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We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light.

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
Firsts
Peer
Without
Hopelessness
First
Peers
Feel
Presence
Must
Darkness
Feels
Ready
Living
Entombed
Light
Strangled

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It is not enough for me to ask question I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?
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The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.
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The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present.
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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.
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The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.
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The road to the sacred leads through the secular.
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The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to other (people's) humanity, is the index of one's own humanity
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Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
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(People achieve) fullness of being in fellowship, in care for others.
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To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one imperative: Remember!
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Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.
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Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind. God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.
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As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information but only for want of appreciation.
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(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings.
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It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.
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Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one's role in relation to all other beings. For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving, depriving.
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Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.
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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.
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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.
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