Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American Jewish philosopher, theologian, and rabbi, the descendant of a long line of Hasidic masters, professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and one of the leading religious voices of the twentieth-century American civil rights movement. His God in Search of Man and Man Is Not Alone defended a phenomenology of religious experience in which the awareness of the radically transcendent precedes any theology, while The Prophets reread the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible as the model for moral and political imagination in the modern world. The quotes below are attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel, organized by topic.
Abraham Joshua Heschel on God
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Attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“I felt my legs were praying.”
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“Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith.”
Ch. 5 -
“The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd , a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite .”
The Meaning of Jewish Existence" in The Torch (1950) -
“Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy Of Religion (1951), Ch. 24 : The Great Yearning; The Yearning for Spiritual Living”
He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor, his life for love , knowing that contentment is the shadow not the light . The great yearning that sweeps eternity is a yearning to praise, a yearning to serve. And when the waves of that yearning swell in our souls all the barriers are pushed aside: the crust of callousness, the hysteri -
“Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy Of Religion (1951), Ch. 26 : The Pious Man; Our Destiny is to Aid”
The greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a here-now . -
“We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting. The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.”
Man's Quest For God : Studies In Prayer And Symbolism (1954), p. 7; Heschel would later use this analogy in several minor variations in other writings. -
“Man's Quest For God : Studies In Prayer And Symbolism (1954), p. 7; Heschel would later use this analogy in several minor variations in other writings.”
We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting. The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender. -
“The Religious Basis of Equality of Opportunity—The Segregation of God" (1963) in Race: Challenge to Religion (1963) Edited by Mathew Ahmann.”
Some are guilty, but all are responsible. -
“Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.”
The Earth Is The Lord's : And The Sabbath (1963), p. 14
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Life
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“Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy.”
No Religion is an Island", p. 264 -
“The Meaning of Jewish Existence" in The Torch (1950)”
The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd , a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinit
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Nature
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“The Earth Is The Lord's : And The Sabbath (1963), p. 14”
Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Politics
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“In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
The Religious Basis of Equality of Opportunity—The Segregation of God" (1963) in Race: Challenge to Religion (1963) Edited by Mathew Ahmann.
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Time
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“The greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a here-now .”
Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy Of Religion (1951), Ch. 26 : The Pious Man; Our Destiny is to Aid
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Virtue
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Attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“The opposite of good is not evil; it is indifference.”