During the last twenty years of his life the Kotzker was disaffected, disillusioned, beset by anxieties. We can only speculate which issues stirred him most. Perhaps the realization that Truth was a derelict and that the earth alone was willing to take it to its bosom. Or the thought that ultimately God Himself was responsible for the inherent falsehood of human existence.

Who could feel close to the Kotzker in his self-exile, a thunder-bolt in solitude ? And what did he seek to achieve by his retirement ? To protest against the spuriousness of the world ? Exclusive dedication to a battle with Heaven instead of dispersing his energies in battling human stupidity ? Had he come to the conclusion that to be an effective leader of people one had to stay away from them ? Or was it his intention to proclaim that the end of Hasidism had arrived, to finish off what the Baal Shem Tov had begun ?

A.J. Heschel, A Passion for Truth , Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 233