Everywhere we are surrounded by the ineffable, our familiarity with reality is a myth. To the innermost in our soul even beauty is an alloy mixed with the true metal of eternity. There is neither earth nor sky, neither spring nor autumn, there is only a question, God's eternal question of man: Where art Thou ? Religion begins with the certainty that something is asked of us, that there are ends which are in need of us. Unlike all other values, moral and religious ends evoke in us a sense of obligation. They present themselves as tasks rather than as objects of perception. Thus, religious living consists in serving ends which are in need of us.
( Emphasis - Italics-  added)

A.J.Heschel, Man is Not Alone, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc pp.214-215



Halacha is an answer to a question, namely: What does God ask of me ? The moment that question dies in the heart, the answer becomes meaningless. That question, however, is agadic, spontaneous, personal. It is an outburst of insight, longing, faith. It is not given; it must come about. The task of religious teaching is to be a midwife and bring about the birth of the question. Many religious teachers are guilty of ignoring the vital role of the question and condoning spiritual sterility. But the soul is never calm. Every human being is pregnant with problems in a preconceptual form. Most of us do not know how to phrase our quest for meaning, our concern for the ultimate. Without guidance, our concern for the ultimate is not  thought through and what we express is premature and penultimate, a miscarriage of the spirit.
The question is not immutable in form. Every generation must express the question in its own way. In this sense agada may be  employed as denoting all religious thinking in the tradition of Judaism.
( Emphasis - Italics-  added)

A.J. Heschel, God in Search of Man, FSG, p. 339