Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschelwas a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored a number of widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was active in the American Civil Rights movement...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth11 January 1907
CountryPoland
secret may sacred
Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind's desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.
stars dawn totality
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
soul proximity
A soul can create only when alone...
wonder asks
I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder.
sacred-things deeds pagan
Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.
prayer issues have-faith
The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.
deeds speech sound
Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.
buddhist truth life-changing
In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
deeds littles
Every little deed counts.
prayer pyramids hatred
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.
thought-provoking worry church
We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God? Sometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.
compassion names voice
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
sacred secular
The road to the sacred leads through the secular.
space trying world
The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.