Heschel & the Vietnam War

H eschel was the most visible traditional Jew in the anti–Vietnam War movement. Like thousands of Americans he opposed U.S. military support for the corrupt Saigon regime, but his dissent had no institutional backing. He was notassociatedwithReformJudaism,whoseleaderswereinthevanguardofsocial action, civil rights, and the antiwar movement. Orthodox rabbis, closer to his observance, either rejected political protest or upheld the government’s prosecution of the war. A majority of [Jewish Theological Seminary] JTS faculty dissociated themselves from Heschel’s involvement . Although some detractors (and friendly conservatives) considered him naive politically, 14 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 Rethinking Religion Heschel & the Vietnam War by Edward K. Kaplan Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the most significant Jewish theologians of the twentieth century. Tikkun particularly recommends his books The Sabbath, God In Search of Man, The Prophets, and Who Is Man? Rabbi Michael Lerner studied with Heschel at the Jewish Theological Seminary and developed a deep and lasting friendship, and Heschel’s theology plays a foundational role in Tikkun Magazine. In September, 2007, Yale University Press will publish the 2nd volume of Edward Kaplan’s definitive study of the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel. We are printing part of one chapter of this biography below. America has been enticed by her own might. There is nothing so vile as the arrogance of the military mind. Of all the plagues with which the world is cursed, of every ill, militarism is the worst: the assumption that war is an answer to human problems. -Abraham Joshua Heschel, “The Moral Outrage of Vietnam” (1966) Heschel at a meeting of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, c. 1968. JOHN GOODWIN 6Religion+jumps_final.qxd 6/7/07 10:45 AM Page 14 hekepthimselfwellinformedofevents.HereadtheNewYorkTimeseveryday,followedother news sources, and studied books on the international situation. But he chose to judge events according to sacred values. He entered the antiwar movement in 1965, after an inner struggle that led him to conclude that the U.S. assault on North Vietnam was “an evil act.” Heschel had necessarily been aware of political currents since his youth in Warsaw and Vilna, and his university years in Berlin, but while revising his 1933 doctoral thesis into The Prophets he had moved from a stance of academic neutrality to one of engaged political commitment .Athearthewasacontemplativewhocravedsolitudeforprayer,study,andreflection, ashewrotelater:“Lonelinesswasbothaburdenandablessing,andaboveallindispensablefor achieving a kind of stillness in which perplexities could be faced without fear.” As a U.S. citizen, however, he realized that “in regard to the cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.” Citing Leviticus 19:15 [actually 19:16], “Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor,” he declared that public opposition to the Vietnam War was a religious obligation, “a supreme commandment.” He judged the Johnson administration misguided, wedded to the Cold War notion that “Communism [is] the devil and the only source of evil in the world.” He believed that U.S. forces could not defeat North Vietnam without destroying the country’s natural and human resources; the United States should withdraw immediately. Above all, Heschel feared for the American soul. In his judgment most citizens were indifferent to what he described as the criminal behavior of their elected government. Although religious law required Jews to obey the rules of the country in which they lived, it also decreed that “whenever a decree is unambiguously immoral, one nevertheless has a duty to disobey it.” Militaristic thinking was the immediate peril: “I have previously thought that we were waging war reluctantly, with sadness at killing so many people. I realize that we are doing it now with pride in our military efficiency.” Community of Faith and Dissent In the fall of 1965, while still teaching at Union Theological Seminary, Heschel joined a protest rally organized by a local committee of clergy, both Christians and Jews. At issue were the maneuvers by the Johnson administration to stifle dissent. (At a Chicago news conference Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach had threatened to prosecute “some Communists ” involved in nationwide...