Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Abraham Joshua Heschel
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, second from right,
participating in Selma Civil Rights March on
March 21, 1965 with Martin Luther King, Jr.,
fourth from right.
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Heschels Approach Arguably Postmodern(before
the term was fashionable)

• Post-Critical Questions of historical
  background, accuracy and credibility are
  welcomed, but are not paramount.
• Diversely Centered Interpreters differing
  convictions, hunches, loyalties and suspicions
  need to be named and allowed to inform (but not
  control) their interpretations. (Sometimes these
  differ within the same interpreter!)
• Conversational Interpreters need to remain
  accountable to one another, even when they keep
  moving in different directions.
• In the face of the tragic failure of the modern
  mind, incapable of preventing its own
  destruction, it became clear to me that the most
  important philosophical problem of the twentieth
  century was to find a new set of presuppositions
  or premises, a different way of thinking
  (xxviii).

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• In Heschels words (xxv-xxvii)
• I have become wary of impartiality, which is
  itself a way of being partial.
• The prophets existence is either irrelevant or
  relevant.
• If irrelevant, I cannot be truly involved in it.
• If relevant, then my impartiality is but a
  pretense.
• Reflection is part of a situation.
• The situation of a person immersed in the
  prophets words is one of being exposed to a
  ceaseless shattering of indifference, and one
  needs a skull of stone to be callous to such
  blows.
• The prophets existence involves us.
• Unless their concern strikes us, pains us, exalts
  us, we do not really sense it.
• Such involvement requires accord, receptivity,
  hearing, sheer surrender to their impact.
• Its intellectual rewards include moments in which
  the mind peels off, as it were, its not knowing.
• Thought is like touch, comprehending by being
  comprehended.
• Prophecy is a sham unless it is experienced as a
  word of God swooping down on man and converting
  him into a prophet.
• An analysis of prophetic utterances shows that
  the fundamental experience of the prophet is
  fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy
  with the divine pathos. 31
• CWA So, to understand the prophets, we have to
  cultivate a sympathy for their sympathy with the
  divine pathos.

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What is Divine Pathos?

• Heschel (29)
• God is involved in the life of man.
• The divine commandments are not mere
  recommendations for man, but express divine
  concern.
• The reaction of the divine self, its
  manifestations in the form of love, mercy,
  disappointment, or anger convey the profound
  intensity of the divine inwardness.
• Frightful is the agony of man no human voice
  can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice
  that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to
  the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the
  world. It is a form of living, a crossing point
  of God and man. God is raging in the prophets
  words (5-6)

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• Like many biblical scholars and theologians of
  the past 100 years, Heschel seems to regard God,
  not as the unmoved mover (Aristotle), but as
  the most moved mover.
• God is more like the God of J E, not much like
  the God of P.
• In this view, whatever we or any other creature
  may feel, God feels it in an immeasurably more
  intense way.
• We tend to insulate ourselves from the depth and
  extent of suffering in the world.
• So the prophets use all sorts of exaggerated
  communication to break down our insulation.
• In Heschels view, those who are most outraged at
  human suffering (especially human-caused
  suffering), are most in accord with the heart and
  mind of God.
• When do you feel outrage at somebody elses
  suffering?

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The Prophet Nathan Confronts David 2 Samuel
1126-127a When the wife of Uriah heard that her
husband was dead, she made lamentation for him.
When the mourning was over, David sent and
brought her to his house, and she became his
wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that
David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord
sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to
him, There were two men in a certain city, the
one rich and the other poor. The rich man had
very many flocks and herds but the poor man had
nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had
bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him
and with his children it used to eat of his
meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in
his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now
there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was
loath to take one of his own flock or herd to
prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but
he took the poor mans lamb, and prepared that
for the guest who had come to him. Then Davids
anger was greatly kindled against the man. He
said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who
has done this deserves to die he shall restore
the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and
because he had no pity. Nathan said to David,
You are the man!
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Divine Pathos Hosea 111-4,8-9 When Israel was
a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called
my son. The more I called them, the more they
went from me they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who
taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my
arms but they did not know that I healed them. I
led them with cords of human kindness, with bands
of love. I was to them like those who lift
infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and
fed them. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can
I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you
like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My
heart recoils within me my compassion grows warm
and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger I
will not again destroy Ephraim for I am God and
no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will
not come in wrath.
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• Prophet (navi) means one who is called or one
  who announces.
• Prophets claim to offer Gods interpretation of
  past and present events, and future
  possibilities.
• They are not fortune tellers. Sometimes what they
  say is not supposed to come true.
• For example, when God sends the prophet Jonah to
  the city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria (one
  of ancient Israel's fiercest enemies), Jonah's
  initial message seems to be one of inevitable
  doom "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be
  overthrown!" (31-4)
• Contrary to Jonah's own expectations, however,
  the Ninevites respond to his preaching by
  believing in God, proclaiming a fast, covering
  themselves with sackcloth and ashes as signs of
  repentance, and praying to God not to destroy
  them. (35-9)
• As a result, God changes his mind and does not
  destroy the city of Nineveh after all. (310)
• This turn of events does not please Jonah at all,
  since he had been looking forward to the
  destruction of the capital city of this great
  enemy empire! So God tries to teach Jonah further
  that God is more interested in mercy and
  forgiveness than in punishment and destruction!
  (41-11)

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Era / Century BCE Prophetic Books with other named Prophets
Pre-Monarchy (13th-11th Cent.) Books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, beginning of 1 Samuel
Early Monarchy (10th Cent.) 1 2 Samuel, most of 1 Kings incl. Nathan Ahijah
Divided Monarchy (9th Cent.) rest of 1 2 Kings esp. Elijah Elisha
Fall of Northern Kingdom of Israel (8th Cent.) Hosea, Amos, Micah
Fall of Southern Kingdom of Judah (7th Cent.) Isaiah 1-39, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Nahum
Babylonian Exile (6th Cent.) Isaiah 40-55, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8
Post-Exilic Restoration (5th-4th Cent.) Isaiah 56-66, Jonah, Zechariah 9-14, Obadiah, Joel, Malachi
Hellenistic Era (3rd-2nd Cent.) Daniel 1-6 (more prophetic) Daniel 7-12 (more apocalyptic)