Rabbi Jon 's Website and Blog

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Heschel

  • Heschel This Week on Words of Prayer

    It takes two things to make prayer come to pass:  a person and a word. Words are not made of paper.  Words of prayer are repositories of the spirit.  It is only after we kindle a light in the words that we are able to behold the riches they contain.  It is only after we… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on Halacha and Aggada

    Halacha (literally "walking") refers to Jewish law — the rules.  Aggada (literally "telling", like the Pesach Haggada) refers to everything else in Judaism — stories, theology, philosophy, all religious thinking. Halakhah deals with details, with each commandment separately; agadah with the whole of life, with the totality of religious life.  Halakhah deals with the law;… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on Prayer and Living

    Prayer must not be dissonant with the rest of living.  The mercifulness, the gentleness, which pervades us in moments of prayer is but a ruse or a bluff if it is inconsistent with the way we live at other moments. The divorce of liturgy and living, of prayer and practice, is more than a scandal;… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week: Hitlahavut

    The Baal Shem Tov thought of the Jew's relationship to God as a romance, and it disturbed him to see how many rituals had become routine rather than rapturous acts, exercises in repetition rather than gestures of surprise — a hand without a heart.  Faith was fire, not sediment.  Did not a pillar of fire… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week: The Baal Shem Tov

    Next week is the first week of Adar, the month of Purim and joy.  So here are some words from Heschel about the Baal Shem Tov, who restored simcha to the center of Judaism: The Baal Shem Tov was the founder of the Hasidic movement, and Mezhbizh was the cradle in which a new understanding… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on the Sinai Revelation

    This week's selection from Heschel's God in Search of Man is keyed to Parashat Yitro and the Revelation at Mt. Sinai.  I'll post more passages in future weeks on Heschel's view of the Torah, or you can read a several page explanation I prepared for one of my classes here.  To subscribe to the weekly… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on Wonder

    To receive these short passages from Heschel weekly, send me a note. 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… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on Shabbat

    To receive a weekly quote from Heschel by e-mail, send a message to me with Heschel in the note or the subject. The Sabbath as a day of abstaining from work is not a depreciation but an affirmation of labor, a divine exaltation of its dignity.  Thou shall abstain from labor on the seventh day… Continue reading

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  • Heschel This Week on Race and Justice

    Twenty-seven people so far signed up in our congregation to receive a weekly quote from Heschel!  To subscribe to this by e-mail, send a note to me with "Heschel" as the subject or the text. In honor of Martin Luther King Day:  From a speech on "Religion and Race" (1963) Friends, at the first conference… Continue reading

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  • Introducing: Heschel Every Week

    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, of blessed memory, was one of the great spiritual teachers in the Conservative movement in the 20th century.  He brought together Talmud, philosophy, and Chasidic thought.  He taught about the biblical prophets and marched for civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I'll put up a page on this site… Continue reading

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