One may observe all the laws and still be practicing a disguised polytheism. For if in performing a religious act one’s intention is to please a human being whom he fears or from whom he hopes to receive benefit, then it is not God whom he worships but a human being.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes

Happy is he who is aware of the mysteries of his Lord.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Only that which is good for all men is good for every man. No one is truly inspired for his own sake. He who is blessed, is a blessing for others.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

This is the status of the Bible in modern life: it is a sublime answer, but we do not know the question any more. Unless we recover the question, there is no hope of understanding the Bible.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

We may assume it is God we care for, but it may be our own ego we are concerned with. To examine our religious existence is, therefore, a task to be performed constantly.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

With information we are alone; in appreciation we are with all things.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

To us, recollection is a holy act; we sanctify the present by remembering the past. To us Jews, the essence of faith is memory. To believe is to remember.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

The grand premise of religion is that man is able to surpass himself; that man who is part of this world may.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Time... which is eternity in disguise.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

A world without time would be a world without God, a world existing in and by itself, without renewal, without a Creator.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

God does not reveal Himself; he only reveals His way. Judaism does not speak of God’s self-revelation, but of the revelation of His teaching for man. The Bible reflects God’s revelation of His relation to history, rather than of a revelation of His very Self. Even His will or His wisdom is not completely expressed through the prophets. Prophecy is superior to human wisdom, and God’s love is superior to prophecy. This spiritual hierarchy is explicitly stated by the Rabbis.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

As long as man sees religion as a source of satisfaction for his own needs, it is not God whom he serves but his own self.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

The most incomprehensible fact is that we comprehend at all.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

To try to distill the Bible, which is bursting with life, drama, and tension, to a series of principles would be like trying to reduce a living person to a diagram.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward history and nature. One attitude is alien to his spirit: taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Modern man fell into the trap of believing that everything can be explained, that reality is a simple affair which has only to be organized in order to be mastered.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

A moment of insight is a fortune, transporting us beyond the confines of measured time.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel
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