Rabbi Mijael Even David

Congregation Eshel Abraham
Be’er Sheva, Israel
A Jewish Perspective

How did you first encounter Abraham Joshua Heschel’s work?

When I was child in Chile, I heard from my Rabbi about some of Heschel’s ideas, as my rabbi was Rabbi Marshall Mayer’s student who was Heschel’s student. He was kind of a “Hassidic Rebbe” for us there.

How did Heschel influence your life, thinking, and/or work? What of Heschel lives in you?

During Rabbinical school I learned more in depth Heschel’s ideas and the one that remains with me the most is his view of Revelation. As a non-fundamentalist movement, we struggle often to reconcile Divine revelation with human authorship and Heschel's words: "A minimum of revelation, a maximum of interpretation (...) the Torah is a Midrash of the Revelation" has been very helpful to me in order to explain others the way we (I) undertsand the Divinity of the Torah and Revelation itself.