By the late 1930's, the Nazis had closed the doors of all rabbinical seminaries in Germany. There is a little known story about Dr. Julian Morgenstern, President of the Hebrew Union College, America’s seminary of Reform Judaism in Cincinnati. He had invited a number of eminent Jewish scholars and rabbinical students to leave Germany to continue their academic work at the College.

One of these professors was Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel was a charismatic thinker, writer, and religious leader, whose 25th yahrzeit we recently commemorated. For five years, from 1940 until 1945, Heschel taught philosophy and rabbinic literature at the College.

He was always grateful to Dr. Morgenstern for rescuing him from death. He once said that Morgenstern was “the least appreciated man in American Jewry.” Yet, Heschel, an observant traditional Jew, was never religiously at home in the Classical Reform environment of the Hebrew Union College of the 1940's and felt that he needed to move on.

Fortunately, for him, in 1945, Heschel was asked to join the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the bastion of Conservative Judaism in New York, as professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism. Two Hebrew Union College students, Samuel Dresner and Richard Rubinstein, who were deeply influenced by Heschel’s thought, followed him to the Seminary. They were later ordained there. Both have become respected Jewish thinkers and writers.

Heschel remained at the Seminary until his death, twenty-seven years later. Dr. Ismar Schorsch, who is the current Chancellor of the Seminary, has called Heschel, “the most important Jewish thinker of the modern period.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in Warsaw in 1907. He was a descendant of numerous Hasidic dynasties. He spent his formative years learning at a traditional Heder and Yeshiva, like all Eastern European Jews with his religious background.

At age twenty, he entered a new world of thought. He enrolled at the University of Berlin to obtain his doctorate. He also studied at the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin’s liberal rabbinical seminary, where he later taught Talmud.

In 1937, Martin Buber, the famed Jewish philosopher, named him his successor at the Lehrhaus in Frankfort. This was the city’s central agency for adult Jewish learning. The following year, the Nazis deported Heschel and all Jews of Polish citizenship back to Poland. Fortunately, six weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Heschel was able to leave Poland for London. There he established the Institute of Jewish Learning. The following year, he came to Cincinnati.

Heschel’s life was a combination of paradoxes. First, he was a scholar in the Western tradition. He wrote scores of scientifically sound works on the classics of Judaism, like the Biblical prophets, the writings of Maimonides, and the Kabbalah. On the other hand, he also penned numerous volumes of a non-academic nature on the spiritual crises and questions which the modern Jew confronts, with titles like Man is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, and Man’s Quest for God.

Then, too, in his personal ritual practice, Heschel was almost Orthodox. Yet, at the same time, he was deeply committed to strengthening ties with peoples of other faiths. In 1964, Heschel met with Pope Paul VI. As a result, Heschel influenced the Second Vatican Council to issue strong statements in support of Jews and Judaism. The following year, Heschel became the first Jew ever to be appointed to the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary in New York. This is one of the foremost Protestant theological schools in the United States.

Furthermore, I have already mentioned that Heschel was a prolific scholar. At the same time, however, he was a courageous social activist. He ardently believed that prayer and study could not be separated from communal involvement. Heschel cut an imposing figure with his white beard and crown of wavy hair, his small but imposing bearing, and his passionate and assertive way of speaking. When he cried out for justice, one could almost hear the echoes of God in his voice.

In 1965, Heschel went to Selma, Alabama, to march with Martin Luther King in the struggle for civil rights. Someone who marched with him questioned why this eminent scholar came to Selma instead of remaining in his ivory tower in New York. Heschel’s reply was profound: “When I march in Selma, my feet are praying.” Later that year, Heschel helped to found an interreligious clergy and lay group to oppose the involvement of our United States government in the war in Vietnam.

When Heschel died in 1972, our country was convulsed by rebellions against the establishment. Riots were erupting on major American college campuses. Scores of disenchanted young people blamed the country’s imperfections on their elders, whom they considered hypocrites. These youth wanted to bring about a just society. In 1972, we were undergoing a period of turning outward. I don’t recall ever hearing the word “spirituality” in those days.

Now, a quarter of a century later, the mood of our times has shifted 180 degrees. We are now looking inward. Spirituality has become almost a buzz word. More and more people want to connect with God. In this search, Heschel can be an enormous resource.

Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, wrote that Heschel was the first person he had ever met who took God seriously. Heschel noted that in our quest for God, we will experience what he called, “radical amazement,” an overwhelming sense of awe and wonderment. This core religious moment, however, is immediate and non-verbal. It can not be expressed in language or imprisoned in rational theological categories. To Heschel, God was not a philosophical abstraction. Heschel’s God was a living reality, the personal Diety of our patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Heschel believed God takes a passionate interest in those God created. He spoke about “Divine pathos,” which means that God suffers with God’s creatures when they are in pain and demands a commitment to social justice to alleviate their plight.

Heschel also noted that other peoples build their cathedrals in space. We Jews, by contrast, build our cathedrals in time. The Sabbath is the Jewish quintessential cathedral in time.

Though English was not Heschel’s native tongue, he mastered English and became an exemplary wordsmith. His eloquent writings are savored not only by Jews. They also serve as reflections in Catholic convents and in Baptist study groups.

Dr. Fritz Rothschild, who was his colleague at the Seminary, made the following observation about Heschel’s writings: “We find ourselves confronted with a style that exhibits a beauty and vividness of phrase rarely found in scholarly works. The idea appears in aphoristic insights...spiritual gems...His easy flowery prose hides subtle and complex thought processes that are ours to discover, only if we delve beneath the smooth surface and study each passage in depth.”

We turn now to Heschel’s felicitous words about “Prayer” for our Responsive Reading. It is printed on the insert in your Orders of Service. May we find profound inspiration as we recite his sensitive musings:

Prayer is a ladder on which our thoughts mount to God.

Prayer takes our mind out of the narrowness of self-interest.

Prayer clarifies our hopes and our intentions.

Prayer, like a gulf stream, imparts warmth to all that is cold.

Prayer is a dialogue with God.

Prayer is an answer to God.

Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives.

Prayer is our desire to let God’s will prevail in our affairs.

Prayer is opening our soul to God.

Prayer is our intention to make God the master of our soul.

Prayer is to sense God’s presence.

Prayer is a gift to God.

Amen.

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