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Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Not all justice happens in the courtroom or the Congress. Some of it happens on the street. Abraham Joshua Heschel lived tzedek tzedek tirdof.
th e early years
Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in 1907 in Warsaw, Poland. In his teens Heschel received a traditional yeshiva education and obtained rabbinic ordination. He then studied at the University of Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate and earned a second liberal rabbinic ordination at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. In 1939 World War II began. Many countries—among them Britain, France, the United States and Russia—were drawn into the war against the Nazis. Deported to Poland by the Nazis in 1938, Heschel taught for eight months at the Warsaw Institute of Jewish Studies. He then emigrated to England, where he established the Institute for Jewish Learning in London. In 1940 he came to the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati (the main seminary for Reform Judaism), where he became associate professor of philosophy and rabbinics until the end of the war. In 1946 he came to the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Heschel was a noted author of texts on Jewish life, including The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion and God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism.
Soc ial Just ice
Heschel had a major disagreement with much of the Jewish Theological Seminary faculty due to his views on the Hebrew prophets and social justice. He saw the teachings of the Hebrew prophets as a loud call for social action in the United States. Most of the faculty saw their job as academics and educators, and they left the world of social activism to pulpit rabbis and lay people. Heschel was active in the civil rights movement and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the protest march at Selma, Alabama. He described the march in these words: “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was both protest and prayer. Our legs uttered songs. I felt
my legs were praying.”
Civil rights leaders Ralph Ab ernathy, Martin Luther king, Jr., former United Nations ambassador Ralph Bunche and rabb i Ab raham Joshua Heschel (l-r) at the start of a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Heschel spoke out for peace. He helped organize and served as co-chair of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam, a group that represented the religious opposition to the war in Vietnam. Heschel died on December 23, 1972. Four day schools and various organizations are named for him. Abraham Joshua Heschel taught the prophets and lived up to their ethical demands. He lived tzedek tzedek tirdof.
Here are four quotations by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
[a] A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
[b] When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
[c] There are inalienable obligations as well as inalienable rights.
[d] A person cannot be religious and indifferent to other human beings’ plight and suffering. In fact, the tragedy of humankind is that so much of our history is a history of indifference, dominated by a famous statement, Am I my brother’s keeper?
1. Which text do you like best? 2. What lesson does it teach you? 3. What does Heschel teach us about tzedek tzedek tirdof?
11/20/1963— Ab raham Joshua Heschel (r) assists George Maislen (L), President of the United Synagogue of America, in presenting the Solomon Schechter Award to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (C), “for translating the prophetic vision of Ab raham Lincoln into a living reality.”
Being Like Heschel
Heschel lived a life of Torah and pursuing justice. He stood up for things that in his day needed standing up for. What are three just things that people need to pursue today?
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