Heschel's Legacy for the Politics of the Twenty-First Century

A central theme running through Heschel's teachings is that there can be no real separation between serving God, spiritual life, and social transformation. Heschel was not talking about electoral politics, but about social movement politics aimed at fundamental tikkun olam work. The Hebrew prophets demonstrate that one of Judaism's central contributions was precisely its integration of spirituality and the struggle for human liberation. Yet, as I shall argue below, this integration requires a critique of the liberal/progressive agenda in contemporary America, and spiritual progressives in the Heschel mode must challenge not only the distortions of The Religious Right, but also the religio-phobia and one-dimensionality of the secular Left.

And yet it is not atypical in Jewish history or human history more generally for people to revile or ignore our most authentic "prophetic" voices while they are alive, or to affirm in them only the parts that comfortably reinforce our own sense of righteousness, and then to hail them after their deaths as our great teachers and inspiration.

So it was with Abraham Joshua Heschel. In the years that I knew him best, while studying with him at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and working with him while I was national president of ATID (the college organization of the United Synagogue), I found him increasingly despairing that his message was not being taken seriously. True enough, like his friend and JTS colleague Max Arzt, Heschel was in demand in congregations as a weekend scholar-in-residence–so long as he confined his talks to God, Revelation, and mitzvot. But when he began to speak seriously about the prophets and the relevance of his message to contemporary American society, he was ignored and disparaged by colleagues at the Seminary and by many of the students. Bad enough that he affirmed mysticism, but to apply prophetic teachings to the current historical moment was not a task for a "serious" academic.

His colleagues and students acknowledged that there was something wrong with racial segregation and with the Vietnam war. Yet they all shared a dispassionate attitude; they wished to remain uninvolved in the struggles for social justice and peace. Demonstrations about Soviet Jewry seemed kosher because the cause was directly concerning the Jewish people. But addressing larger social issues, they would tell Heschel, went beyond their sphere of concern.

Heschel's critics claimed that in applying the lessons of his book, The Prophets, to the contemporary moment, he was advancing his own particular politics with which they disagreed. Now some say the same thing about those who try to apply Heschel's teachings to contemporary issues in the 21st century.

When the Jewish community writes the history of early 21st century American Jewry, it is unlikely, in my opinion, to highlight the role of AIPAC in trying to convince the U.S. Administration that war with Iran is in Israel's interests, but rather it will tell of the many Jews who stood up against either the Iraq war or the one still being discussed against Iran.

It is indeed important to acknowledge how much Heschel's legacy of courage has inspired a new generation of Jewish activists, many of whom felt alienated from the political conservatism and spiritual deadness they experienced growing up in the Jewish world. Many today allow Heschel's vision of Judaism to provide a foundation for building new forms of Jewish political activism, including Jewish feminism, gay and lesbian struggles for equality, the Jewish environmental movement, the Jewish Fund for Justice, The Shalom Center, the Tikkun Community, and the struggle for an end to the genocide in Darfur led by the American Jewish World Service.

It was my years being mentored by Heschel that provided me with the foundation from which I started Tikkun magazine, which remains the progressive Jewish magazine with the largest circulation in the world, and the only one that explicitly cites Heschel as its major inspiration. We frequently quote Heschel's words: "By whatever we do, by every act we carry out, we either advance or obstruct the drama of redemption; we either reduce...