The Wisdom of Heschel by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Author:Abraham Joshua Heschel [Heschel, Abraham Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1986-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ennobling the Common

JUDAISM IS a theology of the common deed, of the trivialities of life, dealing not so much with training for the exceptional as with management of the trivial. The predominant feature in the Jewish pattern of life is unassuming, inconspicuous piety rather than extravagance, mortification, asceticism. Thus, the purpose seems to be to ennoble the common.

PIETY DOES NOT consist in isolated acts, in sporadic, ephemeral experiences … It is something unremitting, persistent, unchanging in the soul, a perpetual inner attitude of the whole man. Like a breeze in the atmosphere, it runs through all the deeds, utterances, and thoughts; it is a tenor of life betraying itself in each trait of character, each mode of action.

TO THE PIOUS MAN, as to the wise one, mastery over self is a necessity of life. Unlike the wise man, however, the pious man feels that he himself is not the autonomous master but is rather a mediator who administers his life in the name of God.

THE MOST MAGNIFICENT edifices, most beautiful temples and monuments of worldly glory, are repulsive to the man of piety when they are built by the sweat and tears of suffering slaves, or erected through injustice and fraud. Hypocrisy and pretense of devoutness are more distasteful to him than open iniquity. But in the roughened, soiled hands of devoted parents, or in the maimed bodies and bruised faces of those who have been persecuted but have kept faith with God, he may detect the last great light on earth.

THE PIOUS MAN is ever alert to see behind the appearance of things a trace of the divine, and thus his attitude toward life is one of expectant reverence. Because of this attitude the pious man is at peace with life, in spite of its conflicts. He patiently acquiesces in life’s vicissitudes, because he glimpses spiritually their potential meaning. Every experience opens the door into a temple of new light, although the vestibule may be dark and dismal.

THE PIOUS MAN accepts life’s ordeals and its need of anguish, because he recognizes these as belonging to the totality of life … He is keenly sensitive to pain and suffering, to adversity and evil in his own life and in that of others; but he has the inner strength to rise above grief.

THE PIOUS MAN does not take life for granted. The weighty business of living does not cloud for him the miracle of life and the consciousness that he lives through God. No routine of social or economic life dulls his mindfulness of this, the ineffably wonderful in nature and history.

PIETY cannot consist of specific acts only, such as prayer or ritual observances, but is bound up with all actions, concomitant with all doings, accompanying and shaping all life’s business. Man’s responsibility to God is the scaffold on which he stands as daily he goes on building life. His every deed, every incident of mind, takes place on this scaffold, so that unremittingly man is at work either building up or tearing down his life, his home, his hope of God.

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