A Passion for Truth

A Passion for Truth (1973)

This book was published posthumously and is significantly autobiographical. It compares and contrasts the life and thought of the enigmatic Hasidic Rebbe Menahem Mendl of Kotzk with that of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. A secondary contrast that is that between the Baal Shem Tov (considered the founder of Hasidism) and the Kotzker Rebbe, a duality that Heschel maps onto the mind and soul.

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Commitment to the divine imperative . . . empathy with the divine pathos. Rabbi Lenny Levin Most importantly to me, he wasn't afraid to use his talents and unique perspective to push for America to be a better version of itself. Ruth Messinger Heschel’s emphasis on the need for “text-people,” prompted me to know that his life of learning, inspiration, and activism was Torah. Rabbi Elie Spitz