Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) was a Polish-born American Rabbi. He was one of the foremost Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century.
Born in Poland into a Hasidic dynasty, Rabbi Heschel spent his early years immersed in Jewish texts. As a young man in Germany, he studied and taught at both Orthodox and Reform rabbinical seminaries and received a Ph.D. in philosophy.
The Gestapo deported Rabbi Heschel back to Poland in 1938. After some of his family members were killed in German bombing, Rabbi Heschel arrived in New York City through London in 1940. He never returned to Germany or Poland.
For five years, Rabbi Heschel taught at Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College. Subsequently, he served as professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary of America until his death in 1972.
Rabbi Heschel was an advocate for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He was one of the leaders who accompanied Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march of 1965.
Rabbi Heschel’s writings Man is Not Alone (1951,) God in Search of Man (1955,) The Sabbath (1951,) and The Prophets (1962) continue to be widely influential. His theological works contended that religious experience is a fundamental human impulse, not just a Jewish one, and that no religion could declare a monopoly on spiritual truth.
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Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
I’ve learned from the prophets that I have to be involved in the affairs of man, in the affairs of suffering man.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
All it takes is one person… and another… and another… and another… to start a movement.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Blessings, Appreciation
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.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Compassion, Religion
The course of life is unpredictable… no one can write his autobiography in advance.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Future, Autobiography
Life without commitment is not worth living.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum hatred for a minimum reason.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Racism
The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Aging
No man is sterile. Every soul is pregnant with the seed of insight. It is vague and hidden. In some people the seed grows, in others it decays. Some give birth to life. Others miscarry it. Some know how to bear, to nurse, to rear an insight that comes into being. Others do not … .
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty while all are responsible.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Self-respect, Self-Control, Discipline
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Knowledge
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society’s hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Solitude
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.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
What keeps me alive—spiritually, emotionally, intellectually—is my ability to be surprised.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
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?
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Topics: Questions
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