Quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel

The plea is not to obey what He wills but to do what He is.

There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.

He is in need of the work of man for the fulfillment of His ends in the world.

The mystic experience is man's turning toward God; the prophetic act is God's turning toward man. The former is first of all an event in the life of man, contingent on the aspiration and initiative of man; the latter is first of all an event in the life of God, contingent on the pathos and initiative of God. From the mystic experience we may gain an insight of man into the life of God; from the prophetic act we learn of an insight of God into the life of man.

Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father who is in heaven.

The prophets make us partners of an existence meant for us. What was revealed to them was not for their sake but intended to inspire us. The word must not freeze into habit; it must remain an event. To disregard the importance of continuous understanding is an evasion of the living challenge of the prophets, an escape from the urgency of responsible experience of every man, a denial of the deeper meaning of "the oral Torah.

To the religious man it is as if things stood with their backs to him, their faces turned to God, as if the glory of things consisted in their being an object of divine care.

The central commandment is in relation to the person. But religion today has lost sight of the person. Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment. It has fallen victim to the belief that the real is only that which is capable of being registered by fact-finding surveys.

Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers. NOTES 1 Portions of this section are based on Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951).

There are five incomplete phenomena (or unripe fruits). The incomplete experience of death is sleep; an incomplete form of prophecy is dream; the incomplete form of the world to come is the Sabbath; the incomplete form of the heavenly light is the orb of the sun; the incomplete form of heavenly wisdom is the Torah.

Religion is an answer to man's ultimate questions. The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion becomes irrelevant, and its crisis sets in.

This view had been the fundamental feature of his image of the world and the basis of his conduct in life. It justified the structure of his economic existence. He could permit his livelihood to be assured by his brother's strenuous and dangerous work, so that Maimonides could devote himself to realizing his plans in peace and quiet. This view also had a place in his self-confidence and probably aroused a certain awareness of the relationship of providence to his own life.