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The road to the sacred leads through the secular.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Abraham Joshua Heschel
Age: 65 †
Born: 1907
Born: January 11
Died: 1972
Died: December 23
Judaic Scholar
Philosopher
Rabbi
University Teacher
Warszawa
Abraham Heschel
Leads
Sacred
Road
Secular

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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Life is not meaningful...unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself unless it is of value to someone else.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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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
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There are two primary ways in which mans relates himself to the world that surround him: manipulation and appreciation . In the first way he sees in what surrounds him things to be handled, forces to be managed, objects to be put to use. In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The task of life is to face sacred moments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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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
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Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law. And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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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
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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
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To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.
Abraham Joshua Heschel