Edward K. Kaplan - Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, Soul

Kaplans biography masterfully depicts the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel, showing us how Heschel became the great moral and spiritual genius of the mid-twentieth century. We are all in Kaplans debt.

REUVEN KIMELMAN, professor of classical Judaica, Brandeis University

As one blessed to have sat at the feet of Abraham Joshua Heschel, I enthusiastically endorse my fellow student Edward Kaplans biography of our teacher and master. Kaplans intimate understanding of Heschels great life, work, and thought enables a new generation to at least meet in print what we encountered in person.

DAVID NOVAK, professor of Jewish studies and philosophy, University of Toronto and author of Jewish Justice

Abraham Heschel is one of the most significant American religious thinkers of the past century whose message remains pertinent today not only for contemporary Judaism but also for followers of other faiths, and even for those of no specific faith but who nonetheless search for the meaning of human life in our chaotic world. Professor Kaplan is to be congratulated for summarizing in a single volume his decades of scholarly research into the life and works of Heschel, this unique Jewish thinker who was at once a metaphysician, theologian, spiritual observer, and acute commentator of the human condition as well as a social and political activist.

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR, University Professor of Islamic Studies, George Washington University

Edward K. Kaplans magisterial biography of the greatest Jewish prophetic figure of the barbaric twentieth century is a masterpiece! It is also incredibly timely. We need the wisdom, courage, and compassion of the inimitable Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. The very future of our world depends, in part, on the legacy of Heschels prophetic witness.

CORNEL WEST, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy, Harvard University

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was many things: an inspired and visionary theologian, an immensely learned and wide-ranging scholar, an impassioned and courageous activist, and a powerfully eloquent moral voice. It is tempting (and understandable) to mythologize a man who accomplished so much, but it is also easy to lose sight of the real person behind the myth. In this wonderful distillation of many years of painstaking research, Ed Kaplan presents us with Heschel the man. Kaplans love for his subject is so clear, I anticipate readers will find the love contagious.

RABBI SHAI HELD, author of The Heart of Torah: Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion

Edward Kaplans lucid biography of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel illuminates the profound contributions of one of the most outstanding religious figures of the twentieth century. Kaplan chronicles the development of this exceptional scholar whose academic career flourished in America not only because of his brilliance but also because he embodied the qualities of one of his principal subjects of study: the prophets. Heschels commitment to civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War, and interreligious relations show us what inspired religious leadership looks likeleadership our world today desperately needs.

MARY C. BOYS, Dean Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

I loved this book. Kaplans engaging, incisive biography brings alive Heschels extraordinary personality, theology, prophetic voice, and monumental contributions to Jewish thought, interfaith understanding, and the moral soul of America. Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, Soul evokes a much richer and deeper understanding of this spiritual giant as it simultaneously rekindles the readers passion for the work of Jewish social justice.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, director emeritus, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Kaplan offers a close reading into the complex emotional, intellectual, and cultural experiences that shaped Heschels depth theology, radical mysticism, and social activism and catapulted him into becoming a fearless champion of human rights. Scholars and concerned citizens everywhere will benefit from the needed reminder that indeed the earth is the Lords.

WALTER EARL FLUKER, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership, Boston University School of Theology

2019 by Edward K. Kaplan

All rights reserved. Published by the University of Nebraska Press as a Jewish Publication Society book.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kaplan, Edward K., 1942-, author.

Title: Abraham Joshua Heschel: mind, heart, soul / Edward K. Kaplan.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019004040

ISBN 9780827614741 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN 9780827618275 (epub)

ISBN 9780827618282 (mobi)

ISBN 9780827618299 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 1907-1972. | Rabbis United StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC BM755.H34 K369 2019 | DDC 296.3092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004040

Set in Ehrhardt by Mikala R. Kolander.

Designed by N. Putens.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To my father, Kivie Kaplan (1904-1975), and his generation of people committed to social justice.

To my students from Amherst College (in consortium with Smith College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College) and Brandeis University, who transformed my academic course Mysticism and the Moral Life into a spiritual and intellectual partnership.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Following

PREFACE

Heschels story is the story of the twentieth century: its horrors and its marvels.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) lived his first thirty-three years in Europe and his final thirty-two in the United States. This biography grapples with an enigma: how does Heschels devotion to the living God of justice and compassion, his faith, remain intact (though often anguished) before and after the Holocaust?

Heschel reflected upon the meaning of existence with the all-embracing knowledge of a highly educated Jew who had mastered the classic texts of traditional Judaism and the full curriculum of twentieth-century European humanism. In March 1940 he stepped off the boat in New York City, a penniless refugee from Hitlers Germany. Speaking as a brand plucked from the fire of an altar to Satan on which millions of human lives were exterminated, as he memorably proclaimed, Heschel became one of Americas foremost theologians and activist public intellectuals.

Heschels models were the Hebrew prophets who spoke for God, demanding absolute truth and righteousness in everyday life. As a learned scholar, he embodied several Jewish cultures that thrived in Europe before the Holocaust: strict Talmudic learning and Hasidic spirituality, Yiddish and Hebrew secularism, German Liberal Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy. Heschel famously asserted that God is in search of mankind and that each and every human being is an image of the Divine. As a naturalized American citizen, he developed a vivid, contemporary Jewish theology and confronted problems that still continue to plague us: poverty, war, racism, and the necessity of truth and compassion in American democracy and the State of Israel. And as a philosopher and literary virtuoso, Heschel developed a rhetoric aimed to transform the readers manner of thinking, appealing to our intuitive as well as rational sensitivities. He was convinced that every thoughtful person was capable of achieving certainty in the reality of God through prayer, study, and moral sensitivity. For Heschel, there is continuity between the inwardness of worship and active commitment to social justice.