Thursday, December 18, 2008

Neat Audio Program on Abraham Joshua Heschel

Click to go to the audio-program

HT: Clay Riley. Of course, I am a great fan of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Students in my classes always enjoy reading him and hearing me quote him. Long before I taught at Union Seminary in New York, Heschel spent a high profile year there as the school's first Jewish visiting professor. Several of my college professors brought a love for Heschel they had acquired at Union to their teaching at Trinity College. This audio program (click here) presenting Heschel's life and thought is quite good, I think. It contains biographical summaries by Krista Tippett, audio clips of Heschel himself, interview discussion with Arnold Eisen, chancellor since 2007 of JTS, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City where Heschel taught, right across the street from Union Seminary. Here is the summary of the podcast: "Abraham Joshua Heschel insisted that the opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference. Born into an esteemed Hasidic family in Poland in 1907, he was a mystic who wrote transcendent, poetic words about God. At the same time, he marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and organized religious leadership against the war in Vietnam, embodying the social activism of the biblical prophets he studied. We explore Heschel's teachings and his prophetic legacy — his "spiritual audacity" — for people in our time."

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