Customer Reviews

Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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A warm yet intellectual compilation of that great thinker. To the Heschel Scholar, it once again proves the undeniable fact, that though he was liberal in his political views, his views on Judaism were deeply rooted in his pious Chassidic ancestry. This book like Heschel's classic "The Earth Is The Lord's" makes you wonder if Heschel - though a faculty member at JTS, is to be considered a "Conservative Jew"? or perhaps it is time to acknowledge that he may have been an Orthodox one after all. All in all a wonderful, warm book for all people of all persuasions.

Mostly addresses and lectures aimed at specific issues to specific audiences and constituencies.

Nevertheless, there is a core of brilliance in every work. And, more importantly, there are some very enduring lessons.

The material on interfaith dialogue is possibly the only clear, Halachically correct yet openminded approach ever presented. He

Although I have read many of Heschel's books, this one is the most precise and compact collection of his thoughts and wisdom.

I knew Heschel's spiritual power. But, these essays demonstrate his understanding of the world and its need for grand thinking and courage that only a few like Heschel are have been able to muster. This man is a treasure. He just may be what God wants of us.

a great birthday gift to my lovely daughter
this book was an addition to her already 5000
volume library......we save old books

so to those of you who like to read you know
what i mean!!!

This is a wonderful book of short essays, speeches, articles and other writings that helps to fill out the more human, more real-world perspective of the man and his approach to Jewish living. You will not find the theological depth of his writing here, but you will find in these words his response to the world as it happened around him. Whether he is dealing with strictly Jewish issues or interfaith or racial or the Vietnam war, he carries his consistent approach that the world must be faced constantly as God's challenge to us and our opportunity to find God.

These essays are approachable and direct. While they do not serve as an introduction to Heschel's core thought, they bring the man himself into relief and let those of us who know him only through his writing to glimpse the real Heschel at work and in life.

This book is a collection of essays, articles, interviews, etc. collected posthumously by Heschel's daughter. I think she did a nice job of arranging the chapters. Heschel is very emotive, expressionistic, politically liberal, religious (seems more Orthodox in practice than Conservative though he taught at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary), and poetic. His writings include many beautiful turns of phrase and quotable quotes (e.g. page 263: "Our grasp of the depth of suffering is comparable to the scope of the perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon"). Of the 3 of his books I've read (the other 2 are "The Sabbath" & "God in Search of Man"), I liked this one best. It is, however, huge and not (at least for me) easy reading despite its limited philosophy content. Unfortunately, my reaction to him isn't very positive, perhaps because he seems to preach so much and speaks in too authoritative a manner. For example, he says again and again, Jews believe or do this or that and Americans do this or that. People are simply not that consistent or similar. Perhaps he's just following his expression on page 4: "A noble person does not compare himself with anybody else." But, people are almost invariably Normally Distributed. And, Heschel is hardly at the mean/average. I take a moderate stance, and his extremism annoys me. If you take his perspective, I'd think you'd love this book. But, Heschel doesn't speak for me. True, he does wish to balance Halachah (religious law a la the Shulchan Arukh) with Agada (wisdom stories etc. - everything not the law). Further, his background in Eastern European Hasidism ( his family traces back to the Great Maggid of Mezerich) explains much of his point of view. He is quite critical in these essays. I agree with his statement: (page 4) that "Man is creative only when he is neither apologetic nor propagandistic." But this should apply to Heschel too. He seems propagandistic to me. Furthermore, he continues on page 4, "Yet the strength of truth lies not in refuting others but in understanding itself, in being consistent with itself." I think he needs to follow his own valuable advice-& per page 20: "A human being must be valued by how many times he was able to see the world from a new perspective" and page 126: "We must not continue to cherish a theory just because we embraced it forty years ago."

On the other hand, Heschel has a sense of humor and irony: (page 7): "If a man is not more than human, then he is less than human," (page 20): "Most people think only once in their lives, usually when they are at college," and (page 164): "All concepts are but glittering motes in a sunbeam." He also displays considerable insight into religion: (page 126): "Faith is not something we acquire once and for all. Faith is an insight that must be acquired at every single moment," (page 243): "Religion is a means, not an end. It becomes idolatrous when regarded as an end in itself...to equate religion and God is idolatry," (page 245): "The Torah as given to Moses, an ancient rabbi maintains, is but an unripened fruit of the heavenly tree of wisdom."

And yet, he doesn't seem to me to have been able to balance his feelings with his intellect. He states on page 317 that "Man's task is to reconcile liberty with service, reason with faith" and "Man has to understand in order to believe, to know in order to accept." But his works don't seem to reflect this very much IMHO. Finally, he decries the following (page 408): "One of the most popular definitions of God common in America today was developed by a great Protestant theologian: God is the Ground of Being. So everybody is ready to accept it." Heschel finds this appalling. Interestingly, The "Ground of Being" is a Dzogchen/Mahamudra (highest forms of Nyingma and Kagyu forms of Tibetan Buddhism) term. I identify it with the Kabbalistic Ein Sof (which Heschel speaks of occasionally since the Hasids study/practice Kabbalah). Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see much (if any) difference between what I believe to be the highest or ultimate conceptions of the All in Judaism (Kabbalah), Buddhism (Vajrayana), and Hinduism (the Brahman of the Upanishads). Seems like an ultimate vision is an ultimate vision. But, Heschel doesn't see it that way. Too bad.