“Of being itself all we can positively say is: being is ineffable.”

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5
Context: In our reflection we must go back to where we stand in awe before sheer being, faced with the marvel of the moment. The world is not just here. It shocks us into amazement.
Of being itself all we can positively say is: being is ineffable. The heart of being confronts me as enigmatic, incompatible with my categories, sheer mystery. My power of probing is easily exhausted, my words fade, but what I sense is not emptiness but inexhaustible abundance, ineffable abundance. What I face I cannot utter or phrase in language. But the richness of my facing the abundance of being endows me with marvelous reward: a sense of the ineffable.

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Abraham Joshua Heschel 130

Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi 1907–1972

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