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Heschel This Week on Wonder

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Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.  One attitude is alien to his spirit:  taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things…He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things.  However, such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all.  Looking at the world he would say, "This is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes" (Me-et Adonai haytah zot, hi niflat b'aynaynu! — Psalms 118:23 and Hallel).

Is wonder the same as curiosity?  To the prophet wonder is a form of thinking.  It is not the beginning of knowledge but an act that goes beyond knowledge; it does not come to an end when knowledge is acquired; it is an attitude that never ceases.  There is no answer in the world to man's radical amazement.

–from God in Search of Man



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