Abraham Joshua Heschel: Quotes about God

Abraham Joshua Heschel was Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi. Explore interesting quotes on god.
Abraham Joshua Heschel: 260 quotes6 likes

“The focus of prayer is not the self. … It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer. Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of God. … Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

As quoted in Judaism (1998) by Arthur Hertzberg, p. 300
Variant: "It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the act of prayer."

“The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"No TIme for Neutrality", p. 107
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

“Not the individual man nor a single generation by its own power can erect the bridge that leads to God. Faith is the achievement of many generations, and effort accumulated over many centuries. … There is a collective memory of God in the human spirit, and it is this memory which is the main source of our faith.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The Holy Dimension", p. 333
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

“In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch. Reality to us is thinghood, consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing. The result of our thinginess is our blindness to all reality that fails to identify itself as a thing, as a matter of fact.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prologue p. 5
The Sabbath (1951)

“The prophets never taught that God and history are one, or that whatever happens below reflects the will of God above. Their vision is of man defying God, and God seeking man to reconcile with him.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Source: The Prophets (1962), p. 168

“To Hosea, marriage is the image of the relationship of God and Israel. ... Idolatry is adultery.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Volume 1, p. 50
The Prophets (1962)