Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Abraham Joshua Heschel : biography

11 January 1907 – 23 December 1972

Ideology

Heschel explicated many facets of Jewish thought including studies on medieval Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and Hasidism. According to some scholars, he was more interested in spirituality than in critical text study, which was a specialty of many scholars at JTS. He was not given a graduate assistant for many years and was relegated to teach mainly in the education school or Rabbinical school, not in the academic graduate program. Heschel became quite friendly with his colleague Mordecai Kaplan. Though they differed in their approach to Judaism they had a very cordial relationship and visited in each others homes from time to time.

Heschel saw the teachings of the Hebrew prophets as a clarion call for social action in the United States and worked for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War"Dateline World Jewry", April 2007, World Jewish Congress Heschel was an activist for civil rights in the United States.

He also specifically criticized what he called "pan-halakhism", or an exclusive focus upon religiously-compatible behavior to the neglect of the non-legalistic dimension of rabbinic tradition.

Influence outside of Judaism

Heschel is a widely read Jewish theologian whose most influential works include Man is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Sabbath, and The Prophets. At the Vatican Council II, as representative of American Jews, Heschel persuaded the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate or modify passages in its liturgy that demeaned the Jews, or expected their conversion to Christianity. His theological works argued that religious experience is a fundamentally human impulse, not just a Jewish one, and that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth.

Commemoration

The [[Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan.]] Four schools have been named for Heschel, in the Upper West Side of New York City, Northridge, California, Agoura Hills, California, and Toronto, Canada. In 2009, a highway in Missouri was named "Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel Highway" after a Springfield, Missouri area Neo-Nazi group cleaned the stretch of highway as part of an "Adopt-A-Highway" plan. Heschel’s daughter, Susannah, has objected to the adoption of her father’s name in this context.