The Jew & Sod

Man confronts the divine with two basic questions: "What can I know about God?" and "How can I know about God?" Like Job, Judaism long ago laid its hand upon its mouth as far as the first question is concerned, and the second has often been buried beneath the weighty Torah interpretations. But in this century, within a few years of each other, three passionate men have sprung up among the Jews to illuminate the question: "How can I know . . ."

The first was the late Franz Rosenzweig (TIME, April 5, 1954). The second is Martin Buber (TIME, Jan. 23). The third is Abraham Joshua Heschel. 49, Polish-born, Berlin-educated friend of Theologian Buber and associate professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at Manhattan's Jewish Theological Seminary. Twinkle-eyed Dr. Heschel, a small man located beneath a bush of grey hair, labors in a blue haze of cigar smoke, and writes prose that sings and soars in the warm, intuitive tradition of the great 18th century Hasidic leaders from whom he is descended. His just-published book. God in Search of Man (Farrar, Straus & Cudahy; $5), is. subtitled "A Philosophy of Judaism," but it speaks to all those men for whom the Bible is a holy book.

Heschel calls his method "depth theology." He is concerned "not so much [with] what the person is able to express as that which he is unable to express, the insights that no language can declare ..." Heschel divides the insights under three main headings -- 1) God, 2) Revelation, 3) Response -- and breaks them into a series of short med itations packed with spiritual aphorisms and surprises. Samples:

P: "A philosophy of Judaism ... is a philosophy of both ideas and events . . . The Jew says 'I believe,' and is told 'Remember!' . . . The God of Israel . . . spoke through events in history."

P: "All of human history as described in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man. Faith in God is a response to God's question . . . When Adam and Eve hid from His presence, the Lord called : Where art thou . . . Religion consists of God's question and man's answer . . . Human action is not the beginning. At the beginning is God's eternal expectation. There is an eternal cry in the world: God is beseeching man to answer, to return, to fulfill. Something is asked of man, of all men, at all times. In every act we either answer or defy, we either return or move away, we either fulfill or miss the goal."

P: "If other religions may be characterized as a relation between man and God, Judaism must be described as a relation between man with Torah and God. The Jew is never alone in the face of God; the Torah is always with him. A Jew without the Torah is obsolete. The Torah is not the wisdom but the destiny of Israel; not our literature but our essence." P: "A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to under stand more than he does. In carrying out the word of the Torah he is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning. Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the hereness of God. Right living is a way to right thinking."

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