There is no answer to Auschwitz…To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELfeel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance
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Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions. Source: The Wisdom of Heschel
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The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.
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It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.
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The world of things we perceive is but a veil. It’s flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable.
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The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature.
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It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal.
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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.
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Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
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I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder.
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The utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God’s creation.
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Man’s true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him.
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People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age….
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It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
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I am commanded therefore I am.
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Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power…Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.
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Mankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation.
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To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.
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In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
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There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate
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We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God?
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There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.
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God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
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In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender
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We use words as tools. We forget that words are a repository of the spirit. The tragedy of our times is that the vessels of the spirit are broken.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL