Epitome of Heschel Heavenly Torah

Abraham J. Heschel’s HEAVENLY TORAH

1. This book gives Heschel’s systematic exposition of the “Aggadah” as expressing the theological outlook of the rabbis.
2. Heschel organizes the rabbis’ aggadic teachings into two “schools”:  the quotidian-rationalist (Rabbi Ishmael) and the ecstatic-mystical (Rabbi Akiva).  Each, though rooted in the rabbinic aggadah, extends over the next 1500 years of Jewish thought.
3. In addition to their general theological outlook, Heschel gives extended systematic treatment to their views of the nature of the Torah and the process of divine revelation.
4. The book may be read in three parts (corresponding to the three volumes of the Hebrew original):
1. Part I:  The general methods and outlooks of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva (Chapters 1-16)
2. Part II:  Their methods and outlooks on the doctrine of  “Torah from Heaven” (Chapters 17-33)
3. Part III:  The application of these approaches to halakhic practice (Chapters 34-41)

INTRODUCTION TO HEAVENLY TORAH

Abraham Joshua Heschel was concerned for his whole life with the essence of the Jewish tradition as an ongoing dialogue between God and the Jewish people, in which God voices God’s will and concern for humanity, and we respond by serving God in worship and righteous living.  Heschel’s vision of this totality was informed by his original Hasidic upbringing, by his study of the Bible (especially the prophetic books) and the later traditions of Judaism, especially the rabbinic and Hasidic legacies.  In the 1960s he wrote the first 33 chapters of this work in two volumes in Hebrew under the title Torah Min Ha-Shamayim ba-Aspeklaria shel ha-Dorot  (“Torah from Heaven in the Lens of the Generations” – English title “Theology of the Rabbis”).  He sought in it to focus especially on how the rabbis of the Talmudic period interpreted the doctrine of “Torah from Heaven,” but more broadly, what was the larger theological outlook of the rabbis in which this doctrine played a central role.  In the original two volumes, Volume 1 (Chapters 1-16) presented the general theological outlook of the rabbis, and Volume II (Chapters 17-33) focused more specifically on their elaboration of the doctrine of “Torah from Heaven.”  The later chapters of this book focus on the application of this doctrine for halakhic practice, and were published as Volume III after Heschel’s death.

Chapter 1:  Introduction.

This is going to be a book about Aggadah.  First of all, Heschel gives an apologia for aggadah.  Aggadah has generally come in as a distant second behind halakhah in prestige in traditional Jewish studies, but this ought to be corrected.  Aggadah is the royal path to reflecting on the nature of God.  It expresses the outlook that alone makes the practice of Judaism meaningful.

Second, Heschel indicates that he is going to teach aggadah through a new method.  He will do so systematically, topic by topic – this has occasionally been done before.  But – unprecedented – he will present the entire range of aggadic teaching as the crystallization of two distinct outlooks and approaches within rabbinic thought, the earthly-based, somewhat rationalistic approach of the school of Rabbi Ishmael, and the ecstatic, mystical approach of the school of Rabbi Akiva.

Chapter 2:  Two Approaches to Torah Exegesis.

Heschel starts his exposition of the two aggadic methods by examining the style by which each of these teachers interpreted the Torah to derive halakhah.  Rabbi Ishmael’s approach is famous through the 13 principles that have entered the prayer book.  Examination of these will show how they exemplify logic:  the a fortiori argument, the analogy (gezerah shavah), the logical progression from particular cases to general rules (kelal u-ferat), etc.  But Rabbi Akiva used the method of ribbui and mi’ut (see Glossary) which was more arbitrary:  using an extra vav or et to add cases, or ak and rak to exclude, etc. in wild-card fashion, without any clear guidelines of which cases to add or exclude.  In general, Rabbi Ishmael’s midrashic style inclines toward cool and methodical reasoning, Rabbi Akiva’s to more extravagant stretching of the meaning of the text.  These different styles are indicative of different conceptions of the nature of the Torah text:  for Rabbi Ishmael “the Torah speaks in human language” whereas for Rabbi Akiva the Torah text is divine and contains infinite layers of meaning that can be uncovered only by radically transcending the ordinary canons of human understanding.

The “Jewish mind” is profoundly shaped by both these approaches – the shrewd realism of the Ishmaelian approach, and the profundity of the Akivan approach (whose repercussions may be seen even in a post-religious guise in the interpretative style of Freudian analysis).

Chapter 3:  Miracles.

In Rabbi Ishmael’s view, the natural order of things is itself the greatest miracle.  God revealed the Torah and created the world, and endowed each with its own autonomous nature and logic.  The Torah follows the canons of human discourse; the world follows its natural course.  Human beings can understand both with their natural reason.

Where Rabbi Ishmael sees natural order, Rabbi Akiva sees miracles.  The more miracles, the better. Every word in the Torah is a divine utterance containing unique and infinite levels of meaning; ever event in the world is similarly a unique disclosing of divinity, with layer upon layer of reality not immediately apparent to reason.

Chapter 4:  The Tabernacle and the Sacrifices.

Rabbi Ishmael teaches “religious conventionalism”:  ritual serves human needs, and can take one form or another depending on what will best serve that purpose.   Originally there was no need for the Tabernacle and sacrifices; but after Israel worshipped the Golden Calf, the need became apparent and God instituted them.

Rabbi Akiva teaches “religious essentialism”:  ritual serves God’s need as well as humanity’s.  The Tabernacle reflects the essential order of things (the earthly Temple is a counterpart of the heavenly Temple); every detail of the ritual is intrinsically desired by God and is therefore unchangeable.

Chapter 5:  The Abode of the Shekhinah.

Rabbi Ishmael teaches that God is strictly speaking everywhere and not present more in one place than another.  The notion of God’s presence being concentrated in the Temple or other sacred place is conventional, a symbol meeting human needs.

Rabbi Akiva teaches that God does indeed prefer some locales to others – God’s presence in the Temple is real, and other things being equal, God prefers to dwell in the West.  We must not dilute the sense of God's presence by saying it is only "symbolic"!

Chapter 6:  Teachings Concerning the Shekhinah.

Rabbi Akiva teaches that God is intimately present in human happiness and woe.  When Israel is redeemed, God is redeemed; when Israel is in exile, the Shekhinah is in exile.  God is “immanent” – emphatically present in the world.

Rabbi Ishmael stresses that God is “transcendent” – infinite, totally Other, inscrutable.  We relate to God through ethical action – when we perform ethical good, we are carrying out God’s will in the world.  We relate to God, but indirectly.

Chapter 7:  Sufferings.

Rabbi Ishmael interprets suffering on the “peshat” level: suffering sucks, pure and simple.  He protests, like Job:  “Who is like You among the mute, O Lord, who sees His children’s suffering and is silent!”

Rabbi Akiva goes for the “midrashic” understanding:  though not obvious on the surface, even in our suffering we can experience God’s hidden compassion.  “This, too, is for the good” was his motto.  We must continue searching for the meaning in events that seem absurd on first grasp. 

(Maybe both approaches, in turn, can be helpful!)

Chapter 8:  Torah and Life.

Rabbi Ishmael taught the values of “derekh eretz”:  this world has value in itself; the pleasures of life are to be valued; the Torah sometimes teaches good manners and the common code of worldly conduct; martyrdom is usually to be avoided in favor of preserving life.

Rabbi Akiva taught that this world is but a vestibule before the next world:  the pleasures of this world are suspect; the values of Torah are not worldly but supernal; martyrdom can be a vocation (and he went to his martyr’s death saying the Shema).

Chapter 9:  In Awe and Trembling.

Rabbi Akiva was a maximalist, and a perfectionist.  We are called on to fulfill the entire law.  When we fall short (as inevitably we must), woe to us, for we have sinned!

Rabbi Ishmael was more of a moderate.  We are called on to fill as much of the law as we can; if our good deeds outweigh our sins, that is enough.  He addressed himself not to the pious elite, but to the average Jew.

Chapter 10:  Duties of the Heart:  How do we achieve “devekut” (cleaving to God)?

Rabbi Ishmael sees God as remote.  We have our marching orders, and we “cleave” to God symbolically, by performing ethical good deeds.

For Rabbi Akiva, the experience of closeness to God is real and of the essence of religious life (especially necessary after the feeling of sinfulness in Chapter 9).  Rabbi Akiva interpreted the Song of Songs as a love-poem between Israel and God, and lived out this love-relationship with the divine in many ways.

Chapter 11:  Issues of Supreme Importance.

A miscellany of differences:

Rabbi Ishmael:  The world is ruled by God’s decrees; Rabbi Akiva:  The world is ruled in mercy.

Rabbi Ishmael:  Mistrust Messiahs.  Rabbi Akiva:  Seize the Messianic moment!  (Rabbi Akiva endorsed Bar Kochba's messianic revolt against Rome in 132-135.)

Chapter 12:  Scriptural Language Not Befitting God’s Dignity.
Rabbi Ishmael:  Can such a thing be said?  You must interpret anthropomorphic texts symbolically!  (Give it a rational twist.)
Rabbi Akiva:  Had the text not said it, it would be outrageous for us to say it; but the text does say it, and so we can seize on it as a token of the divine mystery!  (Give it a mystical twist.)

Chapter 13:  The Language of Torah.

Rabbi Ishmael:  The Torah speaks in human language; the Torah uses euphemism, hyperbole; the Torah does not follow strict chronological order.  Plain-sense (peshat) interpretation is preferable.  The fruit of midrashic interpretation is given only “rabbinic” (i.e., lesser) status in comparison with the actual word of the text.

Rabbi Akiva:  The Torah is replete with layers of meaning (midrash, allegory, mystical allusion) every one of which counts.  Nothing is accidental.  Everything (including the juxtaposition of one topic to another) calls out for interpretation.   Even the fruit of midrashic interpretation is to be deemed sacred as an integral part of the text.

Chapter 14:  Transcendental and Terrestrial Perspectives

Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva are interpreted as differing on the basic issue of Platonic dualism:  are there heavenly prototypes of important earthly entities?  This difference is expressed in their stand on the following issues:

The sanctity of human life:  Rabbi Akiva says whoever takes a human life diminishes the divine image; Rabbi Ishmael says, he destroys an entire world (for the human being is a microcosm).

The symbolism of the Temple:  Rabbi Akiva says the earthly Temple corresponds to the heavenly Temple; Rabbi Ishmael (and Philo and Josephus) say it symbolizes the world.

The symbolism of the mitzvoth:  Rabbi Akiva says they exist for having direct communion with God and give God gratification and power; Rabbi Ishmael says they symbolize aspects of human reality and serve to sensitize human beings to be better.

The reality of Torah:  The transcendental view posits that there is a Torah in heaven that is the prototype of the earthly Torah:  it predated creation; it was the blueprint of creation; it is studied in the heavenly academy.  Heschel does not describe an alternative “Ishmaelian” view to this belief, but we can only fill in ourselves:  if not from a heavenly prototype, the Torah must have been written in earthly form only, in response to earthly needs.

Chapter 15:  Go ’round the Orchard!

The Akivan-Ishmaelian symmetry is harder to unravel in this chapter.  Heschel discusses three topics:  mystical speculation and experience in the rabbinic literature, the apocalyptic visions of Enoch and other Apocryphal literature, and prophetic experience.  The first two are explicitly Akivan; the third is implicitly Ishmaelian by contrast with the second (“the apocalyptic sees, the prophet hears”).  Heschel was an avid student of Jewish mysticism and his valuation of the Akivan mystical journey is implicitly positive.  He points out, however, that two Akivan prototypes of Torahitic revelation – the ascent of Moses to heaven, and the existence of a book in heaven – are anticipated in the apocalyptic literature.

The contrast between the apocalyptic and the prophet grows out of the transcendendental-terrestrial dichotomy:  the apocalyptic wants to ascend to heaven; the prophet wants to further God’s will on earth.  As JTS professor of mysticism and author of The Prophets, Heschel obviously had an investment in both of these religious paths.

Chapter 16:  Beholding the Face of God

The mystical quest, examined in Chapter 15, culminates in the desire to see God’s face directly.  One’s attitude toward this quest will be revealed in one’s interpretation of historical events such as Moses’ revelation, the Israelites’ experience at Sinai and the experience at the splitting of the Sea.  In all of these, Heschel assembles a lineup of views corresponding to the Ishmaelian-Akivan basic disagreement:  by the Akivan view they did indeed see God, by the Ishmaelian view they did not (or in the case of the elders and Nadab and Abihu who “saw God and ate and drank” at the sealing of the Sinaitic covenant in Exodus Chapter 24, their “seeing God” was a sin).

Chapters 14-16 may be seen as a summary of the argument of Part I and a transition to Part II.  Given that the human ability or inability to commune directly with God is conceived one way or another, what will follow as to the quality and content of the experience of the revelation of Torah at Sinai?

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

Part II of this book may be regarded as an extended commentary on the following Mishnah:

“All Israel have a portion in the world to come…But these have no portion in the world to come:  (1) One who says “the resurrection is not from the Torah, (2) one who says, “there is no Torah from heaven, and (3) the Epicurean.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1)

What precisely does this mean – especially the second clause (ha-omer ein Torah min ha-Shamayim)?  In Part II, Heschel argues that the Jewish doctrine that “there is Torah from heaven” does not have one univocal meaning, but was disputed in every one of its parameters by the rabbis.  These disputes focus on three kinds of issues:

            Narrative:  What exactly happened in the revelation of Torah?  Was there a pre-existing “book”?  Did Moses ascend to heaven?  Did God descend to earth?  What was spoken?  Who heard?  Who saw – and what did they see?

            Divine and human roles:  What are the roles of God and the human partner in revelation or prophecy?   Is the prophet active or passive – a vessel in which God pours His message, or a partner in shaping the message?

            Content:  What was the content of the message of revelation at any given time?  Were all 5 books of the Torah given at Sinai, or a smaller “book of the covenant,” or just the Ten Commandments?  What about the Oral Law – was it given at Sinai with the Written Law – in whole, in part, or in concept?  Did revelation continue through the Biblical period?  Did it continue through the rabbinic period?  Does it continue today?

Chapter 17:  “The Torah that is in Heaven”

There is widespread acceptance of the doctrine that Torah in some form or other was in existence from before the creation of the world.  The rabbis conceived many midrashim on Chapter 8 of Proverbs, where Wisdom speaks in the first person:  “The Lord created me at the beginning of His course…I was with him as a confidant.”  A pun on amon [confidant] = omman [artisan] yields a view parallel to Philo’s “Logos” doctrine, namely that the Torah was the primordial wisdom providing the blueprint for the creation of the world.  What was this primordial Torah?  Views ranged from its being heavenly tablets (maybe the Ten Commandments? Or the pre-destined history of all humanity?  The “book” of u-netaneh tokef in which all past deeds are written and the future is decreed?) to the entire 5-book Torah that became Israel’s sacred document, white fire on black fire.

Chapter 18:  “Moses’ Ascent to Heaven”

While the idea of a heavenly wisdom or heavenly Torah was generally accepted, there is controversy surrounding the next part of the doctrine:  that Moses ascended to heaven and came down, bringing the heavenly Torah to earth.  According to Heschel, the idea of a human being serving as a channel between earth and heaven developed in the late Second Temple period, and is found, for instance, in the apocalyptic (pseudepigraphic) literature in books like the Book of Enoch.  By the prestige of Rabbi Akiva, this view eventually colored the dominant rabbinic version of the Sinai narrative.  But it is important to record the dissenting view, articulated by Rabbi Yose and others, that Moses only came as far as the top of Mount Sinai, not to heaven.

Chapter 19:  “The Descent of the Divine Glory”

As the Sages were divided whether Moses ascended to heaven, so they disagreed also on whether God descended to earth during the Sinai theophany.  This debate ties in with the earlier debate (Chapters 5-6) whether it makes sense to speak of the Shekhinah – God’s presence – as having a localized location.  The abstract view of Rabbi Ishmael (and of Maimonides in the Middle Ages) was against localizing God in this way.  But a strong stream of pious sentiment, including Rabbi Akiva, Judah Halevi, and the mystics (including Heschel) insists that the religious experience of God’s presence demands this affirmation.

Chapter 20:  “Torah from Heaven”

The source of this chapter’s title (and the book’s Hebrew title) is from Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1, which says that whoever denies belief in “Torah from heaven” has no portion in the world to come.  This is thus one of Judaism’s central dogmas from rabbinic times on.  But what does it mean?  “Torah” can mean anything from “some instruction or other” to “the Ten Commandments” to “the 5 books of Moses” to “the Bible” to “all Jewish tradition, both written and oral Torah.”  And “from Heaven” can mean “from the celestial realms” or, more figuratively, “from God (the Heavenly One).”

In this crucial chapter, Heschel shows that the rabbinic interpretation of this central dogma did indeed have a wide range of interpretation.  Rabbi Ishmael expressed the minimal concept:  that only the general principles were revealed at Sinai, and the details of the Torah later in the Tent of Meeting; or that “he has spurned the word of the Lord” refers to one who rejects Judaism completely and worships idolatry.  But the doctrine of revealed Torah broadened gradually to encompass first the whole written Torah, then to condemn anyone who says that even a single verse (or a single word) was spoken by Moses on his own authority (as opposed to by divine mandate), and finally to encompass the Oral Law in all its particulars.  Maimonides, who is liberal, philosophical and abstract (i.e., Ishmaelian) in many of his other pronouncements, decided here to draw a firm line in the sand and declare that the whole written Torah, down to the last word, is sacrosanct.

Chapter 21:  “The Sectarians”

Dogma and heresy are flip-sides of the same coin:  whoever defines heresy, implicitly defines what dogmas must be held sacred.  Presumably the “heretics” of rabbinic times were members of sects in competition with rabbinic Judaism, especially Gnostics and Christians.  The four deviant views discussed here are:  (a) that there is no divine Torah at all, (b) that only the Ten Commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, (c) that Moses initiated some commandments on his own, and (d) that Moses forged the Torah.  Some midrashim attribute to the wicked king Manasseh subversive views, such as that the passages dealing with racy stories (like the incest of Reuben or the similar allusion in the case of Timna, mentioned in Esau’s genealogy) did not properly belong in the Torah.  It is possible that by raising these as “heretical” views the rabbis were giving vent to their own doubts, and Heschel mentions these matters in the last chapter of Part II of God In Search of Man, where he seems to sympathize with the doubters.

Chapter 22:  “Moses Did Things on His Own Authority”

Did Moses indeed initiate nothing on his own?  But the Torah itself depicts him as doing certain crucial things of his own volition – shattering the Tablets, separating from his wife, and extending the two-day period of preparation at Sinai to three days!  On these and similar points, there is again disagreement among the Sages:  Rabbi Ishmael taught that Moses acted on his own initiative, while Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues taught that God instructed him what to do in each case.

Chapter 23:  Two Methods of Understanding “Thus Says the Lord”

What does the locution “Thus says the Lord” mean?  Does it mean that the words that follow came word-for-word from God to the prophet?  Or does the prophet paraphrase God’s intention and put it into his own words?  According to the school of Rabbi Akiva, the reported words are the literal description of God’s communication; according to the school of Rabbi Ishmael, the word “Thus” introduces the prophet’s paraphrase of the divine intention.  Again, the school of Rabbi Ishmael gives more autonomy to the human participant in the event of revelation.

Chapter 24:  “Is It Possible That It Was on His Own Say-So?”

More instances are given where Moses (according to some of the Sages) acted on his own initiative:  He ascended Mount Sinai on his own initiative (Exodus 19:2-3); he set aside the three cities of refuge in Trans-Jordan (Deuteronomy 4:41); he pitched the Tent outside the Israelite camp (Exodus 33:7).  By some views, God confirmed his action; by another view, God did not.  Did he draw a logical inference from God’s explicit word, and attach divine sanction to the inference of his own mind?  Similar issues would recur well into the history of the Jewish tradition.

Chapter 25:  The Book of Deuteronomy

Whereas the first four books of the Torah are replete with explicit divine utterances (“The Lord spoke to Moses saying…”), the naïve reader of Deuteronomy has good warrant for saying that it reports the speeches that Moses made of his own volition to the Israelites in the last year of the wandering, in the steppes of Moab.  Interestingly, a number of rabbinic opinions can be found saying that Moses spoke selected portions of Deuteronomy, or even the whole book, of his own volition – a much greater grant of human initiative than the previous!  Again, there are contrary rabbinic opinions that condemn such a view as heretical.  This dispute is related to the prior basic dispute (Chapter 20):  was the entire Torah revealed at Sinai and repeated a second time in the wilderness and a third time in the steppes of Moab?  Or were the utterances recorded as occurring at a later time spoken for the first time at that later time?  Was the “Torah” given all at once, or in stages over time – and with what degree of human initiative?

Chapter 26:  Is the Prophet a Partner or a Vessel?

This is one of the most central questions in the whole book.  If the prophet is a mere vessel of God’s word, then the Torah that comes to us is wholly divine.  If, however, the prophet adds something to the message – his personality, literary style, etc. – then the result is “the word of God and the word of man” (to use a phrase from God In Search of Man).

Chapter 27:  “See, How Great Was Moses’ Power!”

Was Moses extraordinary or ordinary?  And what difference does this make in the issues of this book?  It actually cuts across the issue of the previous chapter.  It can be argued, for instance, that the more extraordinary was, the more it was his heroic achievement to shape the Torah.  Maimonides indeed credits Moses with extraordinary understanding, but also insists that the Torah is totally God’s doing.  (Secretly, however, Maimonides may have held otherwise.)  If Moses was ordinary, we might think that he was a passive vessel to receive God’s message.  Yet some rabbis cited in this chapter reconcile the ordinariness of Moses with his playing an active partnering role with God.

Also discussed in this chapter is the legislative power of post-Mosaic authorities.  By what right did Elijah abrogate the Deuteronomic prohibition against “sacrificing outside the precincts” when he offered a demonstration sacrifice on Mount Carmel?  By virtue of what charisma does the court have the power to declare the New Moon, thus determining on which days the festival occurs and work is forbidden?  The courts decide law – does that make them prophets?  (Heschel implies:  Yes!)

Chapter 28:  Moses’ Prophecy

This chapter is a miscellany of different views on the specifics of Moses’ prophecy:  how did Moses receive God’s message?  Did the Shekhinah speak from within his voicebox (a kabbalistic and Hasidic view)?

Chapter 29:  How the Torah Was Written

The rabbis were similarly curious on the details of how the Torah was written.  Did Moses copy it from an original, or receive oral dictation from God?  Was it written on small clay tablets, or engraved in large stone stelas?  Did God write it, or did Moses?  (One view has it that Moses wrote out 13 complete copies of the Torah on the day he died – an incredible feat!)

Chapter 30:  The Maximalist and Minimalist Approaches

A number of technical objections were raised to the maximalist theory (that the entire Torah was given to Moses at Sinai):  what, then, of the various occasions recorded in the Torah that Moses had to ask God for legal advice in mid-journey?  Didn’t he have all the laws in hand?  Why are some laws (specifically those without scriptural basis, such as the mode of crafting tefillin) called “halakhah from Moses at Sinai” if all the laws were from Moses at Sinai?  To raise a totally different problem:  on what basis was the Scroll of Esther included in the canon after prophecy had ceased?  What is the magic line dividing canonical from non-canonical – or is the line arbitrary?  Were the rabbis allowed to come up with new insights on their own, and what standing did these have?  What does it mean that “things not revealed to Moses were revealed to Rabbi Akiva”?  Does revelation ever cease?

Chapter 31:  The Maximalist Approach

As we saw, the maximalists held that every word, every letter was sacred, from Sinai.  The Masoretes counted the words and letters in the holy scriptures, and instructed which letters should be written larger or smaller than normal.  However, anomalies seem to have crept into the text.  One tradition has it that the words with dotting over them are doubtful.  There are occasional discrepancies between the received tradition of the Torah text and the Talmud’s spelling of certain words.  The Talmud itself enunciates that the reading of the Septuagint (Greek translation) differed from that of the received Hebrew version, yet was considered sacred.

Chapter 32:  The Minimalist Approach

The midrashic literature cites a view that the last eight verses of the Torah (describing Moses’ death) or the last twelve (starting from his ascent to Mount Nebo) were written by Joshua (as opposed to the alternate view that Moses wrote about his own death in a kind of prophetic dictation).  According to other views, Joshua wrote the portion of the “cities of refuge,” or completed the poem “Ha’azinu”.  Other later rabbis raised various questions about the dating of various passages, most famously Abraham Ibn Ezra, who pointed to discrepant passages that helped lay the foundation for modern historical scholarship of the Biblical text.

Chapter 33:  Lost Books

Several wild midrashim suggest extraordinary possibilities:  for instance, that Eldad and Medad, the two elders who prophesied in the camp, wrote their own books that have been lost.  These speculations point to the larger question:  is the Torah coterminous with everything that has been revealed?  Maybe Moses himself only gave us a small portion of all that was revealed to him!

PART THREE:  APPLICATIONS

The remaining chapters (34-41) address the question:  If we conceive of the nature of Torah in one way or another (as discussed in the earlier chapters), what effect will this have on our applied practice?  Among the many insights that Heschel shares here, I offer the following for special consideration:

·      In Chapter 39, Heschel retells the famous story of the sages’ debate over the Akhnai Oven, in which Rabbi Joshua countered Rabbi Eliezer’s many miracles and conjuring of a heavenly voice with the simple quote:  “It is not in the heavens.”  Heschel comments:  “[Here] was born the idea that the Sages are the inheritors of the prophets, and that the voice of the Sages outweighs an echoing voice from heaven.” (p. 661)

·      Also in that chapter, Heschel stresses the ambiguous significance of Deuteronomy 5:19:  “a mighty voice, and no more” or “a mighty voice without end.”  Revelation is continuous.

·      Chapter 36 stresses “both these and these are the words of the Living God” – as applied to the dual outlooks in this very book, the truth is to be found not in the one or other exclusively, but in the complementarity of the two.

·      Though the rabbis famously recommended to put a buffer (or “hedge”) around the law, they also warned against the dangers of too many buffers.  If Adam had not extended the prohibition of the “Tree of Knowledge” from eating to touching, Eve might not have erred and a great tragedy might have been prevented! (p. 722)

Midrashic Texts for Shavuot Study

MIDRASH FOR SHAVUOT

 

RABBI LEN LEVIN

Mekilta on Exodus 19:19-20

1)  ויהי קול השופר. הרי זה סימן יפה בכתובים כל מקום שנאמר שופר זה סימן יפה לישראל שנאמר (שם מ"ז) עלה אלהים בתרועה ה' בקול שופר (ישעיה כ"ז) והיה ביום ההוא יתקע בשופר גדול ואומר (זכריה ט') ויי' אלהים בשופר יתקע והלך בסערות תימן:

1. “And the sound of the shofar” — this is a good omen in the Scriptures: wherever ‘shofar’ is mentioned, it is a good omen for Israel  (see prooftexts in Psalms 47, Isaiah 27, Zechariah 9).

2)  הולך וחזק מאד. מנהג ההדיוט כל זמן שהוא הולך מחליש ומעכה אבל כאן כל זמן שהוא הולך קולו מגביר. ולמה כך מתחלה כדי לשכך את האוזן מה שהיא יכולה לשמוע:

2. “The sound of the shofar was going and getting stronger” — With a human being, the farther away he goes, the more his voice gets weaker; but here, the farther it went, the stronger the sound got.  Why so?  In order to accommodate to the ear what it is capable of hearing.

3) משה ידבר והאלהים יעננו בקול. רבי אליעזר אומר מנין אתה אומר שאין הקב"ה מדבר עד שמשה אמר דבר שכבר קבלו עליהם בניך לכך נאמר משה ידבר. אמר לו ר' עקיבא בודאי כי הוא הדבר ומה ת"ל משה ידבר אלא מלמד שנתן הקב"ה כח וגבורה במשה והיה הקב"ה מסייעו בקולו ובנעימה שהיה משה שומע בו היה משמיע את ישראל לכך נאמר משה ידבר והאלהים יעננו בקול:
3.  “Moses would speak and God would answer him in a voice (kol)” — Rabbi Eliezer said:  From what can you deduce that God would not speak until Moses said:  ‘Speak!  For Your children have already accepted it on themselves.’? From the fact that it says, ‘Moses would speak.’  Rabbi Akiva said to him:  That is certainly the case!  But why does the text say, ‘Moses would speak’?  It teaches that God invested Moses with strength and power, and God aided him with His voice, and with the intonation that Moses heard, he would broadcast to the Israelites.  Therefore it says, ‘Moses would speak and God would answer him in a voice (kol).’

4)  וירד ה' על הר סיני. שומע אני על כלו ת"ל על ראש ההר. יכול ממש שירד הכבוד והציעו על הר סיני ת"ל כי מן השמים. מלמד שהרכין הקב"ה שמים התחתונים ושמי שמים העליונים על ראש ההר וירד הכבוד והציען על הר סיני...
4. “The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai” — I might understand this to mean, on the entire mountain?  The text continues, ‘upon the top of the mountain.’  I might understand, the divine presence came down and actually settled on Mount Sinai?  The text says elsewhere:  ‘For from the heavens [I spoke to you].’  It implies that God bent the lower heavens and the upper heavens down and rested them on the top of the mountain...
(§4 continued)
...כאדם שהוא מציע את הכר על ראש המטה וכאדם שהוא מדבר מעל הכר שנאמר (ישעיה
ס"ד) כקדוח אש המסים מים תבעה אש להודיע שמך לצריך מפניך גוים ירגזו, וכן הוא אומר (שם) בעשותך נוראות לו נקוה מפניך הרים נזולו. רבי יוסי אומר (תהלים קט"ו) השמים שמים ליי' לא עלה משה ואליהו למעלה ולא ירד הכבוד למטה אלא מלמד שאמר המקום למשה הריני קורא לך מראש ההר ואתה עולה שנאמר ויקרא ה' למשה:

... just as a person rests a pillow on the head of the bed and speaks with his head on the pillow, as it says:  [If You would but tear open the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake before You—] As when fire kindles brushwood, and fire makes water boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries so that nations will tremble at Your Presence, when You did wonders we dared not hope for, You came down and mountains quaked before You. (Isaiah 63:19-64:2)  Rabbi Yosi said:  ‘The heavens are heavens to the Lord’ (Psalm 116)—Elijah did not ascend to heaven, nor did the Divine Glory descend to earth, but it teaches that the Omnipresent said to Moses:  ‘I will call to you from the top of the mountain, and you will ascend,’ as it says:  ‘The Lord called to Moses [to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up].’
******************************************************
Mekilta on Exodus 20:15-19

5) וכל העם רואים את הקולות. רואין הנראה ושומעין הנשמע דברי ר' ישמעאל. רבי עקיבא אומר רואין ושומעין הנראה ואין דבר שלא יצא מפי הגבורה ונחצב על הלוחות שנאמר (תהלים כ"ט) קול ה' חוצב להבות אש:

5. “All the people were seeing the sounds [of thunder or God’s voice]” — Rabbi Ishmael said:  They saw what was visible and heard what was audible.  Rabbi Akiva said:  They both saw and heard what was visible.  There wasn’t a word that didn’t proceed from the Almighty’s mouth and get engraved on the tablets, as it says, ‘The voice of the Lord hews the fiery flames.’ (Psalm 29)

6) וכל העם רואין. קולי קולות ולפידי לפידים. וכמה קולות היו וכמה לפידים היו אלא שהיו משמיעים את האדם לפי כחו שנאמר (שם) קול ה' בכח.

6. “All the people were seeing” the sounds of sounds and torches of torches.  How many sounds and how many torches?  They communicated to each person according to his strength, as it says, ‘The voice of the Lord is in strength.’ (Psalm 29)

7)  דבר אחר להודיע שבחן של ישראל שכשעמדו כלן לפני הר סיני לקבל את התורה היו שומעין את הדיבור ומפרשים אותו שנאמ' (דברים ל"ב) יסובבנהו ויבוננהו שכיון שהיו שומעין הדיבור מפרשים אותו.
7.  Another explanation: To tell Israel’s praise, that they all stood in front of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and as they heard the utterance they interpreted it, as it says, ‘He surrounds them, He imparts understanding to them’ (Deut. 32) — as soon as they heard the utterance, they interpreted it.


8) ר' אליעזר אומר להודיע שבחן של ישראל שכשעמדו כלן לפני הר סיני לקבל את התורה לא היה בהם סומין שנאמר וכל העם רואין. מגיד שלא היה בהם אלמים (שמות י"ט) ויענו כל העם יחדו. ומלמד שלא היה בהן חרשין שנאמר (שם כ"ד) כל אשר דבר ה' נעשה ונשמע. ומנין שלא היה בהם חגרים שנאמר (שם י"ט) ויתיצבו בתחתיר ההר. ומלמד שלא היה בהם טפשים שנאמר (דברים ד') אתה הראת לדעת.

8. Rabbi Eliezer said:  To tell Israel’s praise, that when they all stood before Mount Sinai to receive the Torah there were no blind among them, as it says, ‘All the people saw.’  There were no mutes among them, as it says, ‘All the people answered together.’ (Ex. 19)  There were no deaf among them, as it says, ‘All that the Lord has said we will do and hear.’ (Ex. 24)  How do we know there were no lame among them?  It says:  (Ex. 19) ‘They stood at the bottom of the mountain.’  It also teaches that there were no idiots among them, as it says, ‘You were shown to know’ (Deuteronomy 4).

9)  רבי נתן אומר מנין אתה אומר שהראה המקום לאברהם אבינו גיהנם ומתן תורה וקריעת ים סוף שנאמר (בראשית ט"ו) ויהי השמש לבא ועלטה היה והנה תנור זה גיהנם שנאמר (ישעיה ל"א) ותנור לו בירושלם (בראשית ט"ו) ולפיד אש זה מתן תורה שנאמר וכל העם רואים את הקולות ואת הלפידים. (שם) בין הגזרים האלה זה קריאת ים סוף שנאמר (תהלים קל"ו) לגוזר ים סוף לגזרים. הראהו בית המקדש וסדר קרבנות שנאמר (בראשית ט"ו) קחה לי עגלה משולשת וגו'. הראהו ארבע מלכיות שהן עתידין לשעבד את בניו שנא' (שם) ויהי השמש לבא ותרדמה נפלה על אברם והנה אימה חשכה גדולה נופלת עליו. אימה זו מלכות בבל. חשכה זו מלכות מדי. גדולה זו מלכות יון. נופלת זו מלכות רביעית רומי חייבתא.

9. Rabbi Nathan said:  From where do you know that the Omnipresent showed our Father Abraham Gehenna, the giving of the Torah and the splitting of the Red Sea?  As it says, ‘When the sun set and it was very dark, there appeared a smoking oven, and a flaming torch, which passed between the split pieces.’ (Gen. 16:17) ‘Smoking oven’ is Gehenna, as it says, ‘Who has an oven in Jerusalem.’ (Isaiah 31:9)  ‘Flaming torch’ is the giving of Torah, as it says, ‘All the people saw the thunderings and torches [= lightning, lappidim].’ (Exodus 20) ‘Between the split pieces’ (gezarim) refers to splitting the Red Sea, as it says, ‘Who split the sea into gezarim.’ (Psalm 136)  He showed him the Temple and sacrificial service, as it says, ‘Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, etc.’ He showed him the four kingdoms that would enslave His children, as it says, ‘As the sun set, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and a great dark dread descended on him.’ ‘Dread’ — Babylonia.  ‘Dark’ — Media.  ‘Great’ — Greece. ‘Descended’ — the evil fourth kingdom, Rome.

(§10 skipped)
 

11) ויעמדו מרחוק. חוץ משנים עשר מיל. מגיד שהיו ישראל נרתעים לאחוריהם שנים עשר מיל וחוזרין לפניהם שנים עשר מיל הרי עשרים וארבעה מיל על כל דיבור ודיבור נמצאו מהלכים באותו היום מאתים וארבעים מיל באותה שעה אמר הקב"ה למלאכי השרת רדו וסייעו את אחיכם שנאמר (תהלים ס"ח) מלכי צבאות ידודון ידודון ידודון בהליכ' וידודון בחזרה ולא במלאכי השרת בלבד אלא אף הקב"ה שנא' (שה"ש ב') שמאלו תחת לראשי וימינו תחבקני. רבי יהודה ברבי אלעאי אומר לפי שהיו משולהבין מחמה של מעלן אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לענני כבוד הזילו טל חיים על בני שנאמר (תהלים ס"ח) ארץ רעשה גם שמים נטפו מפני אלהים וגו' ואומר (שם) גשם נדבות תניף אלהים אימתי נעשה כל הכבוד הזה בשעה שהיתה נאה שבאומות ומכבדת את התורה (שם) ונות בית תחלק שלל ואין שלל אלא תורה שנא' (שם קי"ט) שש אנכי על אמרתך כמוצא שלל רב:

11. ‘They stood afar’ — twelve miles back.  It teaches that Israel were thrown backwards twelve miles and returned twelve miles, totaling 24 miles for each utterance, a grand total of 240 miles within that hour.  God said to the ministering angels, Go down and assist your brethren, as it is written:  ‘The angels of the hosts [slight emendation of ’kings and their armies’ -- substituting מלאכי צבאות for מלכי צבאות] are scurrying, scurrying —they scurry in retreat, and scurry in return -- and not just the angels, but even God, as it says, ‘His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.’

Rabbi Judah quoted Rabbi Ilay:  As they were parched from the noonday sun, God said to the clouds of glory:  Drop the life-giving dew on My children, as it says (Psalm 68):  ‘The earth trembled, the sky dripped because of God.’  And it says:  ‘You released a bountiful rain, O God!’  When was all this glory done?  When it was most fitting for the nations, and most honorable for the Torah, as it says:  ‘unevat bayit [obscure] you divide the spoil.’  ‘Spoil’ means Torah, as it says:  ‘I rejoice over Your utterance as one who finds much spoil.’ (Psalm 119)

12)  ויאמרו אל משה דבר אתה עמנו ונשמעה. מגיד שלא היה בהם כח לקבל יותר מעשרת הדברות שנאמר (דברים ה') אם יוספים אנחנו לשמוע את קול ה' אלהינו עוד ומתנו אלא קרב אתה ונשמע מאותה שעה זכו ישראל להעמיד מהם המקום נביאים שנאמר (שם י"ח) נביא אקים להם נביא עתיד אני להעמיד מהם אלא שקדמו הם בזכות שנאמר (שם) ויאמר ה' אלי הטיבו אשר דברו. אשרי בני אדם שהמקום הודה לדבריהם:

12. “They said to Moses, You speak to us, and we shall hear.”  This tells us that they had not enough strength to receive more than the Ten Commandments, as it says, ‘If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die.’ (Deut. 5) From that hour onward, Israel were privileged that God might appoint prophets from their midst, as it says, ‘I will appoint a prophet for them.’ (Deut. 18)  I was going to do so in the distant future, but they anticipated Me, as it says, ‘The Lord said to me, They have spoken well.’ (Deut. 5)  Happy is the person whose initiative is confirmed by God!



(§12 continued)
וכן הוא אומר (במדבר כ"ו) כן בנות צלפחד דוברות (שם ל"ו) כן מטה בני יוסף דוברים אשרי בני אדם שהמקום הודה לדבריהם. וכן הוא אומר (שם י"ד) סלחתי כדבריך (דברים ה') מי יתן והיה לבבם זה. אלו איפשר להעביר מלאך המות הייתי מעבירו אלא שכבר נגזרה גזירה.

 רבי יוסי אומר על תנאי כך עמדו ישראל על הר סיני על תנאי כך עמדו על הר סיני שלא ישלוט בהם מלאך המות שנאמר (תהלים פ"ב) אני אמרתי אלהים אתם ובני עליון כלכם אכן כאדם תמותון וכאחד השרים תפולו:

Similarly we read (Numbers 26): ‘The daughters of Zelophehad have spoken well’ and ‘The members of the tribe of Joseph have spoken well.’ (Numbers 36)  Happy are those mortals who whose words are confirmed by God!  Similarly:  ‘I have forgiven according to your word’ (Numbers 14) and ‘Would that their heart be so!’ (Deuteronomy 5)  If it were possible to abolish the Angel of Death I would do so, but it has already been decreed otherwise. 

Rabbi Yosi said:  The Israelites stood at Sinai on condition that the Angel of Death not have power over them [but it was revoked] as it says, ‘I said you were gods, children of the All-High, but now you will die as men and fall as one of the princes.’ (Psalm 82)


Sifrei on Deuteronomy Chapter 11

13) ללכת בכל דרכיו. אלו דרכי הקב"ה שנ' (שמות לד) ה' ה' אל רחום וחנוך ארץ אפים ורב חסד ואמת נוצר חסד לאלפי' נושא עון ופשע וחטאה ונקה. ואו' (יואל ג) כל אשר יקרא בשם ה' ימלט. וכי היאך אפש' לו לאדם לקרא בשמו של הקב"ה אלא מה המקום נקרא רחום וחנון אף אתה הוי רחום וחנון ועשה מתנת חנם לכל. מה הקב"ה נקרא צדיק שנ' (תהלים קמה) צדיק ה' בכל דרכיו אף אתה הוי צדיק. הקב"ה נקרא חסיד שנאמ' וחסיד בכל מעשיו אף אתה הוי חסיד לכך נאמר כל אשר יקר' בשם ה' ימלט ואומר (ישעי' מג) כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו ואו' (משלי טז) כל פעל ה' למענהו:

13. “To walk in all His ways” —these are the ways of the Holy and Blessed One, as it says (Exodus 34):  ‘The Lord!  the Lord!  A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and wiping clean.’  And it says (Joel 3): ‘Whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be delivered.’  But is it possible for flesh and blood to call upon God’s name?  But just as the Omnipresent is called merciful and gracious, so you should be merciful and gracious, and give gifts gratis to all.  As the Holy One is called ‘righteous’ (as it says:  ‘The Lord is righteous in all His ways’), so you should be righteous.  As the Holy One is called ‘pious’ (as it says:  ‘and pious in all His deeds’), so you should be pious.  Therefore it is said, ‘Whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be delivered,’ and it also says: ‘All who are called by My Name, Whom I have created, formed and made for My glory’ (Isaiah 43) and: ‘The Lord made everything for a purpose’ [or: for His sake] (Proverbs 16).

14)  ולדבקה בו. וכי היאך אפשר לו לאדם לעלות במרום ולהדבק בו והלא כבר נאמר (דברים ד) כי ה' אלהיך אש אוכלה הוא ואומר (דניאל ז) כורסיה שביבים דנור יגלגלוהי נור דליק. אלא הדבק בחכמים ובתלמידים ומעלה אני עליך כאלו עלית למרום ונטלת' ולא שעלית ונטלת בשלום אלא אפילו כאלו עשית מלחמה ונטלתה וכן הוא אומר (תהלים סח) עלית למרו' שבית שבי לקחת מתנות באדם. דורשי רשומות אומרי' רצונך שתכיר מי שאמר והיה העולם למוד הגדה שמתוך כך אתה מכיר את הקב"ה ומדבק בדרכיו ואם עשית מה שעליכם אף אני אעשה מה שעלי: (סליק פיסקא):

14. “And to cleave to Him.”  But how is it possible for a person to ascend to heaven and cleave to Him?  Is it not already said, ‘For the Lord your God is a consuming fire’ and it says (Daniel 7) ‘His throne was tongues of flame; its wheels were blazing fire’?  Rather, cleave to the sages and their disciples, and I will count it on your behalf as if you ascended to heaven and taken it.  Not just that you ascended and took it peaceably, but even as if you waged war and took it.  Thus it says, ‘You ascended to heaven, you captured booty; you took gifts of men.’

The Doreshei Reshumot say:  Do you wish to know Him who spoke and brought the world into being?  Study aggadah, for from it you will come to know the Holy and Blessed One and cleave to His ways.  If you do what is incumbent on you, I will also do what is incumbent on Me.



Psalm 68
(a psalm midrashically interpreted to refer to giving of Torah at Sinai)

 1  To the chief Musician, A Psalm Song of David.
2  Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him.
3  As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
4  But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God; let them joyfully exult.
5  Sing to God, sing praises to his name; extol him who rides on the clouds; his name is the Lord, rejoice before him.
6  A father to the orphans, and a judge to the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
7  God gives the lonely ones a home to dwell in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
8  O God, when you went forth before your people, when you marched through the wilderness;
9  The earth shook, the heavens dropped at the presence of God; even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
10  You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, to strengthen your inheritance, when it languished.
11  Your flock found a dwelling in it; you, O God, have prepared of your goodness for the poor.
12  The Lord gives the word; great is the company of those who bear the tidings.
13  Kings of armies flee, they flee; and she who dwells in the house divides the booty.
14  Though you lie among the sheep folds you shall shine like the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her pinions with yellow gold.
15  When the Almighty scattered kings in it, snow fell in Zalmon.
16  O mighty mountain! O Mountain of Bashan! O many peaked mountain! O Mountain of Bashan!
17  Why do look with envy, O many peaked mountain, at the mountain which God desired for his abode? Truly the Lord will dwell there forever.
18  The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.
19  You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive [midrash: ‘you have captured booty’ = Torah]; you have received gifts from men; from the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.
20  Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God of our salvation. Selah.
21  He who is our God is the God of salvation; and to God the Lord belong the issues of death.
22  But God will strike the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of him who still goes on in his trespasses.
[verses 23-34 skipped — thematically irrelevant to the Sinaitic theme]
35  Ascribe strength to God; his majesty is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.
36  O God, you are awesome from your holy places; the God of Israel is he who gives strength and power to his people. Blessed be God.

Heschel Chapter from Levin: Workbook in Modern Jewish Thought

Unit 9: Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

Phenomenological Approach to the Bible

Eclectic Approach, with Phenomenology at the Center

Abraham Joshua Heschel is by general agreement the preeminent theologian of Conservative Judaism since World War II.   He is also arguably one of the most inclusive Jewish thinkers of those we are considering.  The polarities of his thought embrace faith and doubt, authority and autonomy, philosophy and mysticism, modern sophistication and prophetic engagement.

Raised in a Hasidic family, Heschel passed up an opportunity for dynastic leadership in order to get a secular education in Vilna and Berlin.  His first book of Yiddish poems -- Der Shem-Hameforash:  Mentsh  -- anticipates his later view of divine-human polarity, while revealing the fascination he felt for the radical humanism of the young Jewish socialists he met.  In his doctoral dissertation on the prophets (and the book: The Prophets which later developed from it), Heschel shows interest in prophecy as a religious experience (the issue of revelation) as well as the prophets’ religiously-grounded ethical idealism.  Heschel analyzed the prophets’ experience with the new philosophical tools of phenomenology, developed by Edmund Husserl around 1920.  Phenomenology could only analyze prophetic experience as experience and could not pass judgment on the validity of the prophet’s claim of revelation; however, Heschel would believe and argue throughout his life that this claim was valid.  Nevertheless, Heschel also recognized that the prophet’s message was influenced by the prophet’s human personality. 

One of Heschel’s key ideas arising from his prophetic studies was the prophet’s “empathy with the divine pathos.”  This idea has at least two corollaries, both central for Heschel’s philosophy:  (1)  The prophet’s claim to truth arises not from having infallible access to God’s thoughts, but from identifying with the divine point of view, and deducing from God’s general purpose the ethical implications devolving on humanity.  (2)  The human relationship with God cannot be based on the dispassionate notion of God enunciated by Maimonides and medieval philosophy generally, but derives from the passionate God portrayed in the Bible.  To cite Fritz Rothschild’s motto, God is not the “unmoved Mover,” but the “most moved Mover.”

Overall Assignment for Unit 9

All Heschel’s books contribute to the understanding of his thought.  Three are recommended as most basic:  The Prophets, The Sabbath, and God In Search Of Man.  This unit will focus on God In Search Of Man.   The synopsis which follows here will assist you in familiarizing yourself with the basic argument of all three parts.  Concentrate especially on the following chapters (but hopefully you will go on to read the entire book now or soon):

Part I:  Chapters 1, 5, 11.

Part II:  Chapters 18, 19, 27.

Part III:  Chapters 28, 29, 33.

For each part, read the synopsis and key texts offered here, along with the recommended chapters and any other chapters that interest you, then participate in the discussion for that part.

God In Search Of Man, Part I:  God

Chapter 1 of God In Search of Man focuses on describing the balance Heschel seeks to achieve between philosophy and religion.  The two are complementary; they intersect and overlap in some respects, and diverge in others.  Philosophy serves to clarify questions, and to demand intellectual honesty.  Religion involves us in issues of ultimate concern.  Philosophy formulates the questions to which religion is an answer.  Without recovering the questions, religion is incomprehensible and irrelevant.  However, the main Western philosophical tradition has by and large pursued theoretical interests very different from the existential concerns of the Bible; Athens and Jerusalem represent different focuses of thought.  (pp. 13-15)  Heschel does not want to emulate the medievals in constructing philosophical proofs for Biblical doctrines such as God’s existence.  He wants to shine a philosophical searchlight on what the religious quest in the Bible is all about.

The rest of Part I follows this agenda, analyzing how the Biblical authors experience God through the world.  “The Sublime,” “Wonder,” “Mystery,” and “Awe” are all different moments in this process of apprehension.  Contemplation of the world does not logically compel acceptance of God.  It is a question of one’s attitude.  If we adopt the attitude of the scientist, we can only arrive at layer upon layer of causal explanation.  The Biblical authors adopt a different attitude, one of radical amazement.  The choice between these is comparable to the choice between Buber’s relation-modes of “I-It” and “I-Thou.”  In the “I-It, we will never find God; in the “I-Thou,” God is never absent.  Heschel recognizes that the modern mood is one of rational analysis, foreign to the Bible’s concerns.  Heschel invites us to become familiar with the Bible’s mode of experiencing reality, and of experiencing God through reality.

The keystone of Heschel’s argument in this part is Chapter 11:  “An Ontological Presupposition.”  Heschel’s argument here is a rhetorical reversal of the medieval Christian philosopher Anselm’s famous “Ontological Proof of God’s Existence.”  In Anselm’s argument, the argument comes first and God at the end, as the conclusion of the proof.  Heschel (following a line suggested in Buber’s I and Thou Part III, pp. 128-29, 160-62) maintains that the truly living God cannot be found as the conclusion of an argument, but only as the presupposition of all experience.  Unless we put God at the very beginning, as more real than our selves and the world, we misconceive God.  By a reversal of common philosophic practice, Heschel illuminates the Biblical view of reality and invites us to participate in it.

Key Texts:  Part I

Religion is an answer to man’s ultimate questions.  The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion becomes irrelevant, and its crisis sets in.  The primary task of philosophy of religion is to rediscover the questions to which religion is an answer.  The inquiry must proceed both by delving into the consciousness of man as well as by delving into the teachings and attitudes of the religions tradition. (p. 3)

The mystery is an ontological category....In using the term mystery we do not mean any particular esoteric quality that may be revealed to the initiated, but the essential mystery of being as being, the nature of being as God’s creation out of nothing, and, therefore, something which stands beyond the scope of human comprehension.  We do not come upon it only at the climax of thinking or in observing strange, extraordinary facts but in the startling fact that there are facts at all:  being, the universe, the unfolding of time.  We may face it at every turn, in a grain of sand, in an atom, as well as in the stellar space.  Everything holds the great secret.  (p. 57)

And so the Biblical man never asks:  Is there a God?  To ask such a question, in which doubt is expressed as to which of two possible attitudes is true, means to accept the power and validity of a third attitude, namely the attitude of doubt.  The Bible does not know doubt as an absolute attitude.  For there is no doubt in which faith is not involved.  The questions advanced in the Bible are of a different kind.

            Lift up your eyes on high, and see, Who created the[s]e?

This does not reflect a process of thinking that is neatly arranged in the order of doubt first, and faith second; first the question, then the answer.  It reflects a situation in which the mind stand face to face with the mystery rather than with its own concepts. (p. 98)

The truth, however, is that to say “God is” means less than what our immediate awareness contains.  The statement “God is” is an understatement.

Thus, the certainty of the realness of God does not come about as a corollary of logical premises, as a leap from the realm of logic to the realm of ontology, from an assumption to a fact.  It is, on the contrary, a transition from an immediate apprehension to a thought, from a preconceptual awareness to a definite assurance, from being overwhelmed by the presence of God to an awareness of His existence.  What we attempt to do in the act of reflection is to raise that preconceptual awareness to the level of understanding....

In other words, our belief in His reality is not a leap over a missing link in a syllogysm but rather a regaining, giving up a view rather than adding one, going beyond self-consciousness and questioning the self and all its cognitive pretensions.  It is an ontological presupposition.

...Just as there is no thinking about the world without the premise of the reality of the world, there can be no thinking about God without the premise of the realness of God. (pp. 121-22)

Discussion 9.1:  Heschel On God

What is the nature of Heschel’s argument about God?  Is he depicting the outlook of the Biblical authors, or his own, or both?  Are they identical?  Do you think he means for the argument to be demonstrative, descriptive, or suggestive?  What do you find persuasive?  Do you have criticisms?

God In Search Of Man, Part II:  Revelation

Heschel makes two central affirmations about revelation:  it is real, and it is beyond words (ineffable, to use Heschel’s favorite term).  As he considers the Torah (or the Bible) to be associated with that revelation, these affirmations have as their corollaries:  the Torah (or Bible) is to be taken with the utmost seriousness as in some sense a product of revelation, but not to be idolized or followed slavishly or literally.  Both the affirmation and the qualification are important.  Exactly how to read his nuance, requires a careful study of these chapters.

Chapters 18-19 stress the inadequacy of human language to capture the full reality of divine communication.  “As a report about revelation the Bible itself is a midrash.” (p. 185)  This is Heschel’s strongest warning against literalism.  But Heschel is aware of the danger that the reader may be led through “figurative reading” (see pp. 181-83) into a dismissive approach to the Bible’s message. By calling Biblical language “the prophetic understatement,” Heschel warns us  against the opposite temptations of over-literalism or belittling the Bible’s claims. 

Indeed, one may object that through his own affirmation of the specificity of the Sinai event in Chapters 20-21, Heschel comes close to the literal reading which he warns against.  So does Chapter 24, where Heschel confronts the reader with an either-or:  either the prophets were mad, or their claim to true revelation is valid.  In Chapters 25-26, the argument is broader and more general:  the authority of the Bible is based on the grandeur of its spiritual achievement and what it has taught the world; its truth is self-evident.  It is a classic which sets the standard in spiritual wisdom, which one would have to be obtuse not to recognize.

In Chapter 27, Heschel mentions almost in a whisper many of the qualifications which may be voiced against a more fundamentalist concept of revelation.  (Many of these issues are developed further in his massive study of the rabbinic theology of revelation, Torah From Heaven.)  No, revelation is not “a chronological issue”; the sanctity of the Bible does not stand or fall with its Mosaic authorship.  The Bible is not a monologue, but contains the words of God and man mingled together.  There is the “unrevealed Torah” as well -- the Torah we have does not exhaust all the divine wisdom, but leaves more to be discovered.  The revealed “idea” may be rooted in God’s mind, but its “expression” uses human language.  The Bible also contains “commonplace passages” and “harsh passages,” cited by the critic as unworthy of a divine document, in which even the rabbis raised the suspicion that the divine voice might be absent.  (Note how by quoting the rabbis to voice a radical view, Heschel softens it; instead of a complaint against the tradition, it becomes a debate within the tradition.)  Though Heschel hesitates to speak of “continuous revelation,” his call for “continuous understanding” amounts to almost the same thing:  our understanding of God’s will is not frozen, but continues to gain from the new insights of each generation.  Finally, “the Oral Torah was never written down,” for the truly Oral Torah is not contained in books like the Mishnah and Talmud, but consists in the ever-evolving self-understanding of the Jewish tradition.

Key Texts:  Part II

“God spoke.”  Is it to be taken symbolically:  He did not speak, yet it was as if He did?  The truth is that what is literally true to us is a metaphor compared with what is metaphysically real to God.  A thousand years to us are a day to Him.  And when applied to Him our mightiest words are feeble understatements.

And yet, that “God spoke” is not a symbol.  A symbol does not raise a world out of nothing.  Nor does a symbol call a Bible into being.  The speech of God is not less but more than literally real.  (p. 180)

If revelation was a moment in which God succeeded in reaching man, then to try to describe it exclusively in terms of optics or acoustics, or to inquire was it a vision or was it a sound?  was it forte or piano?  would be even more ludicrous than to ask about the velocity of “the wind that sighs before the dawn”...

The nature of revelation, being an event in the realm of the ineffable, is something which words cannot spell, which human language will never be able to portray.  Our categories are not applicable to that which is both within and beyond the realm of matter and mind.  In speaking about revelation, the more descriptive the terms, the less adequate is the description.  The words in which the prophets attempted to relate their experiences were not photographs but illustrations, not descriptions  but songs...

We must not try to read chapters in the Bible dealing with the event at Sinai as if they were texts in systematic theology.  Its intention is to celebrate the mystery, to introduce us to it rather than to penetrate or to explain it.  As a report about revelation the Bible itself is a midrash.  (pp. 184-85)

To most of us the idea of revelation is unacceptable, not because it cannot be proved or explained, but because it is unprecedented...we find it hard to believe in the extraordinary, in the absolutely singular; we find it hard to believe that an event which does not happen all the time or from time to time should have happened only once, at one time... (pp. 201-02)

What gave the prophets the certainty that they witnessed a divine event and not a figment of their own imagination?...This, it seems, was the mark of authenticity:  the fact that prophetic revelation was not merely an act of experience but an act of being experienced, of being exposed to, called upon, overwhelmed and taken over by Him who seeks out those whom He sends to mankind.  It is not God who is an experience of man; it is man who is an experience of God. (pp. 229-30)

In a sense, prophecy consists of a revelation of God and a co-revelation of man.  The share of the prophet manifested itself not only in what he was able to give but also in what he was unable to receive...Thus the Bible is more than the word of God:  it is the word of God and man; a record of both revelation and response; the drama of covenant between God and man.  The canonization and preservation of the Bible are the work of Israel. (pp. 260-61)

Discussion 9.2:  Heschel on Revelation

What does Heschel claim about revelation?  What is it, and what is it not?  What part of his arguments do you find convincing?  What does his argument imply about the Bible as a source of knowledge of God?  of man?  of God’s will?  How does Heschel’s concept of reveleation compare with other thinkers (especially Buber and Rosenzweig)?

Here are some diagrams of how revelation may be conceived.  Is there a clear match between the diagrams and the models of thinkers we have studied?  Or is it more ambiguous?

Click this link to "Diagrams of Revelation"

God In Search Of Man, Part III:  Response

The very title “Response” implies a measure of autonomy.  We are free to respond or not to respond, to respond positively or negatively, partially or totally, in a stereotyped canned way or in a highly personal way.  Just as there is ambiguity and nuance in the human perception of divine reality in Part I and in the experience of revelation in Part II, so also is there flexibility in the approach to Jewish observance which Heschel elaborates in Part III.

There are many “polarities” in Part III, summarized most explicitly in Chapter 33 (“The Problem of Polarity.”)  In Chapters 28 and 29, Heschel makes contrasting points.  Chapter 28 speaks in the most general terms of human action as a response to God, for “acts of goodness reflect the hidden light of His holiness.” (p. 290)  This general injunction would not be problematic even to a religious anarchist like Buber, who at least agreed with the mainstream of the Jewish tradition that the way to God is to be found in deeds.  However, in Chapter 29 Heschel finds faith, spirituality, and conscience insufficient as guides to human action and affirms wholeheartedly “the norms of a heteronomous law” (p. 298) as the Jewish prescription of the means to satisfy the ends of acting for God’s sake.  This seems to go farther than Rosenzweig in wholehearted affirmation of the principle of the law as necessary in Judaism.

Is the law God-given?  Is God a legislator?  Here is another polarity.  On the one hand, “We believe that the Jew is committed to a divine law…we are taught that God gave man not only life but also a law.” (p. 299)  On the other hand, one must achieve a balance between the whole of the law and the parts. (p. 301)  “Jewish tradition does not maintain that every iota of the law was revealed to Moses at Sinai…No, it was only the principles thereof (klalim) which God taught Moses.” (p. 302)  The details are not fixed eternally, but modified at the discretion of the sages. (p. 303)  The individual should rely on the guidance of tradition, because his own insight is insufficient to find the right path amid the complexities of life and his own competing impulses. (p. 298)

Law is not sufficient as a complete guide for living.  The deed comes from the integrated person and is more than just behavior.  It is a way of being (Chapter 30).  It involves kavanah, the intention of the heart (Chapter 31).  Heschel criticizes sole reliance on external conduct as “religious behaviorism.” (Chapter 32)  Halakhah and aggadah, regularity and spontaneity, all contribute to the fully rounded ideal which Heschel holds up for us. (Chapter 33)  The meaning of observance, a response to the ineffable, is ultimately beyond the power of reason to articulate. (Chapter 34)  The term mitzvah is far broader and richer than “law” in conveying this multi-nuanced meaning of the deed as a meaningful category in Jewish religious life. (Chapter 35)

The problem of evil in the world is vast.  Torah and the mitzvah do not eliminate the problem but are the necessary antidote to it; they raise us above the good toward the holy. (Chapter 36)  They make the neutral aspects of human life opportunities for holiness. (Chapter 37)  Does the modern psychoanalytic viewpoint lead us to suspect that all action is egoistic, that there can be no pure intention? (Chapters 38-39)  The answer is to focus on the deed, for even action with mixed intention leads one toward purer intention. (Chapter 40)  We must affirm our moral freedom in the face of modern deterministic doctrines. (Chapter 41)  All the observances of Judaism (pre-eminently the Sabbath) serve as means to direct our lives toward the holy, the spiritual, the transcendent, the service of God.  Living on this plane is the true meaning of Jewish existence, as the chosen people of God. (Chapter 42)

Key Texts:  Part III

To fulfill the will of God in deeds means to act in the name of God, not only for the sake of God; to carry out in acts what is potential to His will.  He is in need of the work of man for the fulfillment of His ends in the world…Mitsvot are not ideals, spiritual entities for ever suspended in eternity.  They are commandments addressing every one of us.  They are the ways in which God confronts us in particular moments.  In the infinite world there is a task for me to accomplish.  Not a general task, but a task for me, here and now.  Mitsvot are spiritual ends, points of eternity in the flux of temporality. (p. 291)

In Judaism allegiance to God involves a commitment to Jewish law, to a discipline, to specific obligations.  These terms, against which modern man seems to feel an aversion, are in fact a part of civilized living….Judaism is meaningless as an optional attitude to be assumed at our convenience.  To the Jewish mind life is a complex of obligations, and the fundamental category of Judaism is a demand rather than a dogma, a commitment rather than a feeling.  God’s will stands higher than man’s creed.  Reverence for the authority of the law is an expression of our love for God. (p. 300)

In their zeal to carry out the ancient injunction, “make a hedge about the Torah,” many Rabbis failed to heed the warning, “Do not consider the hedge more important than the vineyard.”  Excessive regard for the hedge may spell ruin for the vineyard.  The vineyard is being trodden down.  It is all but laid waste.  Is this the time to insist upon the sanctity of the hedges?  “Were the Torah given as a rigid immutable code of laws, Israel could not survive….Moses exclaimed:  Lord of the universe, let me know what is the law.  And the Lord said:  Rule by the principle of majority….The law will be explained, now one way, now another, according to the perception of the majority of the sages.” (pp. 302-03)

The interrelationship of halacha and agada is the very heart of Judaism.  Halacha without agada is dead, agada without halacha is wild. (p. 337)

To reduce Judaism to law, to halaha, is to dim its light, to pervert its essence and to kill its spirit.  We have a legacy of agada together with a system of halacha…The code of conduct is like the score to a musician.  Rules, principles, forms may be taught; feeling, the sense of rhythm must come from within… (p. 338)

Halacha is an answer to a question, namely:  What does God ask of me?  The moment that question dies in the heart, the answer becomes meaningless.  That question, however, is agadic, spontaneous, personal…Without faith, inwardness and the power of appreciation, the law is meaningless.  (p. 339)

To reduce Judaism to inwardness, to agada, is to blot out its light, to dissolve its essence and to destroy its reality.  Indeed, the surest way to forfeit agada is to abolish halacha.  They can only survive in symbiosis. (p. 339)

By inwardness alone we do not come close to God.  The purest intentions, the finest sense of devotion, the noblest spiritual aspirations are fatuous when not realized in action. (p. 340)

Every act done in agreement with the will of God is a mitzvah.  But the scope of meaning of the word mitzvah is even wider.  Beyond the meanings it denotes – namely commandment, law, obligation, and deed…it has the connotation of goodness, value, virtue, meritoriousness, piety, and even kindness….

The basic term of Jewish living, therefore, is mitzvah rather than law (din).  The law serves us as a source of knowledge about what is and what is not to be regarded as a mitzvah.  The act itself, what a person does with that knowledge, is determined not only by what the law describes but also by that which the law cannot enforce:  the freedom of the heart. (pp. 361-62)

Discussion 9.3:  Heschel on Jewish Observance

What does Heschel seek to teach us in Part III about our correct “response” to living in God’s presence?  Who would you guess are the targets of his criticisms?  How does his position agree with and differ from those articulated by Buber and Rosenzweig in their exchange?  Where does Heschel agree with and differ from Mordecai Kaplan?

What might be the enduring legacy of Heschel’s teaching?