intense study and analysis, and provides insight into the relationship between God and Man beyond the world of Judaism and for all Monotheism.
Quotations
- "Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum hatred for a minimum reason."
- "All it takes is one person… and another… and another… and another… to start a movement"
- "Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge."
- "A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair."
- " God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance."
- "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."
- "Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."
- "Life without commitment is not worth living."
- "Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible."[5]
- "Remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power. Never forget that you can still do your share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and frustrations and disappointments."
- "When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people."
- "Awareness of symbolic meaning is awareness of a specific idea; kavanah is awareness of an ineffable situation.
- "A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought."
- "Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed."
- "The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition."
- "The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments."
- "The course of life is unpredictable... no one can write his autobiography in advance."
Commemoration
Four schools have been named for Heschel, in the Upper West Side of New York City, Northridge, California, Agoura Hills, California, and Toronto. In 2009, a highway in Missouri was named "Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel Highway" after a Springfield, Missouri area Neo-Nazi group cleaned the stretch of highway as part of an "Adopt-A-Highway" plan. Heschel's daughter, Susannah, has objected to the adoption of her father's name in this context.[6]
References
- ^ a b "Dateline World Jewry", April 2007, World Jewish Congress
- ^ a b c d e http://home.versatel.nl/heschel/Susannah.htm Abraham Joshua Heschel
- ^ Scult, Mel . Kaplan's Heschel : a view from the Kaplan diary. In: Conservative Judaism, 54,4 (2002) 3-14
- ^ Gillman, Neil (1993). Conservative Judaism: The New Century. Behrman House Inc.. pp. 163.
- ^ Heschel, A.J., The Prophets (New York: Harper Collins, 1962), p. 19.
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23heschel.html?ref=us
Selected bibliography
- The Earth Is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe. 1949. ISBN 1-879045-42-7
- Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion. 1951. ISBN 0-374-51328-7
- The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. 1951. ISBN 1-59030082-3
- Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism. 1954. ISBN 0684168294
- God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. 1955. ISBN 0-374-51331-7
- The Prophets. 1962. ISBN 0-06-093699-1
- Who Is Man? 1965.
- Israel: An Echo of Eternity. 1969. ISBN 1-879045-70-2
- A Passion for Truth. 1973. ISBN 1-879045-41-9
- Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. 2005. ISBN 0-8264-0802-8
- Torah min ha-shamayim be'aspaklariya shel ha-dorot; Theology of Ancient Judaism. [Hebrew]. 2 vols. London: Soncino Press, 1962. Third volume, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1995.
- The Ineffable Name of God: Man: Poems. 2004. ISBN 0-8264-1632-2
- Kotsk: in gerangl far emesdikeyt. [Yiddish]. 2 v. (694 p.) Tel-Aviv: ha-Menorah, 1973. Added t.p.: Kotzk: the struggle for integrity. A Passion for Truth is an adaptation of this larger work.
- Der mizrekh-Eyropeyisher Yid (Yiddish: The Eastern European Jew). 45 p. Originally published: New-York: Shoken, 1946.
- Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness & Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972, biography by Edward K. Kaplan
External links
- Heschel's role in Vatican II and his advocacy of interreligious respect
- Alan Brill Review of Heavenly Torah
- Arnold Jacob Wolf Review of Heavenly Torah
- David Blumenthal review of Heavenly Torah
- Who was Heschel? The Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership
- Interview with Susannah Heschel from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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