When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELIt is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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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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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.
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For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving
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The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.
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Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.
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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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Man’s sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.
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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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To be is to stand for.
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Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.
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Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed.
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People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.
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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
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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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Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL