aggadic man - the poetry and rabbinic thought of abraham joshua heschel

8/13/2019 Aggadic Man - The Poetry and Rabbinic Thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Aggadic Man: The Poetry and RabbinicThought of Abraham Joshua Heschel

Alan Brill

Abstract: This essay analyses two recently translated works of R.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, illustrating how he reads classic texts through

modern eyes. It focuses on Heschel's view of Rabbinic Judaism as aggadah,

and his theology of revelation that includes a Heavenly Torah and Torah

from Sinai as elements of Torah study. Using the tools of poetry and

comparative religion, Heschel presents an experiential Torah of the heart

that offers an understanding of rabbinic thought through the generations.

Biography: R. Dr. Alan Brill is the founder and director of Kavvanah:

Center for Jewish Thought. He is the author of Thinking God: The

Mysticism of R. Zadok of Lublinand is presently writing a book on Judaism

and other religions. His previous contributions to The Edah JournalincludeWorlds Destroyed, Worlds Rebuilt: The Religious Thought of Rabbi

Yehudah Amital (Sivan 5766), An Ideal Rosh Yeshiva: By His Light:

Character and Values in the Service of God and Leaves of Faith by Rav

Aharon Lichtenstein (Tammuz 5765) and Judaism in Culture: Beyond

Bifurcation of Torah and Madda (Nisan5764).

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Meorot6:1 / Shevat5767 Brill 2

Aggadic Man: The Poetry and Rabbinic Thought ofAbraham Joshua Heschel

Alan Brill

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972),one of the significant Jewish theologians

of the twentieth century, taught modernAmerican Jews to speak about God. He cappedoff his full theological career with activism forcivil rights and protest against the VietnamWar. Most readers of Heschel know his laterworks in English, especially their calls for awe,

wonder and a sense of the ineffable in ourlives.

The recent translation of Heschels earlyYiddish poetry collection The Ineffable Name ofGod: Man1 provides a fresh understanding ofhis idioms of direct relationship with Godviews not previously available in his latertheological works. More importantly, the newlytranslated volume of Heschels Heavenly Torah2,which Heschel considered his major work, nowallows the reader to consider the standardpresentation of Heschels theological positions.This essay explores how Heschel sought topresent the pre-modern texts on revelation as ameans of reawakening the religious sense ofrevelation, as mediated through variousmodern idioms.

PoetryThe Ineffable Name of God: Man

In 1933 Heschel already invited his readers toexperience a tangible sense of divine presence

in his poetry. Heschels early poems thus serve asa wonderful introduction to his thought: we cansee in them Heschels core goals before hisexposure to formal academic training and hisdistraction by phenomenology, aesthetics, andcomparative religion.3

In these poems Heschel asks how we are to

overcome the indifference of the world around usto God. It is only God who still believes in God,he argues (181). Rather than relying onexistentialism, Heschels method produces ananswer to God through the in zikh (thing itself)school of Yiddish poetry. Following its method,Heschel seeks to capture an expressionistic moodof the moment in itselfin this case anexpressionistic sense of the divine as an identitywith God and an empathy with divine pain.4

Am I notyou? Are you notI?When a need pains You, alarm me!When You miss a human beingTear open my door!You live in Yourself! You live in me. (31)

This concern for God and the expressionisticportrayal of closeness to God, quickly reminds oneof Rainier Maria Rilkes Book of Hours. Rilke writesabout his relationship to God, I want to mirrorYour image to its fullest perfection. Hescheldemurs, however, stating I didnt need to study in

Rilkes heder to know there is a God in the world

R.

1 The Ineffable Name of God--Man: Poems, translated from the Yiddish by Morton M. Leifman; introduction by Edward K.Kaplan, (New York : Continuum, 2004).

2 Heavenly Torah As Refracted Through the Generations, edited and translated from the Hebrew with commentary by GordonTucker with Leonard Levin, (New York:: Continuum, 2005).

3For an overview of Heschels early career, see Edward Kaplan and Samuel Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Prophetic Witness(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998).

4For another in zikhreligious poet, see Selected Poems of Jacob Glatstein(October House: June 1973). In contrast to Heschelspiety, the cosmopolitanism of his contemporaries is presented in Ruth Wisse, 1935-6, a Year in the life of YiddishLiterature Studies in Jewish Culture in Honour of Chone Shmeruk(edited by Israel Bartal, Ezra Mendelsohn, Chava Turniansky,Jerusalem, 1993) 83-103.


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(13).Like the prophets of yore, Heschel felt calledby God; he pleaded with God, directlybeseeching Him to deliver a message fromYou. I cannot curse as justly as did JeremiahYou are meant to help here, Oh God I willfulfill your duty, pay your debts (33). As atwentieth-century prophet whose actionsbespeak Gods presence and message on earth,Heschel felt Gods direct word since Godfollows me everywhere (57).

Charles Taylor describes how modern man,having lost the fixed order of traditionalsociety, uses his individualistic works toredirect attention from this loss to a recoveryby maintaining traditional sensibility:

Rilke speaks of angels. But his angelsare not to be understood by their placein the traditional defined order. Ratherwe have to triangulate to the meaningof the term through the whole range ofimages with which Rilke articulates hissense of things We cannot get atthem through a medieval treatise onthe ranks of cherubim and seraphim,but we have to pass through thisarticulation of Rilkes sensibility. 5

The traditional public orders of meaning are nolonger viable, Taylor suggests. We have onlythe articulation of a modern author trying torecapture the traditional meaning. In Rilkescase, angels will never be known again throughphilosophy, science, or theology independentof the articulated human sensibility. Forexample, modern science no longer uses thegreat chain of being. Angels, therefore, are notpart of human sensibility. But almost as ifmirroring Rilkes gap from the divine,

Heschels sensibility offers the direct presenceof God in a world indifferent to God, one nolonger part of medieval metaphysics,

kabbalistic hierarchies, or a larger order. Ratherthan relying on traditional hierarchy, Heschelprovides a kabbalistic and Hasidic sensibility that ismediated through his poetic imagination.

Heschel eventually discovered the distractions and

joys of academic theology, and wrote hisdissertation on the experiential nature of prophecy.He laid important groundwork for his later workon revelation by using the phenomenologicalmethod of comparative religion of Geradeus Vande Leeuw, as taught by his advisor AlfredBertholet. In his dissertation (see below forcitations), Heschel argued that biblical prophecy,distinct from the experience of other seers andmystics, is non-ecstatic and gives an intuition of anethical doctrine.

Religion derives from Gods call to man.

Heschels defense of religion also made generoususe of the early neo-orthodox theology of KarlBarth, which openly rejects the liberalunderstanding of religion as serving man. Heschelreasoned instead that religion derives from Godscall to man. Religion reaches beyond theautonomous, rational, Kantian world of science to

acknowledge a revelatory truth. One can findvariants in Heschels writings of Barths early neo-orthodox statement that the Bible is Godsanthropology, and not mans theology.6

Yet for a poet to combine Barths submission tothe divine with the human realm of intuitiveexperiences of phenomenology and poetry createsan implicit tensionone that runs throughoutHeschels writing. Heschel remains in oscillationbetween neo-orthodoxy and comparative religion,between the other-worldly elements of the Torah

and the human poetic and experiential elements,between heaven and earth. Heschel seeks tocapture that tension, which lies at the core of

5Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity(Cambridge: Harvard, 1991), p. 84.6It is not the right human thoughts about God which form the content of the Bible, but the right divine thoughts about

men. Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man (Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie), trans. D. Horton, (New York:Harper & Row, 1957 [orig. pu. 1928]), p. 43. On the Barthian element in Heschels theory of revelation, see David Novak,Divine Revelation, in Modern Judaism; an Oxford Guide (2005), pp. 278-289; id., Briefly Noted- Heavenly Torah asRefracted through the Generations, First Things(November: 2005), p. 59.


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religion and his own soul.

The Torah of the Heart

The second newly translated work is HeavenlyTorah,a translation of Torah min ha-shamayim be-

aspaqlaria shel ha-dorot. Here we see Heschelsmost serious engagement with rabbinic texts ashe opens up new vistas in rabbinic theology.While most of his English writings have auniversal quality and present a philosophy ofreligion applicable to all faiths, Heavenly TorahisHeschels explanation of the heart of Judaism.7

This essay can only scratch the surface of thebooks content. It covers the following fivetopics: Judaism as aggadah; the bi-polar natureof rabbinic thought; the differences betweenrevelation and heavenly Torah; Heschels owndeflection of biblical criticism by downplayingthe role of the text; and the role of prophecy inthe ongoing community. I consider theimportance of the book for engaging in furthertheological work, but I cannot analyze hereHeschels views on God, mizvot, prayer, ethics,and symbolism, or consider the intersection ofhis life and thought.

Tucked away at the end of Heavenly Torah is a

passage in which Heschel offers a directanswer to all questions of revelation, prophecy,and biblical criticism. He suggests that:

You cannot grasp the matter of theTorah from Heaven unless you feelthe heaven in the Torah. All temporalquestions are in the context ofeternityBut whoever denies thewondrous has no share in this world;how much more so can such a person

have no dealing with heavenly matters. Ifthis event is like an everyday occurrence,given to accurate apprehension anddescription, then it is no prophecy. And ifthe prophetic encounter is sublime andawesome, without parallel in the world,then it is clear that no description will do itjustice, and silence becomes it. (668)

One needs to experience a feeling of the Torahfrom heaven.

Heschel argues that one needs to experience afeeling of the Torah from heaven: if one does not,one should not be teaching or studying thesematters. He declares passionately that Judaism isnot the rational non-experiential approach ofhistorians and talmudists. He remains the poeticHeschelself-identified with God, striving toopen his reader to the awe and wonder of theineffable in an age of indifference. He writes ofthe Torah that no description will do it justicesince it is a mystical entity beyond all proposition,an ineffable experience.

Heschel fits nicely with those early twentiethcentury thinkers who fostered the great age of

modern theological mysticism: William James,Dean W. R. Inge, Evelyn Underhill, and FriedrichHeiler. For them, all religion is experience and thedepth of the heart.8 These thinkers dismissphilology, history, or metaphysical schemes toreach the non-doctrinal core of religion. Heschelsimilarly seeks depth theology: The theme oftheology, he wrote, is the content of believing.The theme of depth theology is the act ofbelieving. Theology, he elaborated, is inbooks; depth theology is in hearts. The former is

7 It is unfortunate that Heschels book lacks an index of cited rabbinic passages to allow for cross-references. Also for a bookthat openly reads rabbinic thought through the eyes of later generations, there is no index of the myriad passages ofMaimonides, Zohar, Maharal, and Hasidism from which Heschel drew his interpretations. Both are serious omissions. Inaddition, the footnotes are not consistent in citation of editions, or quotes.

8For example, Moreover, when he introduces concepts drawn from medieval Christianity or from Eastern religions, he doesnot situate them in their communal, interpretative setting. Similarly, he does not present the basic concerns of the neo-scholastic authors whose views he tries to assess. Rowan Williams, The Prophetic and the Mystical: Heiler Revisited,New Blackfriars64 (1983): 330-347, esp. 333-334. Similar comments are found in Dana Greene, Evelyn Underhill: Artist of theInfinite Life(New York: Crossroad, 1990).

9 On the difficulty of working philosophically with Heschel, see Neil Gillman, Epistemological Tensions in HeschelsThought Conservative Judaism50,2-3 (1998): 67-76; Edward Kaplan, Heschel as Philosopher: Phenomenology and theRhetoric of Revelation,Modern Judaism21, 1 (Feb. 2001): 1-14.


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who proudly treated the rabbis of the Talmudas concerned only with legal details and minutephilological textual traditions. For Heschel,someone taking this position is unfit to decidematters of Judaism, even halakhah. Hescheldefends the direct experience of God overphilological scholarship and legalism.11 As hisopponents were one-sided about the halakhah,Heschel was one-sided about the aggadah.

Gershom Scholem portrayed rabbinic Judaismand medieval philosophy as devoid ofmysticism, crediting Kabbalah as the soleJewish source. Heschel disagreed, arguing thatmysticism is part of rabbinic Judaism,but thatreligious experience is its focus. (Rabbinicsages, in his view, are not simply halakhic

figures, scribes or communal leaders.) Heschelassumes a continuous tradition of aggadahthroughout all later generations: From thetime of Bahya ibn Paqudah until the time ofIsrael Baal Shem Tov, he suggests, all greatfigures were focused on the aggadah andcomplained about the deviant legal scholarswho ignored the aggadah, the heart of religiouslife and the core of all mitsvot. HeschelsJudaism became the continuous tradition thatincludes aggadah, medieval Neo-Platonism,Ashkenazi esotericism, Maimonides, Kabbalah,

Maharal, and Hasidism.

Maimonides supplies one of Heschels proofsfor the centrality of aggadah becauseMaimonides began his Mishneh Torah, withHilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah (Laws of theFundamental Principles of the Torah), anaggadic composition. In Heschelsunderstanding of Maimonides, ma`asehmerkavah (lit., the account of the chariot,referring to Ezekiels vision; Maimonidesassociated it with metaphysics) is equated withspirituality and not philosophy, for it deals withprinciples of religious faith. Furthermore, inthe Guide of the Perplexed (III:51), Maimonides

wrote explicitly that the only way to enter thekings inner courtyard (and approach God) isthrough knowledge of God, and Heavenly Torah10,17-20 is based on this passage in the Guide.Halakhic scholars do not know God and serveGod in a lower form than those who haveknowledge of God. This presentation ofMaimonides derives from Heschels teacher JuliusGuttman, who cast Maimonides as a neo-Platonist,as did Guttmans contemporary Zevi Diesendruck.Additionallyand more than germane to ourdiscussionHeschel wrote his classic interpretivebiography of Maimonides in the years immediatelyafter he wrote his Yiddish poems. This influentialwork presents Maimonides as an engaged, caring,and contemplative religious figurenot a coldrationalist, as he was depicted by the neo-

Kantianism of Hermann Cohen or theAristotelianism of Harry Wolfson.12

Scholars did their utmost to present the Talmud asrational; Heschel restores the experiential,

theosophic and irrational.

Beyond laying the groundwork for exploringMaimonidean thought, Heschel argued thatcreating a new aggadah for our age is done by

presenting what was stated in the past, evaluatingthe various positions, and finally asking how theyresonate with todays aggadic needs. The first partof the volume illustrates the questions that Heschelconsidered important: Is Torah composed ofordinary words or esoteric secrets? What are theroles of miracles, Temple service and sacrifice?What was revealed in Torah? How is Torah aproduct of revelation? What are the reasons for thecommandments, Gods indwelling, and theodicy? Iwill limit my comments to revelation.

Heschels unique and most important contributionto the study of aggadah was to reintroduce peopleto the rabbinic texts in their full strangeness,

11There are converse statements from R.Soloveitchik stating that we only accept aggadah from those scholars who weremasters of halakhah like R.Akiva.

12 Abraham Heschel, Maimonides: Eine Biographie (Berlin: E. Reiss, 1935). For his proximal influence, see Z.Diesendruck,Maimonides' Lehre von derProphetie,Jewish Studies in Memory of Israel Abrahams(1927). For his own theories, Did MaimonidesBelieve He Had Merited Prophecy? (Hebrew) Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy of JewishResearch,1945) 159-88.

13For a similar approach in the academic study of history, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonder,American Historical Review,


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otherness, and wondrousness.13 In thetranslators introduction to Heavenly Torah,Gordon Tucker points out that although thebook was not assigned to him during his owneducation, it was eye opening because itcaptured the sense of familiar, butunarticulated, far flung exegesis that is thebasis of rabbinic Judaism (xxi). Heschelretrieves the wondrousness of the rabbinictext. Whereas most scholars of rabbinicliterature did their utmost to present theTalmud as rational, ethical, and devoid ofmysticism, Heschel restores the experiential,theosophic, and irrational.14Most modern Jewsfirst learned of the wondrous and magicalTorah vision of black fire on white firedescribed in Midrash Konan, Nahmanides,

Hizquni, and Cordovero from the Hebrewedition of the book. Heschel does notdemythologize, nor avoid the wondrous by wayof abstraction or didacticism. 15 Thestrangeness does not bother him. On thecontrary, he finds that these texts hold thesecrets of rabbinic thought. Thoughacknowledging the critiques of the aggadahthatpoint to the strangeness of some aggadot,Heschel does not try to defend the aggadot byshowing that they are not strange or reinterpretthem in modern terms. Rather, he points out

comparable fantastic moments in halakhot,suchas the strange halakhotof elephants eating andexcreting children, and he notes that thesemoments are accepted as part of the rationalhalakhic world (21ff).

Heschel was not historical in his presentationand therefore he is hard to read as anintroduction to midrash given much of therecent scholarship.16He does not grapple withthe textuality of the rabbinic passages to

discover their worldview, myth, hermeneutics,intertextuality or actual positions. Nor does he useGreco-Roman history to determine the culturalworld of the texts. Instead, he gives us aphenomenological sensibility: the experientialapproach of rabbinic Judaism is sui-generis andwondrous.

R. Ishmael possesses delicacy, lucidity, andrationality; R. Akiva is a man of action who

possesses inner profundity

Two Opinions: Heaven and Earth

Heschel reworked R. David Zvi Hoffmans

distinction between R. Akiva and R. Ishmael into atypology of two broad, intuitive, axiological, andpersonality-based approaches that typify Judaismthroughout the ages.17 He portrays R. Ishmael aspossessing delicacy, intellectual reserve, clearthinking, sobriety, lucidity, and rationality. R.Akiva is described as being wondrous, a man ofaction intent upon reaching the people, as well aspossessing inner depths, profundity, and a desire toascend to the upper realms. This dichotomyreflects the thoughts of these two figures in therealms of spirituality, theodicy, daily life, and

religious experience.

R. Ishmael offers interpretations based on traditionand the hermeneutic principles and has a rationalethics. He seeks to fulfill the middle path of theright and the good. In contrast, Rabbi Akiva hasan expansive approach that encompasses infinitesof meaning and kabbalistic theosophy. He findsthe unmeasured extremes of both leniency andstringency in the law (56-61). R. Ishmael advocatesplain sense, humanistic reduction, and metaphor;

102, 1 (Feb., 1997): 1-17. She objects to the presentation of medieval history in a manner elevating contemporary concernsand modern rationality over the wondrous differences from today.

14E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951) accomplished this for the study ofclassical antiquity.

15 Compare the books written under the direction of Isadore Twersky, for whom the virtue was to show that medievalscholars could allegorize or downplay the aggadotto provide a rational world.

16 For examples (without any desire to slight by exclusion the many fine contemporary scholars of midrash), see DanielBoyarin, Marc Bregman, Gerald Bruns, Michael Fishbane, Steven Fraade, Yonah Frankel, Moshe Halbertal, JosephHeinemann, Marc Hirschman, Menachem Kahana, James Kugel, Joshua Levinson, David Stern, and Azzan Yadin.

17 David Tzvi Hoffman, The First Mishna and the Controversies of the Tannaim ; The Highest Court in the City of the Sanctuary (NewYork: 1977). For the current state of the field, see Menachem Kahana, Sifre Zuta on Deuteronomy: Citations from a New


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R. Akiva advocating the enjoyment ofthematic, freely interpretive, mystical truth.Consider their divergent conceptions of God.R. Akivas conception turned towards thepersonal God, the Holy One, blessed be Hewho participated in the pain of his creature;in contrast, R. Ishmael surrendered before aGod of judgment, mercy, and power (32-34).Regarding the relationship of heaven and earth(a relationship at the core of Heschels values),Heschel presents two chapters on thetypological attitudes toward the shekhinah(Gods presence). For R. Akiva, the shekhinahislocated spatially, in the west, in the Temple, asin Ezekiels vision. This approach, in turn,generated later kavodtheories and Kabbalah. R.Ishmael senses God everywhere in the

temporal world, as in Maimonidean cognitionor Hasidism. One notices the similarity toMoshe Idels categories of theosophic andecstatic.

Heschels book at its best when it presentsboth other-worldly asceticism and this-worldly

pragmatism.

How do we explain Heschels claims of

rabbinic ecstasy and theosophy in modernterms? Throughout the book, Heschel casts R.Akiva as his mystical starting point, probablybased on his own Hasidic background. Hethus makes much of the book his ownbildungsroman, in which he grapples with R.Ishmael as a defender of poetic experience,rational cognition, and confronting the needsof the hour. Many think that Heschel alwaysfavors one side or the other; in fact, in eachchapter he seems to seek an approach thatworks today. In one chapter, he favors R.

Ishmaels defense of sacred time, but in the nextchapter he leans toward R. Akiva, who identifiesGod and Israel as one.18Though the two men andtwo schools of thought seem at odds with eachother, Heschel ultimately affirms both.

Heschels view that we live between heaven andearth prompts us to ask whether normal life existsin Judaism. R. Akiva accepts mortification andliving for the other world, suggesting a negativeanswer. For R. Ishmael, the answer is certainly yes,because you shall live by them. Most modernrabbis would choose R. Ishmael and deny therelevance of R. Akiva; or, at the very least, wouldrelegate this debate to the past. Here we seeHeschels book at its best when it presents bothsides of the rabbinic positionboth other-worldlyasceticism and this-worldly pragmatism. ForHeschel, to understand the intellectual movementsof recent times, you must inquire into the chain oftradition that precedes them.

Heschel presents a rabbinic tension betweentranscendence and immanence (Chapter 14). Thetranscendental includes anything esoteric ormystical; it encompasses philosopher and kabbalistalike (who appear on oppose sides in Chapter 13)and anyone who speaks of higher realms, orhidden knowledge. Immanence includes theexoteric, this-worldly, terrestrial, or merelysymbolic.19 For Heschel, the transcendentalapproach treats Torah as an exact copy of a divineprototype. In the earthly approach, God gave theTorah to humans through Moses.

Another important category of rabbinic thought isman in the image of God, which mediatesbetween heaven and earth. According to R. Akiva,The person is a reflection of the supernalrealmThe human image below corresponds tothe divine image above; terrestrial man resembles

heavenly man. Meanwhile for R. Ishmael who

Tannaitic Midrash. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002); Azzan Yadin, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash,(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). When Heschels book was first printed it received reviews thatcriticized the specifics of his dichotomy of Rabbis Akiva and Ishmael in given texts. For example, see David Shapiro, NewView on the Opinions of R.Ishmael and R.Akiva (Hebrew) Orahim (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1977), pp. 241-260who in his review called Heschel a faithful architect of a grand building, but that some of the rooms still needed fixing.

18To use Idels terms, Heschel offers a cross between theurgy and ecstasy, in that Heschel accepts the ecstatic and thetheurgic while rejecting the theosophic and the magical.

19Heavenly Torah261, n. 5; the translators use the terms immanence and transcendence to correspond to Heschels twoapproaches, not in their original philosophic meaning.

20Although the mythic nature of the image of God in rabbinic thought has only recently been emphasized in the work of


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stresses the importance of earthly life, eachperson is unique and individual.20Heschels portrayal of R. Ishmael mixesMaimonidean naturalism, Hasidic panentheism,the poetry of Rilke, the anarchism of Tolstoy,with the need to respond to call of themoment. It does not include the rationalimmanence of the scientific, the pragmatic, andthe functional. R. Akivaa portrait mixesZohar, Nahmanides, Maharal, Karl Barth, andthe comparative study of religion, but nothalakhic process, synagogue life, or homiletics(derash). Heschels categories do not all line up;his two poles are floating.

Prophecy or Apocalypse

Heschels most important poles of revelationare prophecy and apocalypticismtwounequal, if not opposite, concepts. MedievalJewish thinkers define prophecy as a natural orpreternatural ability to experience God.Revelation, on the other hand, is a modernquestion about the possibility of receivingGods word even though modern philosophyand science preclude the possibility. Medievalprophecy explains techniques of gaining divineknowledge, while the modern problem ofrevelation needs to justify how one can still

speak of a non-empirical reality. Since modernthought has generally rejected revelation,Heschel answers the modern problem ofrevelation by triangulating medieval prophecythrough his sensibility of directly experiencinga divine-human encounter.

For Heschel, prophecy describes afundamental phenomenological orientation tothe divine as a form of sympathy with God. Inhis view, the prophetic sensibility equalsrevelation, and revelation therefore has three

options in the modern world: a return to a

medieval sensibility, a comparative religioncategory of paranormal consciousness, or a directexperience of a God-infused mystical and poeticlife. (For a fourth option of reading Heschel as amodern existential presence, see the discussion ofNeil Gillman below.) It is important to note that,in Heschel, the subtleties of the relations betweenthe three options are not fully worked out. Hescheloscillates between R. Ishmaels rejection ofmetaphysics and R. Akivas acceptance of amystical heavenly Torah before returning to theexperiential approach. Yet Heschels waveringtheological reflections on revelation and prophecyhave not been superseded by any new theologicalreflectiondespite many who take issue with hisviews. This suggests that contemporary Jews haveavoided theological reflection for the attraction

and safety of historicism.

Heschels wavering reflections on revelation andprophecy have not been superseded.

Heschels doctoral advisor Alfred Bertholet (1868-1951) and his student Johannes Lindblomdistinguished between three experiences: ecstasy,ethical prophecy of concentration, and theapocalyptic. The first was the common ancientEastern type of unio mystica, quite alien to Israel.

Here the mystic is absorbed into a union with thedeity. For this school of the history of religions,the ecstatic element in classical prophecy, if itexists at all, is confined to the prophets profoundconcentration. By contrast, in ethical prophesy oneencounters God through ethical petition anddemands.21

Heschel writes that there are two realms: theprophetic and the apocalyptic. He notes that thetheology of R. Akiva has two basic apocalypticconcepts: the ascent of Moses to heaven and theexistence of the Torah in heaven in the form of a

Moshe Idel, Yehudah Liebes, and Yair Lorberbaum, Heschel took these dichotomies as a given decades ago. YehudahLiebes, Myth and Orthodoxy: a reply to Shalom Rosenberg Jewish Studies38 (1998) 181-185 Yair Lorberbaum, Imago Deiin Classical Judaism Law and Philosophy (forthcoming 2007), Lorberbaum gives full citations to Idel.

21 See the acknowledgements in the preface to Abraham Heschel, Die Prophetie (Krakow, Nakadem Polskiej AkademjiUmiejtnoci, 1936); Alfred Bertholet , A History of Hebrew Civilization 1926, reprinted Eugene OR: Wipf and StockPublishers, 1994). While this review treats Heschels categories as those of phenomenology of religion, Jon Levensoncriticizes Heschels influence from the categories of Protestant theology. Jon D. Levenson, The Contradictions of A.J.Heschel Commentary106,1 (Jan. 1998): 34-38.


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Meorot6:1 / Shevat5767 Brill

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and response.26Torah from Heaven: Prototype and Will

The original second volume begins, Twoexpressions are used in the Mishnah withrespect to the TorahMoses received Torah

from Sinai and Torah from Heaven (321).Heschel explains these two expressions as twoseparate models of revelation: Torah fromSinai and Torah from Heaven, associatingthe former with R.Ishmael and the latter withR. Akiva. R. Akivas Torah from Heavenmeans that the Torah did not begin at Sinai.Indeed it pre-existed Sinai as a primordialTorah. Hence an apocalyptic Kabbalah and anunderstanding of the divine will can yield aknowledge of this primordial pre-Sinai Torah,

one perhaps more important than the SinaiTorah itself. The heavenly Torah antedates theworld, yet it is ever expanding. Heschelsituates the texts other-worldly importancewhen he observes R. Akiva believed thatbefore the Sinaitic revelation, the Torah existedin heaven as a unitary document the originalTorah is even now in heaven (264). Sinaifades away in importance because the heavenlyTorah takes precedence over the earthly SinaiTorah. As Heschel argues:

The notion of a Torah literally existingin heaven may seem at first like astrange growth, the chaff and straw ofour religious imagination. But onreflection it is simply a particularconsequence of a whole systematic wayof looking at the relationship of thesupernal and terrestrial realms Thesupernal realm contains the secret andorigin of everything terrestrial. (265)

Even as he acknowledges that a heavenly

Torah seems non-rational and a figment of theimagination, Heschel asserts the basis of Torahis the existence of a supernal archetypal Torah

greater then any earthly Torah.After a strong defense of this position, Heschelturns around and makes Torah from Heavenproblematic by asking this question. Does Torahfrom Heaven mean that the letters were in asupernal realm or heaven, or is it just a way ofreferring to the divine will? If the latter, andTorah is not actually in heaven in a physical way,then the divine will is available to all who listen. Heexplains that the primordial Torah is notsomething theosophic or esoteric, and does it givea fixed moral order for the universe. Heschelreveals his own experiential position of grantingaccess to the primordial Torah in our own hearts,and chooses this as the title for the entire book.The philosophy of R. Akiva has become asensibility of the heart.

The philosophy of R. Akiva has become asensibility of the heart.

In one of the most memorable and innovativeparts of the book, Heschel presents rabbinic textsthat depict the Torah having visual elements.27 Avisual Torah further destabilizes any notion of afixed textual Torah. R. Akivas visionary Torah iscontinued in the Middle Ages: Sa`adyah and Ibn

Ezra accepted a pre-existing logos, and Maimonidesconsidered the divine glory as an apprehension ofthe divine. Moreover, early esoteric traditions aspreserved in Midrash Konan; Nahmanides andHizquni, saw the primordial Torah as black fire onwhite fire (336-7).28 By presenting the medievalpositions (unavailable until the recent research ofIdel), Heschel makes the modern questions fadeaway. If one conceives of the Torah as a heavenlyfire and our earthly Torah as a pale reflection, thenall questionsof authorship, history, canon, andcontentvanish before the bright light of thissupernal radiance.

Nahmanides was one of the prime sources for a

individuality. Compare the entire second book of the Star of Redemption on revelation. For a basic presentation, seeStphane Moss, System and Revelation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, trans. Catherine Tihanyi (1982; Wayne State UP,1992).

27Cf. Daniel Boyarin, The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic, Critical Inquiry16 (1990): 532-50;Marc Bregman, Aqedah: Midrash as VisualizationJournal of Textual Reasoning2,1 (2003).

28Albo mentions but finds this approach of black fire on white fire lacking, based on the inability to have clear directives forreward and punishment.


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to prophecy, or the revelation at Sinai,and it is a denial of the latter for whichone forfeits eternity. However, onecannot establish fixed rules about theuse of the definitive article by theRabbis in relation to the word Torah(373).

In other words, Heschel asks whetherrevelation is a book, a prophecy, or Sinai.Curiously, since we cannot pin down thedefinite article, there is no delimitativemeaning.

The tradition is a continuous plurality ofpositionsever open, ever individualized.

In this absence of definitive statement, thereader is left to conclude only that Heschelwould accept wide latitude in theinterpretations of revelation, as long as it isaffirmed that the Bible is Gods will or aproduct of a divine human encounter. Hescheldoes not use his aforementioned detailedpresentations of Maimonides, Nahmanides,Zohar, and Maharal to pin down his definitionor to create parameters. He suggests, forexample, that due to the multiplicity of ways to

explain rabbinic texts, all interpretations arevalid. Moreover, at certain places Heschelseems to affirm creative openness and at otherplaces wants a sense of the wondroustranscending our finite categories. Heschelquotes R. Akiva on a heavenly text of Torah,then oscillates to R. Ishmaels rationalism of acomplete earthly text, and finally uses R.Akivas position to reject R. Ishmaels doctrinalconcern with textuality. He finds problemswith both positions. Hence, we are left free tohave a more open approach to canon. Thetradition is a continuous plurality ofpositionsever open, ever individualized.

As part of his analysis of R. Ishmael, Heschelcites Sanhedrin99a, the talmudic discussion thatdefines as heretics those who deny Torah isfrom Heaven. By now the reader should knowthat any fixed list or doctrine would bother

Heschel. Heschel notes that the Talmud on thatpage contains three beraitot.The first defines Torahas instruction and limits the status of heretic to onewho denies instruction from heaven, allowing abroad concept of revelation. The second beraita,from R. Akiva, requires accepting the text with alldistinctions, deductions, or analogy. The thirdberaita, of R. Ishmael, calls the denial of revelationa form of idolatry, teaching that the revelation ofTorah is intrinsically connected to the correctbelief in God. Heschel obviously prefers theopinions of the first and third beraitot. He adds thatthere are many other statements in the Sifre andSifre Zuta on the topic,but does not work out theirimplications.

Addressing the troublesome second opinion,

Heschel points out that Maimonides formulationof the Torah from heaven as including every wordin fact originates with Hillel. But Heschel surpriseshis reader, claiming that because this position isperfectionism the people cannot accept it. Heschelfeels compelled to give them other options andcites Abbayes belief that not everyone is righteousand it is better to sin out of ignorance than malice.Heschel gives a go and see (puq hazi) of belief.This thinking is neither halakhic nor theological; herecognizes it is not an intellectual critique orresponse and in effect is saying, let us not present

texts that contradict the views people are led to bytheir doubts. The go and see works because heaccepts the false dichotomy between the extremesof plenary verbal inspiration and heavenly divinewill. Heschels own interpretation of Maimonidesposition of the Guide is absent from hispresentation.

Whoever takes principles of the faith at face valuedistorts their true meaning.

Heschel seems reluctant to present theologicalpoints that the generation cannot handle, and helater justifies this by claiming that whoever takesprinciples of the faith at face value distorts theirtrue meaning The entire history of Jewishthought contains a process of fusing together twoextremes (712). Unlike those writers who argue


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that theological thinking has only one meaning,Heschel advocates an open-ended experience.

In the next chapter, Heschel suggests thatsome of the sages of the Talmud andMaimonides gave a plenary and verbal

presentation of Torah as a polemic againstsectarians. Heschel points out that, in theformer case, the ancient Greeks thought thatMoses made up the Torah, and, in the lattercase, Maimonides stood against Moslems whodenied the text of our Torah. These were nottheir actual beliefs, Heschel argues; thesediverse writers, he claims, only stated them forpolemical reasons (Chapter 21).

Heschel offers the reader four models of

approaching the divine and human status ofrevelation. In each case he defines the natureof revelation by blurring the lines. Hescheltreats revelation as if biblical prophecy werestill alive and as if personal directives had thestatus of prophecy. (Heschel is unlike EliezerBerkovits, who claimed that Torah is not inheaven in order to stress the human element.)Heschel argues that inner revelations have thesame divine status as the revelations at Sinai.

In the first case Heschel conflates personal

initiative and divine revelation (440). Heexplains that Moses ascended the mountain onhis own authority and consequently there is ahuman element in Sinaitic revelation. For mosttheologians, a persons action in response toGod is just that, a response, but Heschel takesresponse to God as revelation. Revelation thusbecomes any action in response to God.

Heschels second approach blurs the lines byshowing that there were levels of revelation,some fallible. He argues that since prophecy

was still alive in the time of the medieval sagesand since the beit din possessed propheticpowers, it must still be found among ordinarypeople. Prophecy is not infallible since no one

considers medieval prophecy to be infallible.

Heschels third approach quotes R. Zadok Ha-Kohen of Lublin to prove that there were threelevels of revelation even in the time of Moses: (1)the Torah at Sinai, corresponding to Torah; (2) the

repetition in the Tent of Meeting, similar to theprophets found in most of the rest of the first fourbooks; (3) the steppes of Moab, where the OralLaw was given. These three levels correspond toMoses receiving through Gods own mouth, theholy spirit (ruahha-qodesh), and the start of the OralLaw at the steppes of Moab.32

Heschels fourth approach conflates the issues ofSinai and today by equating Oral Law withrevelation. Since the Oral Law is a continuation of

Sinai, revelation is not a one-time event, Heschelreasons. In a chapter called The Problems of theMaximalist Position, Heschel points to examplesof defining Torah as including anything said in thefuture as part of revelation, and if the possibility ofnew insights in Torah is accepted, then not all isfrom God. Heschel thus treats interpretivecreativity the same as revelation. Maimonides statesthat if there is debate (mahloqet), then there is notradition from Sinai. Heschel does not have anyunderstanding of innovations within tradition; forhim, if there are Torah innovations that we know

human made, then Torah is a human creation.

Eastern Europe produced a variety of approachesof progressive revelation, infinite Torah, and Torahthrough mystic understanding. Heschel usesHasidic homilies about hearing the voice of Sinaiin daily life as if they are literal, and he uses Hasidichomilies claiming the ahistoric nature of Judaismto show that Sinai continues today. Just as thereis an Oral Torah, so is there a Torah seated in thesoul everyone adds to it, according to whatheaven displays to them. (587) Heschel does not

explain his relationship to Hasidic individuality.His later works on Hasidism, such as Passion forTruth, completed his thoughts on Hasidicindividuality.33

32Heavenly Torah475-6; R. Zadok Hakohen, Pri Zaddik behar93-4.33Aryeh Cohen, in his review of Heavenly Torahin Conservative Judaism 58:1, (Fall 2005) speculates that Heschels work on the

typology of the Ba`al Shem Tov and Menahem Mendel of Kotzk might have been the follow up third volume, as would hisarticles on Maimonides and prophecy. This seems highly likely.


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No Text

Heschel avoids addressing Bible criticism bymaking the biblical text pale in importance.The heart and prophecy are what count. Inaccepting divine will as any form of

communication with man, Heschel allows thequestion of Biblical criticism to fall away.Either the divine will antedates the biblical textor it is created in response to the moment. Hefollows this chain of reasoning:

The essence of our faith in the sanctityof the Bible is that its words containthat which God wants us to know andto fulfill. How these words werewritten down is not the fundamental

problem. This is why the theme ofBiblical criticism is not the theme offaith, just as the question of whetherthe lightning and thunder at Sinai werea natural phenomenon or not isirrelevant to our faith in revelation(258).

In many ways, Heschel has framed hisargument so he cannot be pinned down. TheTorah from heaven is not now in heaven. Tothe extent that the Torah was from heaven

then, now we have a fallen human version.And if Torah was given at Sinai, we are stillcalled by God now in the contemporary world.

When Bible critics treat the text as human,they rob it of the prophetic message.

I disagree with Heschels consciouslyambiguous treatment of any statement aboutrevelation, yet the sources and issues he

presents raises are important. Heschel sees norelevance in the philological literal meaning (peshat),nor does he think that the meaning of the textthrough the generations is only human homiletics(derash).34 He reawakens the divine call in themodern era; but when Bible critics treat the text ashuman, they rob it of the prophetic message. Inthe end, people who do not experience God in theheart cannot understand the message.

Though not a historian, Heschel was correct tonote that the Bibles own statement leads to adoctrine that it was composed of earlier works.Even the Pentateuch cites earlier works, sefer ha-yasharand sefer milhamot A-donai, and implies Mosesmay have written the Pentateuch slowly over manyyears.35 Moreover, Heschel shows that prior

commentators accepted lower criticism. Forexample, Heschel cites the sources stating thatJoshua added the last eight verses of the Torah.Yet he also cites Don Isaac Abarbanel for thepremise that because God told Moses to writethese verses about the future, it is as if GodHimself wrote it. And yet, in addition to citingtextual concerns Heschel gives a mysticalexplanation. He cites Hayyim Vital, arguing that Itis actually not so farfetched that Moses wrote [thelast eight verses] in tears, for he saw that his aurawas departing, so that he was like someone who

was not there (615). Despite Heschels previouslytextual position, he is not winking at this point.Hayyim Vitals mysticism resonates with him.

We should thank Heschel for collecting much ofthis material and demonstrating midrash, medievalthinkers, and Hasidic texts trembled before theawesomeness of revelation while they had fluidconcepts of the text. Beginning withIntroduction to Bible classes offered by S. D.Luzzatto in the nineteenth century, there has been

34On Heschels use of historical materials without any historicism or philological concern, see Jon D. Levenson, ReligiousAffirmation and Historical Criticism in Heschels Biblical InterpretationAJS Review25,1 (2000-2001): 25-44.

35On these topics, good starting points for developing a rabbinic perspective on the editing of the Bible are the following:Menahem Mendel Kasher, Torah Shelemah(Jerusalem: Machon Torah Shelemah) vol. 8 addenda ch. 17; Vol. 19, addenda 33;comments on Num 33:2; Sid Z. Leiman, The Inverted Nuns at Numbers 10:35-36 and the Books of Eldad and MedadJBL 93 (1974): p. 348-355; Baruch A. Levine, Critical Note: More on the Inverted Nuns of Num 10:35 JBL 95(1976):.122-124; Yehudah Kil, Bereshit, in Daat Mikra series (Jerusalem: 2003 ) ; M. Breuer, Pirqei Bereishit(Alon Shevut,1999).

36 On Rashbam, see Elazar Touitou, Concerning the Methodology of R. Samuel b. Meir in His Commentary on thePentateuch, Tarbiz 48 (1979): 254-64 (Hebrew). According to Touitou, Rashbam distinguishes between the legal andnarrative portions of the Torah: the legal portions are the word of God himself while the narrative portions (and all of


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an approach to understanding the Torah thatmines these classical commentaries forstatements that would allow one to acceptrevelation and still use lower criticism. Thestatements of Rashbam36, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Caspi,Judah Ha-Hasid37, and Abravenel become theneedles through which the huge camels of thephilological and historical enterprises of thelast two centuries are threaded in the quest fora historical reading (peshat). In contrast to thispeshat tradition, Heschel does not use thesesources for confinement to earthly text. Heuses them instead to ask important theologicalquestions about prophecy and Gods word:How does the prophet use his own personalityin the process of hearing Gods word? Can theword transcend the text? How does the circle

of prophets create something greater than theindividual? Heschel collects enough materialto start a discussion on the theologies ofrevelation.38

His question was how to awaken modern Jewsto transcend the limited definitions of

revelation.

In sharp contrast to Heschels mystical and

transcendentalist understanding of revelationand Torah, Louis Jacobs saw the text as apredominately human product, with humanauthorship, based on a specific historical era,confined to a faulty process, and having theprimitive morality of its era. Jacobss

theological question was, Can moderns still acceptrevelation? In contrast to Jacobss watery readingof revelation, Heschels goal was to show theincredible plurality of aggadah, in the broad sense;on revelation specifically, his question was how toawaken modern Jews to transcend the limited,dogmatic, and finite definitions of that revelation.39

It is important to note that Heschels quest to seekthe experience behind the text was not original tohim, since he would have been familiar with theformulations and definitions of revelation in thefield of history of religions, especially those usedbetween 1890 and 1933, when he received hisdoctorate after writing his dissertation onprophecy. Heschel would have known MatthewArnolds statement, seminal for the study of

comparative religion, that all literature is tentativeand Biblical literature is no exception. 40 ForArnold, to understand that the language of theBible is fluid, passing, and literary, not rigid, fixed,and scientific, is the first step towards a rightunderstanding of the Bible. In T.S. Eliotsexplanation, Arnold sought to dodge the questionof having to mediate between the naturalism ofT.H. Huxley and the doctrinal position of JohnHenry Newman. Primarily a poet and literary critichimself, Arnold argued for a more poeticunderstanding of religious dogmas, scriptures, and

the existence of God.41

Hans Kippenberg explained that in the firstdecades of the twentieth century, the study ofreligion was motivated by the quest to overcomethe materialistic bourgeois exclusion of God from

Deuteronomy) were written by Moses. Heschel would allow for the start of the theological discussion of how Gods willunfolds within the texts.

37Israel Ta-Shma On Biblical Criticism in Medieval Ashkenaz," Kenesset MehkarimI, pp. 273-282.38 Marc B. Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Oxford: Littman Library of

Jewish Civilization, 2004) is a historical analysis of the doctrinal position. However, for an excellent example of atheological analysis of the doctrinal position, see William J. Abraham, The Divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture (New York:Oxford Univ. Press, 1981). The theological meanings of many basic concepts in rabbinic and medieval texts have not beenanalyzed, including prophets using their own personal style (signon), the medieval understanding that the language of theTorah is based on human accommodation (dibrah torah bi-leshon benai adam) or the difference between holy spirit (ruah ha-qodesh) and prophecy.

39For Louis Jacobss views, see his We Have Reason to Believe(London, Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1957); Principles of the JewishFaith(London, Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1964). The latter is his post controversy defense.

40Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma(1883) p. 31; preface. Heschel clearly followed this approach, especially in his extremestatement that the entire Bible is not biblical.

41Variants of this poetic approach are cited in works known by Heschel: Reville, E.B.Tylor, Soderblum, and van der Leeuw,see Hans G. Kippenberg, Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age. trans. Barbara Harshav (Princeton: Princeton Univ.Press. 2002)passim.Even R.S. R. Hirsch at many points avoids the text and states Jews are the living parchment of the


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modern life and seek a return to religiousgenius, by a sense of the numinous, ananimistic mana, the sacred, the propheticrevelation, and the direct encounteri.e.anything beyond contemporary materialism.During this time, even the contemporaryChurch religion was considered morematerialistic and self-serving than a means toconnect with the divine. Scholars of the periodsought in the comparative method access tothe importance of revelation and prophecy thatwere part of every religion, but have been lostto the bourgeois. And these scholars used avast variety of Romantic theories connectingprophecy and genius to explain thephenomena,42sometimes combined with morerecent theories of vitalism by James or

Bergson. Heschel romantically identifies allexperiences as prophetic: Bible, Heikhalot,Maimonides, veridical dreams, Hasidism,Existentialism, art, and music. Associatingtwentieth-century creativity with prophecy,Heschel writes that Prophecy is the productof the poetic imagination. The flash ofprophetic or poetic inspiration is a part ofGod's perpetual revelation.43

Heschel seeks the highest religious experience

centering on the ethical prophet.

By the 1920s and 1930s, after collecting dataon oracles, meditation, and shamanism, thesescholars considered the category of revelatoryreligion to be the exclusive domain of theSemites. The higher form of Semitic revelationwas the ethical prophet of the Hebrews.44Heschel, therefore, does not seek just anyreligious experience, but the highest religiousexperience centering on the ethical prophet.

He rejects descriptions of religious experiencethat lack an ethical component, such asRudolph Ottos concept of the numinous or

Eliades symbolic approach. For comparativereligions scholars like Van de Leeuw, allexperience is revelatory; the very experience needsto oppose the materialism of modern life. Heschelcritiques Otto, considering the numinousrevelatory experience itself to be ethical. Itnecessarily transforms culture as it moves life frommaterialism to God-centeredness.

Halakhah

For Heschel, the halakhic process and the OralLaw from Moses become continuations of Sinai ina literal way, and are treated as a series of newrevelations. Heschel considers anything notexplicitly defined from Sinai as a change, not aprocess; therefore the various moments of the

giving of the Torahfirst the well of Marah, thenSinai, and finally the Tent of Meetingare eachseparate revelations within the continuousrevelations of the halakhic process. According toHeschel, there is only continuous cognition. Inthese rabbinical responses, there is no historicalchange or driving force to history, only God-intoxicated rabbis responding to their own times.

After the destruction of the Temple, prophecy wastaken from prophets and given to the sages. Likemany other twentieth-century Jewish thinkers,

Heschel finds importance in the story of the ovenof Akhnai, the talmudic debate that ends with aheavenly voice proclaiming that Torah is not inheaven. For Heschel, this text teaches the role ofhuman initiative in performing of Gods will.Heschel concludes that this text crystallized theidea that the Torah flows from two sources: thewellsprings of prophecy and the wellsprings ofhuman wisdom.

Heschel actually defends the idea that the humaninitiative of the sage should be seen as Gods

guiding hand. As a result, he suggests that theirpersonal opinions can transcend the text. WhileHeschel presents the sources for da`at Torah

Torah- not the text studied by scholars.42Albert Reville Prolegomenes de l'histoire des religions(1881, 4th ed., 1886; Eng. trans., 1884) and cited by Evelyn Underhill and

others43Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets(New York: Harper and Row, 1962), Vol. II, 148; 146.44Kippenberg, Discovering Religious History, pp 183-4. This list of those who defined the prophets as ethical included Nathan

Soderblom and Van de Leeuw, both read by Heschel for his doctorate.


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because he sees rabbinic authority as individualand expressionistic, he does not draw thepolitical implications of this idea (Chapter 27).He entirely ignores the hierarchic, political, andcoercive structures in his discussion oftalmudic law or of halakhah as duty, as GordonTucker notes with respect to Heschelsselective use of David Zvi Hoffman.45Heschels position functions as hyperboleagainst presentations of the Sages as rationaland juridical, but at times he sounds like he isadvocating the acceptance of the Harediposition of daat Torah, which he is not.

Heschel lacks the elements of politicalauthority, obedience and divine command.

As I stated earlier, Maharal exerted animportant influence on Heschel, e.g., Heschelaccepted Maharals idea that rabbinic Torah isgreater than the written Torah. Heschel furtheraccepts that Torah intellect is greater than logicand sense data and that the sage is greater thanthe prophet (hakham adif mi-navi).Consequently, Torah is not located in texts butin rabbis (666). Yet because everyone is arabbi-mystic, Heschels understanding lacks theelements of political authority, obedience and

divine command. Heschel identifies looking atwhat the people do (puk hazi) as the basic firstinstinct of the halakhic process. He quotes R.Hai Gaon, claiming that consensus (ijma) isgreater than logic of the text (kiyas)(662).46

Heschel surprisingly turns see what people dointo a form of revelation by trusting the collectivesconnection to God.47 There are few halakhicfigures that share this premise: One has to go backto the geonim to find it. In many ways, Heschelshould have said that the first premise of aggadicman is to decide a practical matter after he sees thesituation.

Heschel correctly notes rational Maimonideaninfluence on Hatam Sofers rejection of apocalypticKabbalah when the latter claimed that Moses andElijah never ascended, only their souls did (335 ).48Heschel, however, misses the 1840s culturalpolemics against Reform by treating Hatam Soferasa model of rationalism. As a graduate of BerlinsHochschule Reform seminary, Heschel certainly did

not accept Hatam Sofers banishment of the Reformmovement, nor his ban on secular studies, westerndress, and middle-class practices. Hatam Sofer wassocially conservative, but Heschel has made himthe liberal exemplar for a dynamic vision of Torahbased on personal inspiration and attaining aheavenly Torah above the text. In contrast, inHeschels hands R. Samson Rafael Hirschs culturalintegration becomes a reactionary fixing of theTorah into text, doctrine, and static revelation. Thespontaneous, intuitional, ex-cathedrapronouncements of Hatam Soferand Hasidism take

precedent over the rational textuality of both neo-orthodoxy and positive historical Judaism.

On the principle of halakhic fluidity and multipleopinions (elu ve elu), Heschel returns once again to

45David Tzvi Hoffmann, The Highest Court(New York: 1977).46On this responsum and its implications, see Tsvi Groner, The Legal Methodology of Hai Gaon, Brown Judaic Studies (Decatur,

GA, 1985). Moses Zucker, The Problem of IsmaProphetic Immunity to Sin and Error in Islamic and JewishLiteratures (Hebrew), Tarbiz 35 (1966): 14973 It is interesting to note that Tucker adds a telling footnote stating thatgeonim could have been in agreement with Mordecai Kaplan in locating Judaism in practice, but then he reminds us thegeonim were favoring the community not because of the historical process but because they believed that the divine will

rested on the community, p. 662. For a opposing model in which there is a need to rely on logic (kiyas) based onMaimonides, and not the Geonic ijma,see Jose Faur, Iyunim be-mishneh torah le-ha-Rambam(Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook,1978).

47Heschels go and see should be compared to Robert Gordiss formulations; see Robert Gordis,Judaism for the Modern Age(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1955). And see the questioning of this ignoring of precedent in order to see whatthe people are doing by his grandson Daniel H. Gordis. Precedent, Rules and Ethics in Halakhic Jurisprudence,Conservative Judaism46,1 (1993): 80-94.

48 Responsa Hatam SoferVI:98 Jacob Katz, Towards a Biography of the Hatam Sofer From East and West(1990) 223-266paints a picture of R. Moshe Sofer as a stringent charismatic, while Moshe Samet in his recently published work points outa number of the lenient rulings of the Hatam Soferand claims that his halakhic methodology is more complex than manyhave thought. Hadash Asur Min Ha-Torah: Perqaim be-toledot ha-Orotodoqsiyah(Jerusalem, Merkaz Dinur 2005), pp. 306-309,317-318.


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Hatam Sofer, who taught that there is nocertainty in halakhah, for even a halakhicruling that appears to us to be firm and correctmay not be so according to ultimate truth(706). For Hatam Sofer, the Torah is above anytext; aggadic statements such as noinnovations in the Torah (hadash asur min ha-torah) are valued over halakhic reasoning.Heschel uses this fluidity to prove the need tolook toward the ultimately inaccessible divineTorah rather than knowing Torah only bymeans of juridical decisions.

The approach of a heavenly, supernatural non-textual Torah comes naturally to him.

Heschel claims that the approach of aheavenly, supernatural non-textual Torahcomes naturally to him; R. Akiva was hismothers milk (xxv). He understands thehalakhah through Moshe Cordovero, Maharal,Rama of Fano, Hasidism, and Hatam Sofer.49He is a Galician hasid gone bad, with atension between his personal past and hiscurrent modernist experience. In thisjuxtaposition of histories and beliefs, HatamSofermeets the modernists Rainer Maria Rilke,Max Scheler, and William James. Heschels

pluralism is more experiential than liberal,more poetic than intellectual.

Heschel does write that that todays halakhahneeds to be more like the ideas of R. Ishmaelin accepting ad hoc leniencies. He argues thatAll paths should be presumed to carrydanger (718) and one cannot be safe andobservant, but one needs to light lamps for themultitude. Heschel cites R. Simhah Bunim onthe need for intentional sin; he also cites casesof personal illumination and messianic

intentions, and accepts the idea that there willbe new messianic readings of the Torah inwhich the pig will be kosher. The very texts ahalakhic thinker tells you to ignore, Heschel

makes pillars of his thought (Chapter 35). Hisreadings are not those of New York, but rathermore like those of the Polish schools of Kotzk,Izbica, and R. Zadok Ha-Kohen.

In presenting the rabbinic perspective, Heschelaccepts the doctrines of R. Zadok ha-Kohen ofLublin (1823-1900) by name. R. Zadok accepts afluid Torah of the heart over the Torah of thetexts. Throughout Heavenly Torah, Heschelfollowsthe thought of R. Zadok, where there is an identityof experience and prophecy that create differentlevels, as well as a blurred line between the humanmind with Gods revelation. R. Zadok wrote, TheSefer Torah written in ink on parchment is only forthis world that hides and conceals the true light ofthe future age. As it is written, on the tablet of

their hearts I will write it.50Yet Heschel lives bythis Torah of the heart, while the Hasidic mystic R.Zadok strongly cautions that the infinite Torah ofthe heart is not for this world. For R. Zadok, R.Meir typifies this Torah of the heart, which cannotexist in the world: R. Meircomprehended theinner lightNo one could reach the limit of R.Meir's infinite knowledge. In contrast, R.Akiva isthe teacher for this world who uses the halakhicprocess. All things in the physical world arelimited; therefore the physical halakhah is forced todecide against R. Meir's infinite approach. [The

infinite Torah] can only lead to quarreling becauseit is not subject to the give and take of the halakhicprocess.51

Unlike R. Zadok, Heschel describes a directreading of rabbinic texts, including halakhah, basedon the immense openness of the aggadah as asystem of polarities, tension, and oscillation. Henever asks how to resolve indeterminacy or reach alegal decision. Heschel believes rabbinic texts areforever open and individualistic, and that the

Talmud cited contradictory statements withoutseeking a resolution, as if Tosafot, Maimonides, andthe Shulhan Arukh had not already decided toaccept only one of the statements.52


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Heschel considers the approach of mosthalakhic sages who treat the halakhah asdefining Judaism to be provincial. He claimsthat:

Most Sages have made the Halakhahprimary and life secondary to it. As forone who says that a certain decree oranother cannot be lived with, theycoerce him until he says I am willing.[They say] The halakhahwas not givento be marked up and evaluated. It isabsolutely unique. All is contained in it,including its own foundations andboundaries. It is above critiqueIobject to the provinciality of thought,and to the construction of mind in allof this. (717-718.)

R. Soloveitchik and his followers wouldconsider this concept to be simply wrongseven sacrilege.53 Yet to an aggadic person,Heschel offers as a worldview the open-endedaspects of rabbinic thought.54

The Talmud should remain a mixture ofjustice, piety, custom and ethics.

The Talmud should remain a mixture ofjustice, piety, custom, convention, ethics, and

exemplarity. One should not rarify one part,even the halakhah, and make it unique.Spirituality, human sensitivity, kavvanah, andaggadah are not supererogatory, but always inbalance with halakhah. Rabbinic texts are to beread as experiential and containing a spirit ofthe law; insights from aggadah. Maharal orHasidism can carry prescriptive weight, andHeschel points out that Maharal and R.Yeshayah Horowitz (Shelah) even advocated

studying the wisdom of rejected rabbinic opinions.Heschel defers to the past by keeping all pastoptions open. Heavenly Torah has a refreshingdiscussion of leniencies and stringencies, one thatacknowledges that stringencies have always had theupper hand in Jewish history (753). In contrast tohis contemporary Eliezer Berkovits and otherswho see greater strictness now, Heschel argues thatwe are more lenient in the modern era in America.He expects everyone to reach his or her ownopinions with the seriousness of a talmudic sage.

In Heschels understanding of halakhah, the humanelements for our age, particularly marriage andsexuality, become God-intoxicated ethical projects.Even while eating and drinking, we have to worryabout gluttony that might fall outside of the

Torahs permission and understanding of humandignity. Heschel advocates Safed pietistic customsas a source for dealing with these everydayproblems.

We should follow the lead of the famedsociologist-theologian Ernest Troeltsch (1865-1923) who, in his valuable analysis of the role ofsocial structure in religion, would categorizeHeschel as having a mystical, individualisticapproach to religion unencumbered by generatingcontrol over his followers. Heschels approach is

neither church nor sect, but what we loosely calltoday spirituality an approach to God locatedoutside church structures and therefore capable ofgenerating a wide range of interpretations. ForTroeltsch, Heschel is not a member of adenomination. He is a sociological a mystic.Heschels own behavior based his own callings ofthe moment is idiosyncratic and personal at best.55

rom a similar canon R. Zvi Yehudah Kook creates a particularistic quest for prophecy in the Jewish soul, for the nationalollective of Israel, and in the land of Land, and choosing the collective over the individual. These would be anathema to

Heschel.lan Brill, Thinking God: The Mysticism of R. Zadok of Lublin (Hoboken: Yeshiva Univ. Press, 2002).. Brill, Thinking God, p. 348-9.he translator and editor Gordon Tucker, compares Heschels approach to halakhah to David Hartman. The latter bases hishinking on a this-worldly approach to halakhah as a democratic and creative process, derived from Lonely Man of Faithand

Halakhic Man. Hartman views Torah from the perspective of our autonomous, pluralistic, modern selves and the ways weact based on our limited human choices. In contrast to this contemporary and active point of view, Heschel advocates aheavenly Torah known in the heart; for Hartman, in contrast, a connection between heaven and heart is not relevant; seeALiving Covenant(New York: Free Press, 1985).

53 On Heschels critiques of Soloveitchik in his classroom as panhalakhic, see Samuel H. Dresner, Heschel andHalakhah: The Vital Center Conservative Judaism43,4 (1991): 18-31. For Soloveitchiks critiques of Heschel, see LawrenceKaplan, Halakhah and Religious Experience in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik(forthcoming book) ch. 1.

54For a similar open-ended approach to rabbinic texts that also relies on Hasidism, but combines the latter with Levinas andliterary indeterminacy, see Marc-Alain Ouaknin. The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud, trans. Llewellyn Brown. (Princeton:Princeton Univ. Press, 1995).

55 For details of his observance, see Yair Sheleg, The Universal Rabbi Ha'aretz (June 27, 2003); for his lack of cleardirectives, see Yehudah Mirsky, The RhapsodistNew Republic(4/19/99).


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Anthology, Poetry, and Theology

Heavenly Torah belongs on the shelf with theother great romantic readings of rabbinicJudaism, especially Bialiks and YehoshuaRavnitskys Book of Legends, Louis Ginzbergs

Legends of the Jews, and Shai Agnons Present atSinai. Nevertheless, it is quite instructive tocompare Agnons content with Heschels.Agnons chapter titles reflect the revelation atSinai, or the collectives lived experience of theSinaitic experience: In the third month wewill do and we will hear thunder andlightening abstinence and bounds and theTen Commandments.

Heschels choice is to hear God; all the talk in

the world wont help you understand therabbis.

For Heschel, revelation is not just the event atSinai: He does not even collect the rabbinicstatements about Sinai. Instead, he providesanalyses of divine-human encounters withinrabbinical literature. Whereas Agnon presentsthe statements without embellishment,Heschels rabbis, are too much like Rilke,56i.e.,

already self-conscious about the metaphoricalnature of metaphysics.

Heschel presents Zohar, R. Zadok, Maharal,and Shelah as core texts of Judaism and wantsto use them for modern theology. He teacheshis readers about the depth and breath of

Jewish thought and about acceptable positions nottaught in the academic Jewish study of his time.

While there is a wealth of new sources in his book,Heschel does not leave them as historic curiositiesbut recoups them as part of the rabbinic palettethat should be taken seriouslyespecially by thosewho are mystical, intuitive, or romantic, or evenartistic, and anarchistic. In many ways Heschel hasprovided an annotated Nortons Anthology ofRevelatory Thought in Judaism. Now is the time forthose of us inclined to theology, both systematicand historic, to evaluate the material.

Heschels tension between the transcendental andearthly is palpable. Can these applications holdtrue for us moderns? Heschels choice is to hearGod; all the talk in the world wont help youunderstand the rabbis. As Heschel already wrote inhis poems of 1933, Let it be clear: enthusiasm ormockery! (193). One needs to take up theprophetic banner of renewal, the poetic, thekabbalistic or the Maimonidean, or one mustopenly reject Heschels approach. Hescheldemands a reading of his text in his owncommitment to openness. He asks, however, the

reader to not limit him for the demands of thosewho do not hear the voice of God. The aggadicman hears loudly the divine will from heaven. Inour humanness we understand revelation incontemporary poetry, theology, and study ofreligion to produce a response in deeds.

56In comparing Rilke's poetry to Heschel, my student Mordechai Shinefield notes that for both where language cannot beused, we find the divine "leaps around" and "changes." He notes also the use of Rilkes "pure Too-little" before ittransforms into "that empty Too-much." Similarly in Heschel, R. Akiva is too much while R. Ishmael is too little.Mordechai Shinefield, Heschel and Rilke: Dichotomous Language and Poetics (Unpublished undergraduate paper,Yeshiva College, spring 2006).

aggadic man - the poetry and rabbinic thought of abraham joshua heschel

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