Abraham Joshua Heschel

• Born: January 11, 1907
• Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire (now in Poland)
• Died: December 23, 1972
• Place of death: New York, New York

Polish-born rabbi, philosopher, and theologian

Heschel taught an approach to Judaism grounded in spiritualism and human concerns.

Areas of achievement: Religion and theology; scholarship; social issues; activism

Early Life

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1907, Abraham Joshua Heschel (AY-brah-ham JOSH-ew-wah HESH-uhl) was the youngest of six children. His family had seven generations of preeminent Hasidic rabbis. His great-great-grandfather and namesake was Rebbe Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt. His father, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai, and those who went before him helped to found the Polish Hasidic movement, a Jewish sect of mystics, in the eighteenth century. His mother, Reisel Perlow, gave him a love of learning, and, as a young man, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote poetry in Yiddish, which was later published in 1933 as Der Shem Hamefoyrosh: Mentsch, dedicated to his father.

Heschel received a traditional Jewish (yeshiva) education in Warsaw and went to Berlin, where he studied at the university and also taught the Talmud, during 1932-1933, at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. There he studied under some of the finest Jewish educators of the time: Hanoch Albeck, Ismar Elbogen, Julius Guttmann, and Leo Baeck. Heschel earned his Ph.D. degree from Berlin University in 1933 and accepted a fellowship at the Hochschule, graduating the following year.

Life’s Work

Between 1935 and 1937, Heschel wrote three works that began to establish his reputation as a serious scholar: Maimonides: Eine Biographie (1935), concerning the medieval Jewish philosopher; Die Prophetie (1936), on Hebrew prophecy; and Don Jizchak Abravanel (1937), about the fifteenth century Jewish statesman of Spain.

In 1937, Heschel accepted a teaching position in Frankfurt am Main at the prestigious Judisches Lehrhaus. With the impending war in Europe, he was deported from Nazi Germany in 1938 and returned to Warsaw for a few months, teaching at the Institute of Judaistic Studies. When the Nazis invaded Poland, Heschel fled to London, where he founded the Institute for Jewish Learning.

In 1940, Heschel emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, and joined the faculty of Hebrew Union College. In 1945, he became the chair and professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. That same year, he became an American citizen, and in 1946 he married concert pianist Sylvia Straus. They had one daughter, Susannah. Heschel remained at the Jewish Theological Seminary until his death in New York City on December 23, 1972.

Heschel’s view of a religious life prompted him to become actively involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s and early 1970’s to end racial discrimination in America. He marched and preached with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Heschel was one of the first religious leaders in the United States to speak out against the war in Vietnam. He risked criticism from fellow Jews by meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in Rome to discuss Jewish concerns with Vatican Council II. Heschel believed it important that Jewish approval be added, if possible, to some of the council’s decrees, such as the denial of any Jewish guilt in the crucifixion of Jesus.

For Heschel, Judaism was about both reason and a culture of religious experience; it was philosophical and experiential. The key was finding a loving and devoted human response to God. Heschel believed that Jewish ethics and teachings would guide human behavior in relation to modern concerns and challenges. This helps explain why he became a public advocate in favor of civil rights and against the Vietnam War.

Heschel resists easy categorization as either a fundamentalist or an extreme liberal. He opposed the notion that all that Judaism had to teach had been revealed at Sinai, but likewise he would not be swayed from the fundamental belief that Judaism is founded on the conviction that God made his will known to his people.

Over the course of his active and productive life, Heschel wrote several important books, including his magnum opus, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951), The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (1951), Man’s Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (1954), God in Search of Man (1955), The Prophets (1962), Who Is Man? (1965), and The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (1966).

Significance

Heschel is one of the most important Jewish thinkers and teachers of the twentieth century. He had a lasting impact on deeply religious and secular Jews alike. Indeed, his influence reached far beyond the Jewish community as a result of his steadfast and very visible support for the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1960’s and early 1970’s. As such, he played a pivotal role in helping to strengthen relations between Jews and African Americans. Heschel came to symbolize for a new generation of Jews a vital conception of Judaism that is relevant to their lives and to their desire to live a meaningful life committed to social justice based on deeply rooted Jewish values, including the humanity of all people, the command to oppose injustice, and the obligation to care for the stranger and to help repair the world.

Bibliography

Chester, Michael A. Divine Pathos and Human Being: The Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Portland, Oreg.: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005. Begins with a short biography of Heschel, then moves on to examine his depth theology and his conception of the divine pathos.

Kaplan, Edward K. Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007. This is a continuation of Kaplan’s major biography of Heschel, covering his years in the United States, highlighted by details on his spiritual and political radicalism.

Kaplan, Edward K., and Stanley Dresner. Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Important portrait of Heschel’s early life, his education, and his migration to the United States.

Rose, Or N., and Susannah Heschel. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man of Spirit, Man of Action. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2003. For a juvenile audience, this book presents the life story of Heschel, including the drama of his escape from the Holocaust and his involvement in the Civil Rights movement. Includes many photographs.