Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972
by Edward K. Kaplan
Yale University Press

Discussion Guide by Pamela Rothstein

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About the Author

Edward K. Kaplan is the Kevy and Hortense Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities at Brandeis University, where he teaches in the fields of French, comparative literature, and religious studies. His scholarship and publications in French literature include writings on Michelet and Baudelaire. Professor Kaplan has written extensively on Heschel for many years, producing numerous articles and books. He is the author of Holiness in Words: Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Poetics of Piety (State University of New York Press, 1996) and, with Samuel H. Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness (Yale University Press, 1998), the widely-acclaimed study of Heschel’s life prior to 1940, where this volume begins. Professor Kaplan also authored the introduction to the English translation of Heschel’s Yiddish poems, The Ineffable Name of God: Man (Continuum, 2004).

Edward Kaplan brings to his work on Heschel not only scholarly dedication and passion, but also a personal connection. He was influenced by the work of his father, Kivie Kaplan, “who was dedicated to the Reform movement” (xii) and who was also a leader of the NAACP serving as its national president from 1966 until 1975. Through his father’s work, Edward met civil rights leaders and gained experience that helped him “understand the dynamics of Heschel’s charisma and his renown” (xii). Upon receiving a shipment of Heschel’s books that Kivie Kaplan requested from the author for his son, Edward became enthralled by Man Is Not Alone, “the first Jewish book that convincingly evoked for me the presence of God” (xii). Kaplan met with Heschel while working on his doctorate at Columbia University. Even while pursuing studies in French literature, Edward maintained his personal and scholarly interest in Heschel, an interest that ultimately led to the publication of Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972, the National Jewish Book Award recipient for American Jewish Studies in March 2008.

Introduction

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is one of the seminal figures of twentieth-century Judaism and Jewish letters. Among his books, all of them classics, are The Sabbath (1951), Man is Not Alone (1951), The Earth is the Lord’s (1949), God in Search of Man (1955), Israel: An Echo of Eternity (1967), The Prophets (1962). Prophetic Witness, Edward Kaplan and Samuel Dresner’s 1998 volume on Heschel’s early years, offered the first scholarly biography of Heschel, work that Kaplan continues with Spiritual Radical. Drawing on previously unpublished sources, archives, and interviews, Kaplan presents Heschel with a fullness and honesty that shape his compelling portrait.

Born in 1907 into a family of Hasidic rabbis in Poland, Heschel studied in pre-war Warsaw, Frankfurt, and Berlin, where he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Berlin and where he came to know the philosopher Martin Buber. Escaping Germany in 1940 through an invitation to teach at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, he lived the remainder of his days in the United States. His life spanned the intellectual, geographic, religious, and political developments of much of the 20^th century, from the inner world of European Hasidism to the heady intellectual life of pre-war Central Europe, from the halls of both Reform and Conservative Judaism’s seminaries to civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests. The white-bearded rabbi who famously declared, “I felt my legs were praying” as he walked beside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been hailed as a modern prophet.

Questions and Topics for Discussion

Part One – Cincinnati: The War Years

1. Heschel was one of eight refugee professors (known as the College in Exile) brought from Europe to the United States by Julian Morgenstern, president of Hebrew Union College. The first chapters of Spiritual Radical provide a detailed picture of the atmosphere of Hebrew Union College (HUC) in the 1940s, where Heschel spent five years. It is not always a flattering one. Does anything in this surprise you? The institution has changed dramatically since that time. Visit the College-Institute’s website at www.huc.edu and investigate how today’s HUC reflects the Reform movement’s priorities and goals today. How do they differ from those of the 1940s?

2. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Heschel entered into the American debate over issues of science and faith by challenging none other than Albert Einstein. How does this chapter on Heschel’s early years in America shed light on Heschel’s trajectory as a public intellectual and an ardent believer in a personal God? What does this chapter reveal about Einstein?

3. Heschel’s time in Cincinnati coincided with the worst atrocities of the Holocaust. Kaplan describes how he faced the theological challenges of the Holocaust and its call to action drawing special attention to the “moment that Heschel…became a political activist” (pg. 52) by joining a public protest aimed at meeting with President Roosevelt to address the need to save European Jews. How do you think this event influenced Heschel’s later political activism?

4. In 1945 Heschel resigned from HUC to join the faculty of the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. What led to this decision, both on Heschel’s part and on the part of JTS? In what ways did HUC and JTS differ? Might Heschel have found more of a spiritual and intellectual affinity in today’s HUC?

Part Two – Rescuing the American Soul

5. Kaplan entitled this chapter “Rescuing the American Soul” to reflect the thrust of Heschel’s intellectual concerns in the 1950s. How did the Holocaust influence Heschel’s thinking in these years?

6. In “To Save a Soul” (1949), Heschel warned: “Perhaps people have never been as much in need of Judaism as they are in our generation. The human species is on its deathbed.” How did Heschel view the state of American Jewry at this time? In what ways did he link the experience of the Holocaust and the unique challenges of American Jewry? What kind of “revolutions” did he conceive of as ways to respond to these challenges?

7. The Earth Is the Lord’s, writes Kaplan, “marked Heschel’s metamorphosis from Yiddish speaker and essayist to American author” (Pg. 102). Does this book reflect on Heschel as a thinker and as a writer who captured the spiritual essence of prewar Yiddish culture while simultaneously bridging the cultures of prewar Jewish Poland and modern America? What other prominent Jewish authors and intellectuals have accomplished this?

8. Many Reform congregations are participating in the URJ initiative “Embracing Shabbat,” intended to engage individuals and congregations in discussion and examination of contemporary practices, behaviors, and attitudes pertaining to Shabbat. In 1951, Heschel published his seminal and still-highly popular meditation on Shabbat, The Sabbath. How do the quarrels surrounding its publication reflect the intellectual debates that dominated American Jewish life and letters?

9. In 1946 Heschel married Sylvia Straus, an accomplished pianist from a minimally observant Jewish home. “With his marriage, Heschel also accepted the gulf between himself and his wife, and their two fundamentally different Jewish identities” (pg. 85). What light does this aspect of Heschel’s private life shed on the man or the theologian?

Part Three – Spiritual Radical

10. Kaplan fills many pages with stories of Heschel’s poor teaching habits in formal classroom settings and his perceived disrespect of students. He balances these descriptions with accounts of the life-transforming conversations that Heschel had with those whom he met privately in his office. “Heschel seemed to be especially receptive to such intellectually enterprising outsiders,” (pg. 133) writes Kaplan. Comment on the nature of Heschel’s deep connection with these visitors and how this private side illuminated by Kaplan’s research might help form a fuller picture of Heschel’s complex personality.

11. What were Heschel’s connections with American Christians? How did he further interfaith dialogue in the 1960s and how did he leave his personal stamp on Christian-Jewish relations and understanding?

12. In June 1963, Heschel sent President Kennedy a telegram. It read: “Let religious leaders donate one month’s salary toward a fund for Negro housing and education. I propose that you Mr. President declare a state of moral emergency. A Marshall Plan for aid to Negroes is becoming a necessity. The hour calls for high moral grandeur and spiritual audacity” (pg. 219). What “moral emergencies” face American society today? How would you make your voice heard?

13. Heschel rallied to the cause of Soviet Jewry, challenging the conscience of American Jews to take action on their behalf. “He judged that the soul of American Jewry was once again threatened, as it had been in 1940-43” (pg. 226). In the cause of saving Soviet Jewry, as in his struggle for civil rights, Heschel pushed the establishment to face hard facts and human suffering. What did the civil rights and free Soviet Jewry movements have in common?

Part Four – Apostle to the Gentiles

14. Kaplan presents a nuanced portrait of Heschel’s role in Vatican II. Review Heschel’s involvement in the drafting of Nostra Aetate and his role as the spokesman and principal American Jewish Committee representative to the Vatican. How did it test his standing within the Jewish community? What personal challenges did Heschel face?

15. During an oration at Union Theological Seminary, where he was appointed a visiting professor, Heschel explained: “In this aeon diversity of religions is the will of God” (p.283). The URJ has introduced several initiatives to encourage meaningful dialogue with American Christians and Muslims. How has interfaith dialogue in the United States changed since Heschel’s proclamation?

Part Five – Final Years

16. Kaplan’s biography of Heschel provides a prism through which to view American Judaism, American politics, post-Holocaust Jewish theology and denominational differences. Comment on how, if at all, your perspective on these areas has changed as a result of your reading Spiritual Radical.

17. Heschel’s life story speaks to the culture wars of today, including the impact of religion on public life. How are Heschel’s views reflected in today’s debate?

18. Spiritual Radical explores how Heschel the man and thinker combined both modern and mystical thought. How have today’s Jewish movements bridged the two? How is the bridging of the modern and the mystical echoed in broader American culture?