A Passion for Truth by Abraham Joshua Heschel

A Passion for Truth by Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Heschel's last statement on despair and hope in Hasidism as he experienced it himself through study of the Baal Shem Tov and the Kotzker, whose life and thought is dramatically depicted in this book." —Prof. Fritz A. Rothschild, The Jewish Theological Seminary

It is comparatively easy to preach joy and fervor, but to demand Truth is like shaping marble without tools. And so [the Kotzker] went looking for a few surging people and called loudly upon their souls to bend their conceit and see the Truth beneath the soil....

This was not a philosophical inquiry into the nature of Truth but a scrutiny of men’s lives in relation to Truth. Religion, the Kotzker maintained, was not simply an act of adopting a system of beliefs and certain modes of conduct; test and trial were needed, and one had to ascertain through introspection whether one’s beliefs were genuine or not, and whether one acted out Truth or lived a life of pretense....

Kierkegaard made it his task “to reintroduce Christianity into Christendom.” The Kotzker sought to reintroduce authenticity to Jewish life. Kierkegaard’s posthumous impact has been powerful. But has the Kotzker affected Jewish self-understanding?
—from A Passion for Truth

Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in Poland in 1907, received his early education from a yeshiva (a school for Talmudic or rabbinical study) and earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin. In 1939, six weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland, he left for London and then for the United States, where he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City from 1945 until his death in 1972. An activist as well as a scholar and a teacher, Heschel was deeply engaged in social movements for peace, civil rights and interfaith understanding.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781681629643
ISBN 10	168162964X
Title	A Passion for Truth
Author	Abraham Joshua Heschel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Turner Publishing Company
Year published	1995-05-18
Number of pages	366
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.