Word: heschel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Shortly before the six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967, a well-meaning Christian friend asked Jewish Scholar Abraham J. Heschel why he was "so dreadfully upset." Heschel thought for a moment. Then he replied gently: "Imagine that in the entire world there remains one copy of the Bible, and suddenly I see a brutal hand seize this copy, the only one in the world, and prepare to cast it into the flames...
...dialogue between Jews and the rest of the world: the meaning of Israel. To non-Jews, modern Israel is simply a nation with an unusual heritage of religious history. For most Jews, though, it is not only a historical homeland but part of an eternal theological reality, as Heschel argues in a new book called Israel: An Echo of Eternity (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $5.50). Part poetry, part polemic, part plea, the book stems from his response to the 1967 war. Though one of Judaism's most admired religious thinkers-he is professor of ethics and mysticism at Manhattan...
People and Prophets. Heschel views the war as a "rendezvous with history" that illuminated not only his own life but the lives of Jews everywhere. Speculations on "why it is significant to be a Jew" were no longer necessary. "We felt all of Jewish history present in a moment. Suddenly, we sensed the link between the Jews of this generation and the people of the time of the prophets." That "eternal link," Heschel argues, makes Israel unique. "It is the only state which bears the same name, speaks the same tongue, upholds the same faith, and inhabits the same land...
...course, Heschel notes, there were nearly 19 centuries between the modern state and the last one that could be called Jewish. But in all that time, he argues, "Palestine never became a national home for any other people, has never been regarded as a geopolitical entity, has never been an independent state. It was conquered and reconquered no less than 14 times." Throughout the centuries of the Diaspora, the Jews never abandoned hope of regaining their ancient land. At every Passover Seder, each Jewish family would ritually promise itself: "Next year, in Jerusalem...
Stream of Dreaming. Despite its secular government, says Heschel, Israel is the beginning of fulfillment for the Biblical prophecies, the necessary realization of the "stream of dreaming, the sacred river flowing in the Jewish souls of all ages." From its origins in Abraham, he declares, "Israel has had a divine promise," and "Israel reborn is a verification of the promise. We are God's stake in human history." The rebirth of Israel thus calls for "a renewal of trust in the Lord of history." To a cynical, disbelieving world, the Jews' own "return to the land" can revive...