[The prophet] is neither 'a singing saint' nor a 'moralizing poet', but an assaulter of the mind.

A.J, Heschel, The Prophets, JPS, p. 10

To the prophet, however, no subject is as worthy of consideration as the plight of man.

A.J, Heschel, The Prophets, JPS, p. 5

WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ASK

The question is the beginning of all thinking. In knowing how to ask the right question lies the only hope of arriving at an answer. In asking a uestion we must faintly anticipate something of the nature of what we ask about. On that account, the question about the ultimate source of all reality is one we do not know how to ask. It concerns something which cannot be pressed into our finite categories, put in chains of a sentence and converted into a definite matter ro be inquired into. Formulas - such as: What is the ultimate origin of the universe ? What is behind all events ? are travesties of what is overwhelmingly given to our pristine sense of wonder. Is it the origin we want to ask about and not the presence, goal and task of the universe ? Do we know where to draw the line between the unknown origin and known product, or where the source ends and the derivation begins ? Even the sentence structure  of such formulas is pregnant with logical  assumptions which upon close analysis disclose immense difficulties.
A profound awareness of the incongruity of all categories with the nameless, unfathomable omnipresence of the mystery is a prerequisite for our efforts in reaching toward an answer. The more we beware of letting our incomparable question be adulterated or even stifled by inadequate formulations, the better will be our chance of braving final, specious answers.

Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.

A J Heschel , The Earth Is The Lord's,Jewisj Lights Publishing, p 14

Man is abashed because his destinty is to reflect a divine image rather than a caricature.

A.J. Heschel, Depth Theology, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G, p 125

THE SITUATION THAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE QUESTION

Our point of departure is not the sight of the shrouded and inscrutable; from the endless mist of the unknown we would, indeed, be unable to derive an understanding of the known. It is the tension of the known and the unknown, of the common and the holy, of the nimble and the ineffable, that fills the moments of our insight.

We do not owe our ultimate question to stumbling in a mist of ignorance upon a wall of inscruatble riddles. We do not ask because of our being poor in spirit and bereft of knowledge; we ask because we sense a spirit which surpasses our ability to comprehend it. We owe our question not to something less but to something which is more than the known. We ask  because the world is too much for us, because the known is crammed with marvel, because the world is replete with what is more than the world as we understand it.
The question about God is not a question about all things, but a question of all things; not an inquiry into the unknown but an inquiry  into that which all things stand for; a question we ask for all things. It is phrased not in categories of reason but in acts in which we astir beyond words. The mind does not know how to phrase it, yet the soul sighs it, sings it, pleads it.

A.J.Heschel, Man is Not Alone, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc p. 61

Time is the presence of God in the world of space, and it is within time that we are able to sense the unity of all beings.

A J Heschel, The Sabbath, Shambhala, p 92

To exist as a human being means to assist the divine.

A.J. Heschel, Depth Theology, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G, p 125

Things are marvels, moments are tokens of grace.

A.J. Heschel, Depth Theology, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G, p.125

In thinking about the living  God we must look to the prophets for guidance.

A.J. Heschel, God in Search of Man, FSG, p. 163

The prophet is a witness. and his words a testimony.

A.J. Heschel, The Prophets, The Jewish Publication Society of America, p. 22

The world is a mystery, a question, not an answer.

A.J. Heschel, God in Search of Man, FSG, p. 110

What gives birth to religion is not intellectual curiosity but the fact and experience of our being asked.

A.J. Heschel, God in Search of Man, FSG, p. 112

The primary task of religious thinking is to rediscover the questions to which religion is an answer, to develop a degree of sensitivity to the ultimate questions which its ideas and acts are trying to answer.

A.J. Heschel, Religion in a Free Society, in The Insecurity of Freedom, FS&G,  p. 4 

[To the pious man] ideals are strides on the way, never the destination.

A. J. Heschel, Man is Not Alone, FS&G, p 293