Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

At the Feast of Jewish Learning last week I attended Rabbi Ted Feldman‘s session on “The Transcendent Teachings of Abraham Joshua Heschel.” The rabbi, who was a student of Dr. Heschel (yes, in the academic world he was referred to as a doctor), led us through a discussion analyzing several short Heschel quotes. My favorite one was this,

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is light.

If this wet your appetite, like mine, to read more from this “spiritual radical” I am happy to report that the library has nine books from him. They are:

• The circle of the Baal Shem Tov; studies in Hasidism
• The earth is the Lord’s; the inner world of the Jew in Eastern Europe
• God in search of man
• Man is not alone
• Moral grandeur and spiritual audacity
• The prophets
• A passion for truth
• The Sabbath
• Who is man?

We also have a VHS about him (“Abraham Joshua Heschel remembered“) and a book (“Man of spirit, man of action“) written for young adults in mind about him. Depending on how much time and what kind of interest you have in Heschel you would surely find something that could provide spiritual food for thoughts