I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don’t be old. Don’t be stale.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELI have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don’t be old. Don’t be stale.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELThings, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELThat man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELAnd yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELPeople are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age….
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELIt is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELA prophet’s true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELThere 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 HESCHELThe beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELThe higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELI did not ask for success; I asked for wonder.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELMundus vult decipi’—the world wants to be deceived.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELFriendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person’s qualities but on trust.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELRemember 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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELAwe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELEvery little deed counts.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL