81 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hearing Voices..., May 23, 2003
Rabbi Abraham Heschel is an intellectual and prophetic hero of mine. Any one who would stand up to the pope and say 'I'd rather die than convert' (when trying to get the Roman Catholic Church to drop 'conversion of the Jews' as an official aim of the church) has the sort of integrity of belief and identity that I aspire to and most likely will never attain.
Heschel's book `The Prophets' became an almost instant classic. Simply reading through the chapter titles and subtitles (a partial list of titles appears at the bottom of this review) will give a sense of the breadth and depth of this work.
Heschel sees an urgent need for prophets and prophecy in today's world. 'The things that horrified the prophets are even now daily occurrences all over the world.' In examining the prophecies of Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nathan, &c, he discerns the common strands of the word of God in all that they said and did, and teaches the reader how to discern similar prophetic aspects in today's world.
`The prophet is human, yet he employs note one octave too high for our ears.'
The Bible says, let him who has ears to hear, listen. Alas, ordinarily we do not have the hearing range to be able to give adequate attention and comprehension to today's prophetic voices. Most often the voice of the prophet is one we do not want to hear (look at how the Israelites reacted to their prophets!). Prophets were often seen as doom-sayers and problematic people.
Indeed, every prediction of disaster is in itself an exhortation to repentance. The prophet is sent not only to upbraid, but to 'strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.'
Every prophetic utterance, according to Heschel, has to have within its core a message of hope. Without hope, without a promise to greater community and participation in the love of God, there is no true prophecy. The road may be hard and long, involving pain and even death, but in the end, the prophet's goal is greater life for all.
`To be a prophet is both a distinction and an affliction.'
Being a prophet has never been a chosen profession. Indeed, like Jonah, we'll often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid even the smallest call to prophecy. Prophetic voices are inconvenient, not least of which to the person charged to be the speaker of that voice. Yet the prophet is much more than a mouthpiece.
`The prophet claims to be far more than a messenger. He is a person who stands in the presence of God.'
The prophet becomes one with God in many ways, yet remains a human being. This creates a tension in the prophet, as Heschel writes about Isaiah:
`Indeed, two sympathies dwell in a prophet's soul: sympathy for God and sympathy for the people. Speaking to the people, he is emotionally at one with God; in the presence of God, beholding a vision, he is emotionally at one with the people.'
Yet prophecy has its limits.
`A prophet can give man a new word, but not a new heart.... Prophecy is not God's only instrument. What prophecy fails to bring about, the new covenant will accomplish: the complete transformation of every individual.'
It was the prophet who, long before ideas of political unity and divers peoples living together in community, first conceived of the idea of a unity that binds all human beings together.
Read and prepare to be enlightened, inspired, irritated, and educated.
Chapters include:
- What manner of man is the prophet?
- History
- Chastisement
- Justice
- The Theology of Pathos
- The Philosophy of Pathos
- Anthropopathy
- The Meaning and Mystery of Wrath
- Religion of Sympathy
- Prophecy and Ecstasy
- Prophecy and Poetic Inspiration
- Prophecy and Psychosis (there is a fine line between prophecy and madness, after all!)
`This, then, is the ultimate category of prophetic theology: involvement, attentiveness, concern. Prophetic religion may be defined, not as what man does with his ultimate concern, but rather what man does with God's concern.'
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84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine Jewish perspective on the biblical prophets, July 23, 2000
This two-volume work is one of the best I know of for explaining how Jews relate to the Prophets. While non-Jews tend to think of "prophets" as psychics who foretell the future, the Jewish concept of a prophet is someone who is inspired by God to advance the cause of social justice by confronting the people and their rulers. "Feed the widow, the orphan, the stranger!" shouts the prophet in the marketplace. "Forsake your dead idols -- return to the Lord!" he tells the king. Yes, the prophet may foretell future events, but he also preaches another option: return to the ways of God, and the terrible things foretold in a prophecy may not have to happen. A prophecy is a warning, a call to repentence -- not a prognistication written in stone.
Heschel's scholarship in this work is excellent and very, very readable, even if you are not a seminarian. Like his shorter books, such as "The Sabbath" and "The Earth is the Lord's," this work is written in dynamic, inspiring prose that reaches the level of fine literature. In the first volume, he discusses specific biblical prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. (Christians may be surprised to learn that, in classical Jewish sources, the "suffering servant" refers Jacob who, in turn, is used by Isaiah as a metaphor for the entire Jewish people collectively. In other words, the Jews are the "suffering servant" of God, not Jesus.) Volume II discusses more general concepts about prophets and prophecy.
As an historical note, I would add that Rabbi Heschel not only wrote about prophets and social responsibility, he also walked the walk -- quite literally. He was active in the Civil Rights movement in the USA, and walked with Dr. Martin Luther King in the second Selma march in Alabama (look for a white-haired man in a black skullcap near King, next time you view footage of that event.) Rabbi Heschel said of that march that he "felt as if his feet were praying." His book, "The Prophets," will let you enter the mind and soul that went with those feet.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Volume 2 also a Classic, August 30, 1998
While volume one of Heschel's definitive work concentrates more on specific prophets, volume two delves more into the general office of prophecy as well as the various concepts of God held by philosophers from around the globe (most notably the Greeks such as Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Chrysippus, Strato, or Xenophanes.) He explores different ways others have tried to understand the Hebrew prophets, comparing and contrasting biblical prophecy with religious ecstasy, poetic inspiration, psychosis and neuroses, literary devices, and prophets throughout the world (e.g. Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Americas, China etc). While these modes of analysis have validity as tools of study, ultimately they all fall short in adequately explaining - and therefore understanding - the prophets. Heschel's amazingly wide range of scholarly studies give him a unique ability to assess these remarkable prophetic revelations recorded in the scriptures. I found his comments sagacious and illuminating. This is not a book of light reading, but neither is it a dreary pedantic tome. It is a classic that is helpful for both scholars and lay public alike, deserving to be studied, underlined, highlighted, and commented upon while reading through it.
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