new dimensions.

"a purely ethical monotheism in which God, the guardian of moral order, keeps the world subject to the law, would restrict the scope of God's knowledge and concern to what is of ethical signifigance. God's relation to man would, in general, run along the lines of a universal principle. the divine pathos alone is able to break through this rigidity and create new dimensions for the unique, the specific, and the particular.

it is not law and order itself, but the living God who created the universe and established its law and order, that stands supreme in Biblical thought.

before the Torah, the covenant was.

prophecy is a reminder that what obtains between God and man is not a contract but a covenant. anterior to the covenant is love, the love of the fathers, and what obtains between God and israel must be understood, not as legal, but as a personal relationship, as participation, involvement, tension. God's life interacts with the life of the people. to live in the covenant is to partake of the fellowship of God and His people. Biblical religion is not what man does with his solitariness, but rather what man does with God's concern for all men.

the gulf that separates man from God is transcended by His pathos."

-abraham joshua heschel, excerpts.

and yet.

"man is rebellious and full of iniquity, and yet so cherished is he that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is saddened when forsaken by him. profound and intimate is God's love for man, and yet harsh and dreadful can be His wrath. of what paltry worth is human might - yet human compassion is divinely precious. ugly though the behavior of man is, yet may man's return to God make of his way a highway of God."

-abraham joshua heschel.

a great effort.

"it requires a great effort to realize before Whom we stand, for such realization is more than having a thought in one's mind. it is knowledge in which the whole person is involved; the mind, the heart, body, and soul.

to know is to forget everything else.

what then is left for us to do except to pray for the ability to pray, to bewail our ignorance of living in His presence? and even if such prayer is tainted with vanity, His mercy accepts and redeems our feeble efforts."

-abraham joshua heschel.

---

oh L-rd, purify our hearts so that we may worship You in honesty. -sabbath liturgy.

direction.

"no other area of observance required such strict adherence to formalities as the ritual at the temple in Jerusalem. the description of the rules and customs according to which the ceremonies of sacrifice were conducted occupies almost a whole section of the mishnah. significantly, however, the two main tractates of that section begin with a statement about the inner attitude of the priest, stressing the principle that the validity of the ceremony depends first of all upon what goes on in the mind of the priest. having set forth all the minutiae of the priest's performance, the editor of the mishnah resumes the original principle and concludes the second tractate with a statement that almost sounds like a proclamation:

'it amounts to the same, whether one offers much or little - provided one directs his heart to heaven.'"

-abraham joshua heschel.

this moment.

"it was the eve of the Sabbath when they left the cave, and as they came out they saw an old man carrying two bundles of myrtle in his hand, a sweet-smelling herb having the perfume of paradise.
-what are these for, they asked him.
-they are in honor of the Sabbath, the old man replied.
said Rabbi Shimeon to his son:
-behold and see how dear God's commands are to Israel...

at that moment they both found tranquility of soul."

-abraham joshua heschel.

undeserved.

A truth so universal: God is One.
A thought so consoling: He is with us in distress.
A responsibility so overwhelming: His name can be desecrated.
A map of time: from creation to redemption.
Guideposts along the way: the Seventh Day.
An offering: contrition of the heart.
A utopia: would that all people were prophets.
The insight: man lives by his faithfulness; his home is in time and his substance in deeds.
A standard so bold: you shall be holy.
A commandment so daring: love thy neighbor as thyself.
A fact so sublime: human and divine pathos can be in accord.
And a gift so undeserved: the ability to repent.

-abraham joshua heschel.

partnership.

"We must remember that God is involved in our doings, that meaning is given not only in the timeless but primarily in the timely, in that task given here and now. Great are man's possibilities."

-abraham joshua heschel.

the freedom of God.

"To assume that the world for all its immense grandeur is a little cymbal in the hand of God, on which at certain times only one soul vibrates though all are struck; in other words: to assume that the entire complex of natural laws is transcended by the freedom of God, would presuppose the metaphysical understanding that the laws of nature are derived not from a blind necessity but from freedom, that the ultimate is not fate but God. Revelation is not an act of interfering with the normal course of natural processes but the act of instilling a new creative moment into the course of history."

-abraham joshua heschel.

the unworded.

"Vain would be any attempt to reconstruct the hidden circumstances under which a word of God alarmed a prophet's soul. Who could uncover the divine data or piece together the strange perceptions of a Moses? The prophet did not leave information behind. All we have is the prophet's certainty, endless awe and appreciation. All we have is a Book, and all we can do is to try to sense the unworded across its words.

Revelation is a mystery for which reason has no concepts..."

-abraham joshua heschel.

Under His Eyes.

"Deeper forces and qualities of the soul must be mobilized before prayer can be accomplished. To pray is to pull ourselves together, to pour our perception, volition, memory, thought, hope, feeling, dreams, all that is moving in us, into one tone. Not the words we utter, the service of the lips, but the way in which the devotion of the heart corresponds to what the words contain, the consciousness of speaking under His eyes, is the pith of prayer."

-- abraham joshua heschel.

all things.

"this is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel hidden love and wisdom in all things."

- abraham joshua heschel

known.

"we have no words to describe the glory; we have no adequate way of knowing it. yet what is decisive is not our knowing it but our awareness of being known by it."

-abraham joshua heschel.

voice.

"it is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. when faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion -- its message becomes meaningless."

-abraham joshua heschel