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Saturday, December 16, 2023

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel "indifference to evil is worse than evil itself..."

 

Born in Warsaw Poland in 1907,  graduated from University of Berlin died in 1972 in New York City. In late October 1938, when Heschel was living in a rented room in the home of a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland in the Polenaktion

Heschel's sister Esther was killed in a German bombing. His mother was murdered by the Nazis, and two other sisters, Gittel and Devorah, died in Nazi concentration camps. He never returned to Germany, Austria or Poland. He once wrote, "If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated.

Heschel arrived in New York City in March 1940

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel believed that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth. For these and other reasons, Martin Luther King Jr. called Heschel "a truly great prophet." Heschel actively participated in the Civil Rights movement, and was a participant in the third Selma to Montgomery march, accompanying Dr. King and John Lewis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel

Heschel, left, presenting the Judaism and World Peace Award to Martin Luther King Jr., December 7, 1965

"The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference."

"Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."

"Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art."

"Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will."

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