Heschel Quotes & Sayings

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

A world without time would be a world without God, a world existing in and by itself, without renewal, without a Creator. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To observe the seventh day does not mean merely to obey or to conform to the strictness of a divine command. To observe is to celebrate the creation of the world and to create the seventh day all over again, the majesty of holiness in time, "a day of rest, a day of freedom," a day which is like "a lord and king of all other days," 17 a lord and king in the commonwealth of time. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Heschel calls the Sabbath a cathedral in time. — Judith Shulevitz

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

Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words. We use words as tools. We forget that words are a repository of the spirit. The tragedy of our times is that the vessels of the spirit are broken. We cannot approach the spirit unless we repair the vessels. Reverence for words - an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words - is an essential prerequisite for prayer. By the word of God the world was created. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number ... I do not ask to see the reason for it all: I ask only to share the wonder of it all. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Call the Sabbath a delight: 13 a delight to the soul and a delight to the body. Since there are so many acts which one must abstain from doing on the seventh day, "you might think I have given you the Sabbath for your displeasure; I have surely given you the Sabbath for your pleasure." To sanctify the seventh day does not mean: Thou shalt mortify thyself, but, on the contrary: Thou shalt sanctify it with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy senses. "Sanctify the Sabbath by choice meals, by beautiful garments; delight your soul with pleasure and I will reward you for this very pleasure." 14 — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time. Our intention here is not to deprecate the world of space. To disparage space and the blessing of things of space, is to disparage the works of creation, the works which God beheld and saw "it was good." The world cannot be seen exclusively sub specie temporis. Time and space are interrelated. To overlook either of them is to be partially blind. What we plead against is man's unconditional surrender to space, his enslavement to things. We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The prophets never taught that God and history are one, or that whatever happens below reflects the will of God above. Their vision is of man defying God, and God seeking man to reconcile with Him. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Man is a messenger who forgot the message. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it literally, to imagine that God spoke to the prophet on a long-distance telephone. Yet most of us succumb to such fancy, forgetting that the cardinal sin in thinking about ultimate issues is literal-mindedness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Short is the way from need to greed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Susannah Heschel's The Aryan Jesus is a brilliant and erudite investigation of the convergence between major trends in German Protestantism and Nazi racial anti-Semitism. By concentrating on the history of the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life, Heschel describes in forceful detail the Nazification of all aspects of Protestant theology, including the Aryanization of Jesus himself. This is a highly original and important contribution to our understanding of the Third Reich. — Saul Friedlander

When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Few are guilty, but all are responsible. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

and pleasure? What is it that I am tasting?' The most eloquent rabbi and writer of Hasidic mysticism, Abraham Joshua Heschel, left Warsaw in 1939 to become an important — Diane Ackerman

To be or not to be is not the question, the vital question is how to be and how not to be ... — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words ... the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language. the world of things we perceive is but a veil. It's flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. It's silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear
filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To be is to stand for. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The task of life is to face sacred moments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I argue that synagogue leaders have it backwards. Engaging individuals is what will lead them to affiliate with a synagogue as the institution that serves them, that meets their needs and those of their family. If synagogues continue to focus on the needs of the institution rather than on the needs of the individual, they will lose their dues-paying members and eventually become financially unviable. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel suggested to folks in the 1960s that they pray with their feet - and those prayers took them to places like the civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama. As a result of the actions of Rabbi Heschel and the influence of American political culture, American Jews - like most Americans - have been taught to vote with — Kerry M. Olitzky

I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion ... Man's true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one's role in relation to all other beings. For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving, depriving. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law. And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

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. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Replete is the world with a spiritual radiance, replete with sublime and marvelous secrets. But a small hand held against the eye hides it all," said the Baal Shem. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn ... to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life without commitment is not worth living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted ... Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question any more. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Technical civilization is man's conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Our future depends upon our appreciation of the reality of the inner life, of the splendor of thought, of the dignity of wonder and reverence. This is the most important thought: God has a stake in the life of man, of every man. But this idea cannot be imposed from without; it must be discovered by every man; it cannot be preached, it must be experienced. When — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Theological study offers a level of thinking about God recalling the insight of Abraham Heschel who noted that thinking without roots will bear flowers, but not fruits. — Anonymous

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world. — 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

Modern man fell into the trap of believing that everything can be explained, that reality is a simple affair which has only to be organized in order to be mastered. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life is not meaningful ... unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself; unless it is of value to someone else. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

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. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

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 — Abraham Joshua Heschel

When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things. - ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL — Scot McKnight

We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Usually we regard as meaningful that which can be expressed, and as meaningless that which cannot be expressed. Yet, the equation of the meaningful and the expressible ignores a vast realm of human experience, and is refuted by our sense of the ineffable which is an awareness of an allusiveness to meaning without the ability to express it. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The supremacy of expediency is being refuted by time and truth. Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man's power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly, man must fight for inner liberty" to remain independent of the enslavement of the material world. "Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem - how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Philosophy, to be relevant, must offer us a wisdom to live by. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

no man is free who is not a master of himself, that the more liberties we enjoy, the more discipline we need.46 Laissez-faire, — Abraham Joshua Heschel

How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it! — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement ... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature. Is not self-sufficiency itself insufficient to explain self-sufficiency? — Abraham Joshua Heschel

A soul can create only when alone ... — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Labor is a blessing, toil is the misery of man. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faced with the mind-surpassing grandeur of the universe, we cannot but admit that there is meaning which is greater than man. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Being is transcended by a concern for being. Our perplexity will not be solved by relating human existence to a timeless, subpersonal abstraction which we call essence. We can do justice to human being only by relating it to the transcendent care for being. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

What seems to be a stone is a drama. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state
it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle ... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Source: The Wisdom of Heschel — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power ... Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To try to distill the Bible, which is bursting with life, drama, and tension, to a series of principles would be like trying to reduce a living person to a diagram. — Abraham Joshua Heschel