This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Abraham Heschel. There is a new biography which tries to present him in the context of the times in which he lived. The New York Times has an article that reports on the biography and some of the other observances surrounding the celebration of his life.
From the article:
“Admittedly there are times when Heschel can seem sentimental or, as in his early book ‘The Earth Is the Lord’s,’ can romanticize the past. He turns the lost world of his fathers — the communities of Eastern European Hasidim and their rabbis — into an almost utopian realm. The scholarly skepticism of his colleagues at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where close textual analysis was more eagerly embraced than Heschel’s inspirational philosophy, does not always seem unmerited.
But no modern Jewish thinker has had as profound an effect on other faiths as Heschel has; the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said he was ‘an authoritative voice not only in the Jewish community but in the religious life of America.’ Nor has any Jewish theologian since Heschel succeeded in speaking to such a wide range of readers while rigorously attending to the nuances of Judaism.
Some of this uniqueness can be felt in the way Heschel approached the woman in the airport. Her mockery is defused, the interaction shifted to the mundane. It is as if Heschel were saying: ‘I understand I’m not what you’re used to. But I’m prepared to meet you casually, accepting your comparison to a make-believe figure. But surely you can see that your anger is not justified?’”
Read the rest here.