Word: heschel
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...case in point: the violently anti-Israeli opinions of Jesuit Radical Daniel Berrigan, once imprisoned foe of the Viet Nam War, longtime champion of the underdog, and soul brother of the late Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, American Judaism's most poetic Zionist. At a meeting of the Association of Arab University Graduates this fall in Washington, D.C., Berrigan excoriated Israel as "a criminal Jewish community. The creation of millionaires, generals and entrepreneurs... is rapidly evolving into the image of her ancient adversaries." Israel's "historic adventure, which gave her the right to 'judge the nations...
...have decided to avoid the issue altogether. The Richmond, Va., clergy association, for instance, expressly ruled out proselytism of Jews, directing its efforts only to "inactive and unchurched people in the Christian community." Such moves would have been hailed by the late and eminent Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, who last week got in a posthumous word on the proselytism question through a television interview taped just before his death in December. It was Heschel whose persuasive efforts at the Vatican helped win Roman Catholics away from trying to convert Jews. "If there are some Protestant sects who still cling...
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...