First Executive Director, Masorti Movement
Omer, Israel
A Jewish Perspective

I first encountered Herschel as a teenager in the Lincoln, Nebraska. Our rabbi, Harold Stern, had been Heschel’s secretary at JTS. He went on to lead a large congregation in Skokie, Illinois and became an important figure in the rabbinical assembly. Stern was a fascinating rabbi—he had been in intelligence in the US Army during World War II and spoke sixteen languages. We loved him; we were happy to go the cheder in those days because of him. He organized a group of post-bar mitzvah students who were interested in studying more deeply. We started off by studying The Sabbath. The course ended up going through much of modern Jewish thought, but Heschel was the starting point.

Stern continued my education—he gave me God in Search of Man, which grabbed me right away and I became enamored of the concept of a Jewish philosophy. Prior to that I had only thought of Judaism in terms of ritual and practice.

Eventually I got to meet Heschel in person. I attended the Jewish Theological Seminary in part to study with Heschel. He was just one of the many luminaries that drew me to the JTS for the dual degree with Columbia. It was enthralling to learn from the people who I first met through their books. My first meeting with was at a Shabbat dinner he hosted when I was an undergraduate. Later, he was in my interview for rabbinical school. It was truly intimidating. He pulled me aside after it was over and invited me to his house to discuss what I had learned in the interview.

In rabbinical school, I began working with Torah Min Hashamayim. I started reading through the volumes and I was hooked. I had never seen encountered anything so clearly laid out and insightful, delving into rabbinic thought and its cores values, while exploring the inherent contradictions in the texts. Heschel saw the genius and vibrancy in these contradictory concepts. For me this was a huge opening of the mind. Right before Heschel died, I was working with him on a translation of this book.

The main pillar that influenced me—one that I have worked on and stressed throughout my life—was that of amazement. It is essential to cultivate this sense of wonderment in your soul, in your psyche. Heschel rooted this sense of wonder in Jewish tradition and I have carried this with me. I see the wonder in everything—in the restaurants I go to, in the desert and its flowers. He shot an arrow into thinking about religion; it wasn’t just about don’t do this, do that, but instead make yourself open to the amazement of the world. Of nature. Of humanity. Of variances.

Student, Yeshivat Maharat
New York
A Halakhic Perspective

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

I attended the Toronto Heschel School in Toronto, Canada. The school believed in integrated subjects – my art classes were influenced by my limmudei kodesh (holy studies). This framework – inspired by Heschel’s radical amazement with the world in its entirety – is most likely why I became the person I am today.

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

My undergraduate thesis was on Heschel, so I have much to say. Here are two pieces I wrote on his yahrzheits (the anniversary of a death):

Rabbi Emeritus, Beit T’shuvah
California
A Jewish Perspective

Transcribed from an Interview

I “met” Rabbi Heschel in 1987, when the prison rabbi where I was incarcerated, Rabbi Mel Silverman, introduced me to him through the Carl Stern interview. I immediately knew that Rabbi Heschel understood me and knew me in ways I hadn't even realized that I didn't know myself. That began 36 years of learning, immersing myself, and listening to the words of Rabbi Heschel. I was introduced to Rabbi Heschel at a moment when I was desperate and willing to change my life. I changed everything about myself. I got out of prison, and I finished my undergraduate degree in 1995.

In the Garden of Eden story, where it says, “God calls Adam and Adam hid.” By immersing myself in Torah, I realized how many times God had been calling me throughout my life. I sat in my prison cell and cried like a baby. That was the beginning of my relationship with Rabbi Heschel. When I was released, I was able to work at Beit T’shevua, a non-sectarian, Jewish-based residential recovery center in Los Angeles. I began leading Shabbat services and doing Torah study. I led an ethics group using Pirkei Avot and Rabbi Heschel. Rabbi Heschel informed everything I did, which led me to rabbinic school.

After I was ordained from American Jewish University, I became the rabbi of Bet Teshuva, and we had a Heschel group that met every week for people in recovery. Pieces of Rabbi Heschel helped and impacted their recovery. Rabbi Heschel was talking about the recovery of our soul, the recovery of our essence, the recovery of the self we were created to be, in the words of Thomas Merton.

Every Friday night when I would do services, I would begin the service with an opening quote from Rabbi Heschel. Rabbi Heschel’s writing is deeply connected to God. People experiencing addiction who can’t believe or whose belief in God was stunted need to have a belief in a greater power to get beyond their self-centeredness and the selfishness of addiction.

He was a visionary. I look to his 1971 essay, “In Search of Exultation,” where Heschel wrote about the challenge of drug addiction:

We have a major curse in American today, the epidemic of drug addiction. Sometimes I have a strange feeling that this problem may be a blessing in the form of a curse. Perhaps this will wake us up to discover that we have gone the wrong way.

Rabbi Heschel, for me, always went to the core of the problem, and the core is always inside humans. His main teaching for me is radical amazement; the greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions and mental clichés. Every day, I close my eyes and open them up again to see the world anew.

In 1957, only after I accepted the honor of leading High Holy Day services at the seminary synagogue, did I realize I’d be alone—no family, no friends, no meal plans! I knew my family in Baltimore would be disappointed, but I felt, since it was my final year of rabbinical school at JTS, it was time to experience a rabbinic position and responsibility. Nevertheless, as I headed to shop for yom tov–type food, my mood and spirits were low. 

When I returned to my room, the phone was ringing. It was an invitation to come for dinner erev Rosh Hashanah at the home of my favorite teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel (z”l). I accepted with joy and excitement. The mitzvah and importance of hachnasat orchim was forever etched in my heart, and it was an evening I’ve never forgotten. 

I must confess there is another reason it turned out to be the sweetest, most wonderful Rosh Hashanah ever.  A Ramah friend Barbara Goldsmith Levin had promised to introduce me to her new roommate in the Joint Program and said they’d be coming to JTS on Rosh Hashanah. When I met Barbara’s roommate, our eyes locked for a moment, there was an appropriate introduction after, we sat and talked for hours, and, as they say, the rest is history. As I write this 65 years later, I’ve never forgotten the best yontif of my life! How could one ever top receiving an invitation from a brilliant scholar, my most unforgettable professor; experiencing the excitement of leading a most distinguished congregation (the seminary faculty and community); and meeting my bashert, the love of my life, Kay Kantor Pomerantz, now a recognized Jewish educator, author, the mother of our four extraordinary children, and savta to our grandchildren and first great grandchild.

Where did you first encounter Heschel’s work?

At age 50, I’d spent my adult life estranged from Judaism, but an impulse purchase of a new translation of the Torah drew me into a renewed quest for connection. The way into our foundational text was rocky, however. Who is the God who speaks to us from its pages? What is it that God most wants from us? I scoured the Judaica sections of bookstores seeking guidance. I found especially helpful the then–newly published book by Arthur Green Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow. In it, he offers the following advice for beginning learners: "My own teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, was a most gifted writer as well as a profound thinker. Go first to his God in Search of Man. Its opening section is the best introduction anywhere to understanding what it means to be a religious person and to be on a seeker's path." That was the clue that I needed. Green was absolutely right. I’ve been reading Heschel carefully ever since.

How did Heschel and his thinking inspire your work, religious life, or civic engagement?

Abraham Joshua Heschel isn’t often recognized as a deep thinker about science, but he has profoundly shaped my outlook as a physicist.

When I read Heschel’s God in Search of Man, it feels as if it had been written especially for me, with the questions that a scientist and a modern would raise about our tradition. That doesn’t mean that it was straightforward to understand his answers to those questions. It has been an ongoing struggle, but I’ve always been confident that Heschel was addressing the issues that I cared most about.

Readers won’t miss his emphasis on the ineffable character of existence and on our responses of wonder and awe to the ineffable. But what is truly ineffable about our world? What is most deserving of our awe? One haiku-like sentence from Man Is Not Alone best sums up what I’ve learned from Heschel. “The world consists, not of things, but of tasks.” On first reading, the physicist in me rebels. How can the world be made of anything but things? But Heschel is being sly. Of course, there’s a valid point of view from which we can say that the world is made precisely of things. Heschel is profoundly respectful of what we can learn from the natural sciences. More important, however, is the aspect of the world in which human beings are agents, directing our energy toward fulfilling the tasks with which we are charged by the prophets—creating a world in which love of neighbor, stranger, and God govern all of our actions.

Heschel teaches us how to read the Torah for insight and guidance. “In the prophets the ineffable became a voice, disclosing that God is not a being that is apart and away from ourselves . . . but justice, mercy; not only a power to which we are accountable, but a pattern for our lives.” I no longer believe that science is the sole path toward knowledge of the world. For its material parts—yes, natural science offers the best way forward. But for that which is more real than the material world, Heschel showed me the path on which to walk.

What of Heschel lives in you?

Since retiring from my career of physics research and teaching, I’ve focused my activity on Heschel’s understanding of how Jewish thought complements the scientific project in giving a fuller account of our world. Alongside my private learning, I’m relearning Heschel’s writings with several havruta (small groups). As opportunities arise, I’m also sharing what I’ve learned with larger groups. In these small ways, I feel that I'm continuing one of Heschel's main projects: to share with modern Jews the depth and richness of Jewish thought, a sorely needed complement to the scientific worldview.

Basya Schechter and her band (Megan Weeder, violin; Yoed Nir, cello; Uri Sharlin, piano; Rich Stein, percussion) perform a song cycle based on Abraham Joshua Heschel’s early Yiddish poetry. Recorded by Steve Brand.

Chancellor Emeritus Arnold Eisen spoke with Christa Tippet about Heschel’s embodiment of “the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing.”

Inspired by a quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel, podcaster Kenyon Phillips tries looking at everyday life through a lens of radical amazement.

A clip from a documentary that explores Abraham Joshua Heschel’s poetry through songs by musician Basya Schecter.