Habit is our downfall, a defeat of the spirit. It is habit which wrecks the soul. Living by habit is destructive of creativity. He who prays today only because he prayed yesterday -  a scoundrel is superior to him, says Rabbi Mendel of Kotsk.

A.J.Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, FS&G, p. 203

One must live and act as if the fate of all time would depend on a single moment.
A J Heschel, The Sabbath, Shambhala, p 71

The agony of our problems forments like a volcano, and it is foolish to seek finite answers to infinite agony.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 301

Many of the people who populate the so-called world do not really live. What you see, said the Kotzker, are phantoms, apparitions, specters, ghosts moving around in the realm of the lost, a large and broad limbo.

A healthy life consists in knowing what one wants, seeing an ultimate goal ahead, and hoping to reach it by means of clearly understood actions.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 21

Living by habit is destructive of creativity. 

A.J.Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, FS&G, p.203

לעצמאות תשע"ה

Israel is a personal challenge, a personal religious issue. It is a call to every one of us as an individual, a call which one cannot answer vicariously. It is at the same time a message of meaning, a way of dealing with the monsters of absurdity, a hope for a new appreciation of being human.

A.J.Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, FS&G, pp 225

Being human involves being sensitive to the sacred.

A J Heschel, Who is Man ? Stanford U Press, p. 48

The Bible is an unfinished drama. Our being in the land is a chapter of an encompassing, meaning-bestowing drama.

A.J.Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, FS&G, p. 222

The Lord of history has always placed us in predicaments, and this seems to be part of our destiny, never to relax in complacency, but to face difficult tasks, to live by the challenge.

A.J.Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, FS&G, p. 173

In a deep sense, the more knowledge we acquire, the more uncomfortable we become.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 189

The meaning of religion is that it is a culmination, a climax; not an ornament, but the heart, the chief meaning of existence; not a fraction, but a completion; not shallowness, but depth.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 166

Emblazoned over the gates of the world in which we live is the escutcheon of the demons,

A. J. Heschel. The Meaning of This War ( WW II ), in Moral Grandeur and Spritual Audacity, FS&G p 209

Like Kierkegaard, the Kotzker wanted man to discover himself as an individual, to free himself from the crowd.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 141

Both Kierkegaard and the Kotzker contended that the essence of religion was warfare: a fight against spiritual inertia, indolence, callousness.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 183

Beaten paths, thought the Kotzker, lead to quagmires.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 185

With every child born, a new expectation  enters the world.

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 259

The tangible phenomena we scrutinize with our reason, the sacred and indemonstrable we overhear with the sense of the ineffable.

A. J. Heschel, Man is Not Alone, FS&G,p.  9

הקול המתדבר אלי  ליבו וזורנברג

"כשמתבוננים הנביאים בעולם, מתגלה לעיניהם ' צרה וחשכה מעוף צוקה ואפלה מנודח ( ישעיהו ח 22). כאשר הם מתבוננים בארץ, הם מוצאים אותה ' מלאה אשם מקדוש ישראל' (יר' נא 5). ' עד אנה ה' שועתי  ולא תשמע  אזעק אליך חמס   ולא תושיע; למה תיראני אוון   ועמל תביט  ושוד וחמס לנגדי  ויהי ריב  ומדון ישא; על כן תפוג תורה  ולא יצא לנצח משפט   כי רשע מכתיר את הצדיק   על כן יצא משפט מעוקל.' (חבקוק א 2-4). בעולמנו 'דרך רשעים צלחה שלוו כל בוגדי בגד' (יר' יב 1); עולם שבו יש הטוענים ש'כל עושה רע טוב בעיני ה' ובהם הוא חפץ' ואחרים שואלים 'איה אלהי משפט' (מלאכי ב 17)."

א.י. השל, אלוהים מבקש את האדם, הוצ'  מאגנס, תרגום עזן מאיר-לוי, עמ'  290 - 291

To ask a question is an act of the intellect; to face a problem is a situation involving the whole person. A question is the result of thirst for knowledge; a problem reflects a state of perplexity, or even distress. A question calls for an answer, a problem calls for a solution ( from the Latin solvere, to loosen, to dissolve).

A J Heschel, Who is Man ? Stanford U Press, p. 1

הדת היא מה שהאדם עושה עם המבוכה המוחלטת שלו.

א.י השל,  The values of Jewish education "ערכי החינוך היהודי" (הכותרת באנג') , ב"אלוהים מאמין באדם", תרגם וערך דרור בונדי, בהוצאת כנרת, זמורה, ביתן, דביר, עמ' 271

The meaning of existence is experienced in moments of exaltation.

A J Heschel, Who is Man ? Stanford U Press, p. 118

The security of existence lies in the exaltation of existence.

A J Heschel, Who is Man ? Stanford U Press, p. 118

Freedom is  the liberation from the tyranny of the self-centered ego. It comes about in moments of transcending the self as an act of spiritual ecstasy, of stepping out of the confining framework of routine reflexive concern. Freedom presupposes the capacity for sacrifice.

A.J.Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity of Freedom, p 15

...the attainment of wisdom is the work of a life time.

A.J. Heschel, To Grow in Wisdom, in TIOF, FS&G, p. 84

Education for reverence, the development of a sense of awe and mystery, is a prerequisite for the preservaton of freedom.

A.J. Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity Of Freedom, p. 21

אין לך יום  שאין בעיות מתחדשות בו, בדברים שבין אדם לחבירו, שבין אדם לעצמו, שבין עם לעם, שבין מדינה למדינה, שבין דת לדת.

א. י. השל, תורה מן השמים באספקלריה של הדורות,(ספר שני)  הוצאת שונצין, עמ' IV

[The] true essence [of freedom] is in man's ability to surpass himself, even to act against his inclinations and in defiance of his own needs and desires, to sacrifice prejudice even if it hurts, to give up superstition even when it claims to be a doctrine.

A.J. Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity Of Freedom, p14

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal.

A.J. Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G,  p.. 18

....without the sense of ultimate significance and ultimate preciousness of one's own existence, freedom becomes a hollow phrase.

A.J. Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G, p. 18