Ever since God made a covenant with the people of Israel, Jews have been scripting a significant chapter of human history. Jews have been guardians of significant part of the treasures of moral, intellectual and spiritual legacy of humankind. Major advancements in major disciplines have been made by Jews. But what has been little noted in the public perception is the contribution of Jewish philosophers and theologians to world culture. What is astonishing to note is how come Muslims whose scripture makes more references to Moses and Jews than to any other preIslamic prophet and community should be so little informed about the best in Jewish heritage. And Ulama too have been largely ignoring the best in Jewish heritage and this in turn `contributes to continued misunderstanding of many Quranic verses which are best understood by keeping in mind larger Abrahamic tradition. The legacy/appropriation of Israliyat in Islamic tradition has engendered much confusion since classical period because there has been little effort to engage with self understanding of Judeo-Christian tradition. Many debates in theology (such as salvation of other faiths), jurisprudence (such as ijtihad) and mysticism in Islamic tradition get illuminated by turning to parallel developments in Jewish tradition. The problem of centuries of bigotry, bickering, and bitterness among Jews and Muslims linked to misgivings about/misreadings of each other’s theology has further complicated Israel-Palestine conflict. It is time to be better informed about sages of respective traditions to help better understanding of the best from the best minds of Abrahamic heritage and resolve problems. Let us read today one of the greatest Jewish philosophers and theologians and revered religious leaders of the twentieth century, Abraham Joshua Heschel who could well prove perhaps the most powerful defense against skepticism and nihilism now creeping in the Muslim world.
Heschel has been called “A Prophet’s prophet” for his brilliant work in explicating – in The Prophets – the Prophetic model of spirituality or activist mysticism represented by the Prophets of Israel. In his classic work God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism that every serious study of world religions and Islam’s Abrahamic/Judaic context should read, he pioneered an idea (whose echoes are heard in many Muslim sages including Iqbal) that it is God who is in search of man rather than the vice versa. For him the Biblical view of history is summed up as “God in search of Man.” We are all restless because of this summon from the above and can’t find rest except in God as Augustine put it. He wrote many classic works that entitle him to be a veritable Proof of Religion. One can’t remain a conventional agnostic or atheist or afford indifference to religion or keep repeating much of shallow criticisms of the very essence of religion by secular academia after reading Heschel. It is impossible to be disrespectful of what the Prophets have brought to the world after we read Heschel. The most formidable, eloquent and lucid essay on exposition of significance of God/Sacred/Transcendence (as taught by the prophets of Israel) for man I know is “The Concept of Man in Jewish Thought” by Heschel. Heschel is unforgettable. His prose is better than poetry of most poets. If one is assailed by doubt or despair and secretly feels complaining about God, read Heschel. He reconciles God and man. This is needed “ due to man’s false sense of sovereignty, to his abuse of freedom, to his aggressive, sprawling pride, resenting God’s involvement in history.” What else do we – believers and non-believers – need than the realization that “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” Heschel provides a help for this realization.
One bows in gratitude to a Master who teaches us God is an all pervasive Reality we are required to witness rather than prove. “In our religious situation we do not comprehend the transcendent; we are present at it, we witness it.” Recall that one becomes a true Muslim by witnessing rather than asserting/believing God’s Unity. (How come we are required to bear witness if we have not seen or have not been present before the Real?) As Heschel says: “What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.” “The most incomprehensible fact is that we comprehend at all.” This recalls Einstein’s “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” This comprehension itself is a miracle of intellect, a veritable mystery. “The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted…Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” “We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.” We are called to witness, to see, to reflect, to sing the Ineffable. Who says we are invited to believe in God? We are called to be co-partners in God’s work and we and all that we see is the work of the Other/non-self/God) Since we all agree that there is something more than meets the eye or can be said, that we encounter the Ineffable, wonder, mystery, demands of conscience, the anxiety or “need to be needed” we are in the midst or grip or quest of the Divine or better the Divine is summoning us and we must leap with joy and say “Labbayka” (“Here I am”). In Kaaba we don’t seek God; God makes a role call and we say Labbayka. As Heschel noted “Previously we searched for the proofs for the existence of God. Today we are searching for man.” Isn’t it difficult to see even one man now in our vicinity whose soul is not on hire or who is true to his divine image and dignity? Isn’t it because man defied God and as Foucault noted that the death of God/eclipse of the Sacred in modern consciousness heralded a death of man?
We have forgotten the meaning – intoxication by the wine called God – of life and that is why meaning of death escapes us. “In Jewish tradition, dying in one’s sleep is called a kiss of God, and dying on the Sabbath is a gift that is merited by piety. For the pious person, my father once wrote, it is a privilege to die.” Death is a celebration and may well be celebrated by a feast – death anniversaries should be celebrated as is the tradition of urs. Death is an adventure we lose in hospitals and assemblies of mourners who visit us. Now there are few memorable deaths such as that of G. R. Nazki who is reported to have waited for it as if it is a first night of wedding and died consciously, almost ecstatically, commenting on the event of being escorted by an honourable angel to his permanent home.
We are all required to be Jews in the universal sense Heschel defines a Jew: “Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people.” “ This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual”
He admired Sayyed Hussain Nasr who in turn read him and admired him. Nasr reports about his concern for justice to Palestinians and his shared love of Abrahamic mysticism. Heschel was quite active protesting against Vietnam war and said that he is parying with legs and to someone who asked how come a religious figure like him was indulging in politics he said because he could not pray hearing the cries and seeing the images of victims in Vietnam. “How can I pray when I have my conscience of being co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam. In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.” “To speak about God,” he proclaimed, “and remain silent on Vietnam, is blasphemous.” Today silence on Rohingya Muslims, Palestine, Kashmir, capitalism’s rape of environment, rights of minorities, tribals and women and a long list of other issues would be blasphemous. To the question “Where was God during Holocaust?” Heschel’s reply was “Where was Man?” He clarifies further elsewhere “We tend to read the Bible looking for mighty acts that God does and not seeing that all the way through the Bible God is waiting for human beings to act.”
For Heschel wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge. Doubt indeed “challenges the minds accounts about reality” and demands “examination and verification.” But “wonder goes beyond knowledge. . . . Doubt may come to an end, wonder lasts forever.” In it is what Heschel terms “radical amazement,” that we really begin to see “things as they are.”
Heschel viewed prayer “not as an encounter with God, but as an event of being encountered by God. In prayer, he taught, our asking of God gives way before the awareness of being asked by God.” “The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.” He once said: “There are three ways in which a man expresses his deep sorrow: the man on the lowest level cries; the man on the next level is silent; the man on the highest level knows how to turn his sorrow into a song.”
When we hear about damage to shrines under mysterious circumstances we may recall Maimonides for whom there is no ontological or essential relation to the Sacred in sacred spaces) and Heschel’s point “God is not in things of space, but in moments of time.” Let us not forget Heschel’s reminder: “Religion is a means, not the end. It becomes idolatrous when regarded as an end in itself. Over and above all being stands the Creator and Lord of history. He who transcends all. To equate religion and God is idolatry.”
P.S
P.S Heschel has something special to offer the world that no other sage can. And that is his understanding of Sabbath (Saturday reserved for rest). Holidays – healing days, holy days, days devoted to living as against this or that work/engagement/official assignments/money making – are invitations to feasts we mostly miss. In The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man Heschel states: “Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.” “The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.” We need weekly leave from civilization or five days or better four days week for all including self employed or toiling non-salaried class. We have forgotten distinction between labour and toil (where soul is not) and means (“work,” time ) and end (rest/living/eternity). Pity those who rest to work confusing means (work) for an end (rest). Angels flee from the shops/ offices where work goes on even after designated closing time and on some holidays. Hell is being constrained to say, thanks to “diligent” officers, “ I am in office and have no time” when it is not office time but time for God/oneself. Pray for the victims who don’t have the courage to say no to such officers who volunteer and take pride for burning in hell.
The author can be mailed at marooof123@yahoo.com
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