The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELHowever, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man’s perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency;
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
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Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.
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Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one’s role in relation to all other beings.
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We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. … The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
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Reality to us is thinghood , consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing.
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To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.
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Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
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It is our honest response to the grandeur and mystery of reality our confrontation with that which transcends the given.
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We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
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Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man.
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Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.
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Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind–these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell.
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The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.
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Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind’s desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.
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Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.
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Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.
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To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity – there is the challenge.
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And 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.
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Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness.
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The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.
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The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.
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It’s silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear–filling grandeur.
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Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward history and nature.
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We worship God through our questions.
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However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man’s perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency;
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL