Are you still dissatisfied when munching concepts, however delicious? - Eternal wisdom for our time from the mystical heart of Abraham Joshua Heschel

I am, I confess, a serial concept muncher!

The sublime Heschel said,

“Concepts are delicious snacks with which

we try to alleviate our amazement.”

(Who is Man p.88)

He also once wrote: “We may doubt anything, except that we are struck with amazement. When in doubt, we raise 

questions; when in wonder, we do not even know how to ask a question. Doubts may 

be resolved, radical amazement can never be erased. There is no answer 

in the world to [our] radical wonder. Under the running sea of our theories

 and scientific explanations lies the aboriginal abyss of radical amazement.” 

(Man Is Not Alone, p. 13)

Heschel's deep concern was to persuade us that the state of awe and wonder, experience of the ineffable, was more truly deeply human than snacking on concepts that, delicious though they are, can never bring true satisfaction.

Of course concepts are the stuff of beliefs and beliefs are what divide us.

Wonder, awe, amazement, experience of the ineffable, is the wordless state as we are struck dumb before the whole of Mystery.  In silence we are united.

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"Our concern with environment cannot be reduced to what can be used, to what can be grasped. Environment includes not only the inkstand and the blotting paper, but also the impenetrable stillness in the air, the stars, the clouds, the quiet passing of time, the wonder of my own being. I am an end as well as a means, and so is the world: an end as well as a means. My view of the world and my understanding of the self determine each other. Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the world becomes a market place for you. The complete manipulation of the world results in the complete instrumentalization of the self."

"Humankind will not die out for lack of information, but for we may perish for want of appreciation."

"In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible."

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

The antidote to our current self destruction is to be found in the glorious vision of what it is to be truly human

as Heschel describes it in his Who is Man?

 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (2nd from right) in the Selma Civil Rights Marchwith Martin Luther King, Jr. (4th from right)

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“The utterances of the heart—unlike those of the discriminating intellect—

always relate to the whole.”

(Jung)

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Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907– December 23, 1972), teacher, activist, social critic, theologian, poet, philosopher, and scholar.

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