A Thought of God

The purpose of prayer is to be brought to His attention, to be listened to, to be understood by Him; not to know Him, but to be known to Him To pray is to behold life not only as a result of His power, but as a concern of His will, or to strive to make our life a divine concern. For the ultimate aspiration of man is not to be a master, but an object of His knowledge. To live “in the light of His countenance,” to become a thought of God- this is the true career of man.

from the book

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

The Mark of Cain

Let modern dictatorship not serve as an alibi for our conscience. We have failed to fight for right, for justice, for goodness; as a result we must fight against wrong, against injustice, against evil. We have failed to offer sacrifice on the altar of peace; thus we offered sacrifices on the altar of war.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

The Mark of Cain

We have trifled with the name of God. We have taken the ideals in vain. We have called for the Lord. He came. And was ignored. We have preached but eluded Him. We have praised but defied Him. Now we reap the fruits of our failure. Through centuries His voice cried in the wilderness. How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in the temples! How often it was drowned or distorted! Now we behold how it gradually withdraws, abandoning one people after another, departing from their souls, despising their wisdom. The taste for the good has all but gone from the earth. Men heap spite upon cruelty, malice upon atrocity.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

THE PEOPLE

Plucked from the Fire

I speak as a member of a congregation whose founder was Abraham, and the name of my rabbi is Moses.I speak as a person who was able to leave Warsaw, the city in which I was born, just six weeks before the disaster began. My destination was New York, it would have been Auschwitz or Treblinka. I am a brand plucked from the fire, in which my people was burned to death …

I speak as a person who is afraid lest God has turned away from [man] in disgust.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

To Meet the Spirit

Inspirations are brief, sporadic and rare. In the long interims the mind is often dull, bare and vapid. There is hardly a soul that can radiate more light that it receives. To perform a mitzvah is to meet the spirit. But the spirit is not something we can acquire once and for all but something we must constantly live with and pray for. For this reason the Jewish way of life is to reiterate the ritual, to meet the spirit again and again, the spirit in oneself and the spirit that hovers over all beings.

The spirit rests not only on our achievement, on our goal, but also on our effort, on our way. This is why the very act of going to the house of worship, every day or every seventh day, is a song without words. When done in humility, in simplicity of heart, it is like a child who, eager to hear a song, spreads out the score before its mother.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Routine

The path of loyalty to the routine of sacred living runs along the borderline of the spirit; though being outside, one remains very close to the spirit. Routine holds us in readiness for the moments in which the soul enters into accord with the spirit … A good person is not he who does the right thing, but he who is in the habit of doing the right thing.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Theology of the Common Deed

The teaching of Judaism is the theology of the common deed. The Bible insists that God is concerned with everydayness, with the trivialities of life. The great challenge does not lie in organizing solemn demonstrations, but in how we manage the commonplace. The prophet’s field of concern is not the mysteries of heaven, the glories of eternity, but the blights of society, the affairs of the market place. He addresses himself to those who trample upon the needy, who increase the price of grain, use dishonest scales, and sell the refuse of corn (Amos 8:4-6). The predominant feature of the biblical pattern of life is unassuming, unheroic, inconspicuous piety, the sanctification of trifles, attentiveness to details.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Proximity to the Sacred

Life passes on in proximity to the sacred, and it is this proximity that endows existence with ultimate significance. In our relation to the immediate we touch upon the most distant. Even the satisfaction of physical needs can be a sacred act. Perhaps the essential message Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Our Task

God is hiding in the world.

Our task is to let the divine emerge from our deeds.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Last Word

The word of God

never comes to an end.

No word

Is

God’s last word.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner