Quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel

Right living is a way to right thinking.

It is in deeds that man becomes aware of what his life really is.

Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.

All we own is a passing intention, but what comes about will outlive and surpass our power.

God's goodness is not a cosmic force but a specific act of compassion. We do not know it as it is but as it happens. To mention an example, "Rabbi Meir said: When a human being suffers what does the Shechinah say? My head is too heavy for Me; My arm is too heavy for Me. And if God is so grieved over the blood of the wicked that is shed, how much more so over the blood of the righteous.

One deed of an individual may decide the fate of the world. "If he performs one good deed, blessed is he for he moves the scale both for himself and for the entire world to the side of merit; if he commits one transgression, woe to him for he moves to the side of guilt himself and the whole world.

The Sabbath, thus, is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites what is below and what is above. All that is divine in the world is brought into union with God. This is Sabbath, and the true happiness of the universe.

When all work is brought to a standstill, the candles are lit. Just as creation began with the word, Let there be light ! so does the celebration of creation begin with the kindling of lights. It is the woman who ushers in the joy and sets up the most exquisite symbol, light, to dominate the atmosphere of the home.

Just as man is not alone in what he is, he is not alone in what he does. A mitsvah is an act which God and man have in common.

The Torah is primarily divine ways rather than divine laws.

But the meaning is to walk in the ways of the Lord. As He clothes the naked so do thou also clothe the naked; as He visited the sick, so do thou also visit the sick; as he comforted mourners, so do Thou also comfort mourners" (Sotah 14a).

We do not lealve the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions, We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore.