110+ Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes On Prayer, God And Knowledge

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. He was a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and authored several books on Jewish philosophy and spirituality. He was also a civil rights activist and was active in the struggle for African-American rights, marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel on prayer, love, god.

Top 10 Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes

1. Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
2. In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty - all are responsible.
3. When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
4. We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.
5. Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
6. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society.
7. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
8. The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to other (people's) humanity, is the index of one's own humanity
9. We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light.
10. In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

Abraham Joshua Heschel Short Quotes

• Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
• Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.
• The course of life is unpredictable no one can write his autobiography in advance.
• To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.
• Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
• We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
• Self-respect is the root of discipline
• Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.
• All action is vicarious faith.
• Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About Prayer

For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting. The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About Love

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method — Abraham Joshua Heschel

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life without commitment is not worth living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About God

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn...to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God — Abraham Joshua Heschel

In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We worship God through our questions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About Sabbath

There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About Spiritual

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age.... Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To be spiritual is to be amazed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About People

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask? — Abraham Joshua Heschel

(People achieve) fullness of being in fellowship, in care for others. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes About Live

The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate, to answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Philosophy, to be relevant, must offer us a wisdom to live by. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one's role in relation to all other beings. For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving, depriving. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Famous Quotes And Sayings

...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. ...I do not ask to see the reason for it all: I ask only to share the wonder of it all. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendors of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind--these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell. It is as if He were waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal. It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The supremacy of expediency is being refuted by time and truth. Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man's power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wonder, or radical amazement, is a way of going beyond what is given in thing and thought, refusing to take anything for granted, to regard anything as final. It is our honest response to the grandeur and mystery of reality our confrontation with that which transcends the given. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

A soul can create only when alone. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind. ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is no answer to Auschwitz...To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair, to sense a ray of God's radiance in the jungles of history. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature. Is not self-sufficiency itself insufficient to explain self-sufficiency? — Abraham Joshua Heschel

All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God's creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The task of life is to face sacred moments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind's desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion. ... Man's true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right question...awareness of the problem outlives all solutions. The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions. Source: The Wisdom of Heschel — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man. It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The road to the sacred leads through the secular. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To serve does not mean to surrender but to share. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To be is to stand for. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Every little deed counts. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God? Sometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one imperative: Remember! — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life Lessons by Abraham Joshua Heschel

1. Abraham Joshua Heschel's teachings emphasize the importance of understanding and respecting different religious and cultural perspectives. He also advocated for the need to foster meaningful relationships between different religious communities.
2. Heschel's work encourages us to recognize the interconnectedness of all people, and to approach our relationships with humility and openness.
3. Through his work, Heschel reminds us of the power of empathy, compassion, and dialogue in creating a more peaceful and just world.