Abraham Joshua Heschel Profile (PBS, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly)

coming up he marched with Martin Luther King jr. and was a longtime activist for civil rights and against war remembering rabbi theologian and mystic Abraham Joshua Heschel this weekend of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday religious services are planned around the country to remember him and his legacy some of them will be in synagogues that are honoring both King and the late Abraham Joshua Heschel one of Kings many courageous supporters Heschel is widely considered to be one of the greatest American religious figures of the last century a rabbi theologian social activist and mystic admired by Christians as well as Jews he would have been a hundred and one years old this month our segment was produced by Steve brand a New York filmmaker who is completing a documentary on her show called praying with my legs brand gathered powerful recollections from those who had known him and who wish his prophetic voice were still sounding it was his participation in the civil rights movement that first made Heschel widely known in a famous photo of the Selma March in 1965 its leaders wearing Garland's heschel was the white man with the prophets beard too to the right of dr. King that was the occasion on which Heschl's said he felt he was praying with his legs God is either the father Holman of Norman and the idea of judging a person terms of the black or brown white is an eye disease Herschel also publicly and passionately opposed the war in Vietnam how can I pray and I haven't my conscience the awareness that I am co responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam in a free society I guilty all are responsible the war in Vietnam for Heschel was an ultimate act of dehumanization to no longer even see that there was an enemy on the other side who was a human being and Heschel was convinced that if I act with a disregard for the humanity of my fellow human being I am ultimately I am really ultimately attacking God Heschl's daughter Susanna teaches Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College my father was sleepless over Vietnam he would he would be up late at night one two three in the morning couldn't sleep she was so upset it was on his mind all the time Heschl's experience of the Holocaust was one reason for his social activism he had seen close-up what racism and apathy can do and how violence toward human beings often begins with the abusive language Hitler he said did not come to power with tanks and machine guns Hitler came to power with words Peschel was raised in Warsaw and did graduate study in Berlin just six weeks before World War two he was able to escape from Europe Heschl's late wife Sylvia remembered there were sisters of his who were killed that was a very painful thing for him Byrd his mother died of a heart attack as soon as the Nazi key to the door she just fell ground it was awful but Herschel never blamed God he said God didn't do it man did it Heschl's biographer is edward kaplan there are moments in which he talks about overcoming despair and overcoming gloom but the response to the catastrophe is not to focus on the catastrophe but to focus on human possibilities when you a special where was God during the Holocaust his answer was always of course where was men but if you read Heschel carefully I would say God cares God weeps with man at his sufferings God participates in human suffering and therefore God was there in the Holocaust whenever I get a little down or depressed I go get one of his books and I read the prophet Isaiah and what he has to say about Isaiah because Isaiah was written at a time of the desolation of Israel and yet it's the loftiest vision of dreams for humankind it's people's ability to have faith in the midst of persecution and destruction at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York Heschel was a professor of social ethics and mysticism two powerful strands of Jewish thought from the profits he learned to speak out about the world's evils from his ancestors who were Hasidic Jews known for their ecstatic spirituality he learned to celebrate life I see that the world in itself is so fantastically mysterious so challenging challengingly marvels that not to realize that there is more than I see that there's endlessly more than I can express or even conceive and just being underdeveloped the lecture one of Hazzard's main attempts in getting to you in a sense is his own sense of radical amazement to be aware of so many different things did you notice the trees well heschel was in love with trees you're walking Riverside Park don't forget the trees you know don't forget the river you have to react I shall describe the spiritual power he felt as the ineffable Oh ineffable he loved that word that was is explainable but you know is there is points to something beyond that which we pray to meaning God specials biographer notes his use of dramatic language to try to reach others hearts not just their minds he read a heschel description of a mystical experience a moment comes like a thunderbolt in which a flash of the undisclosed rennes RDoc apathy asunder the ineffable is shuddered itself into the soul it is entered our consciousness like a ray of light passing into a lake I can't believe that someone could write a passage like this without having experienced it himself Heschl's deep spirituality drew many Christians to him among them the Catholic priest and anti Vietnam War activist Daniel Berrigan who became a friend a being someone who was immersed totally in his own religious tradition and was at the same time charmingly ecumenical you know and open to others I began to understand that the two went together that if you were a person of deep faith you were open to others and you didn't draw lines or boundaries or say we're inside the circle and others are out he was one of the chosen who believed that everyone was chosen and at the very fact of existing in the world meant you were chosen Peschel fought all anti-semitism he campaigned for the rights of Jews in the Soviet Union and at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s he lobbied hard against church teachings that demeaned Jews or anticipated their conversion I came out with a very strong dubuque out there other go to Auschwitz and give up my religion that my being Jewish so sacred to me that I'm ready to die for it over his lifetime Herschel published 18 books and more than a hundred essays he was driven to show the relevance of Jewish Scripture to modern life in the Sabbath he saw time as something to be made holy in man is not alone and other volumes he said God expects and depends on human beings to carry out his will so he shall consider the world you know the challenge today just nihilism he says the enemy we all face is nihilism the world is going to hell the sense of meaninglessness is pervasive and we have to do something about this his friends say heschel did a lot about it by what he taught and even more by how he lived we are called upon to be an image of God you see God is absent invisible and the task of a human being is to represent the divine to be a reminder of the presence of God one year after he said that Heschel died on December 23rd 1972 he was just 65 years old there's more on our web site pbs.org/newshour praying with my legs as we leave you music from a 2005 tribute to Martin Luther King jr. by Washington's choral Arts we are PBS

Channel: Steve Brand, Ways & Means Productions

Views: 45,726

Keywords: Abraham Joshua Heschel, Praying With My Legs, PBS, Steve Brand, Bob Abernethy, Rabbi, civil rights, Vietnam War, 2nd Vatican Council, Pope, Holocaust, Selma, Susannah Heschel, Arthur Green, Edward Kaplan, Daniel Berrigan, Arnold Eisen, Andrew Young, Peter Geffen, Sylvia Heschel, Morton Leifman, Hasidism, I Asked For Wonder, The Sabbath, Man Is Not Alone, God In Search of Man, The Prophets, Who Is Man?, Ineffable, mystic

Id: I6q1puhkUNg

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2009