This book is both a philosophic/logical progression as well as poetic gem.

This book changed my life. My father was Jewish, my mother not. When I got to a quote from Exodus (Sh'mot) "This is my God and I will glorify Him; The God of my father and I will exalt Him." I made up my mind to convert from nothing to Judaism.

The idea of repair of the world, Tikkun Olam,is well and alive: "It is in the employment of his (a Man's) will, not in reflection, that he meets his own self as it is; not as he should like it to be. Heschel marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and inspired many Jews to fight for the rights all all citizens in the USA.

This book is thoughtful, makes one reflect and is filled with poetry from end to end. Examples. "The heart is a often lonely voice in the marketplace of the living." "Halacha (laws) without agada (heart / self transformation) is dead, agada without halacha is wild."

As a practicing Scientist I agree with, "God is not a scientifc problem, and scientific methods are not capable of solving it."

Great book, super inspriring.

You can see the Chassidism in Heschel; he writes with such an intense love and joy for God. It is a please to share such an experience with him.

Heschel's book 'The Prophets' became an almost instant classic. Simply reading through the chapter titles and subtitles (a partial list of titles appears at the bottom of this review) will give a sense of the breadth and depth of this work.

Heschel sees an urgent need for prophets and prophecy in today's world. 'The things that horrified the prophets are even now daily occurrences all over the world.' In examining the prophecies of Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nathan, &c, he discerns the common strands of the word of God in all that they said and did, and teaches the reader how to discern similar prophetic aspects in today's world.

'The prophet is human, yet he employs note one octave too high for our ears.'

The Bible says, let him who has ears to hear, listen. Alas, ordinarily we do not have the hearing range to be able to give adequate attention and comprehension to today's prophetic voices. Most often the voice of the prophet is one we do not want to hear (look at how the Israelites reacted to their prophets!). Prophets were often seen as doom-sayers and problematic people.

Indeed, every prediction of disaster is in itself an exhortation to repentance. The prophet is sent not only to upbraid, but to 'strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.'

Every prophetic utterance, according to Heschel, has to have within its core a message of hope. Without hope, without a promise to greater community and participation in the love of God, there is no true prophecy. The road may be hard and long, involving pain and even death, but in the end, the prophet's goal is greater life for all.

'To be a prophet is both a distinction and an affliction.'

Being a prophet has never been a chosen profession. Indeed, like Jonah, we'll often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid even the smallest call to prophecy. Prophetic voices are inconvenient, not least of which to the person charged to be the speaker of that voice. Yet the prophet is much more than a mouthpiece.

'The prophet claims to be far more than a messenger. He is a person who stands in the presence of God.'

The prophet becomes one with God in many ways, yet remains a human being. This creates a tension in the prophet, as Heschel writes about Isaiah:

'Indeed, two sympathies dwell in a prophet's soul: sympathy for God and sympathy for the people. Speaking to the people, he is emotionally at one with God; in the presence of God, beholding a vision, he is emotionally at one with the people.'

Yet prophecy has its limits.

'A prophet can give man a new word, but not a new heart.... Prophecy is not God's only instrument. What prophecy fails to bring about, the new covenant will accomplish: the complete transformation of every individual.'

It was the prophet who, long before ideas of political unity and divers peoples living together in community, first conceived of the idea of a unity that binds all human beings together.

Read and prepare to be enlightened, inspired, irritated, and educated.

Chapters include:
- What manner of man is the prophet?
- History
- Chastisement
- Justice
- The Theology of Pathos
- The Philosophy of Pathos
- Anthropopathy
- The Meaning and Mystery of Wrath
- Religion of Sympathy
- Prophecy and Ecstasy
- Prophecy and Poetic Inspiration
- Prophecy and Psychosis (there is a fine line between prophecy and madness, after all!)

'This, then, is the ultimate category of prophetic theology: involvement, attentiveness, concern. Prophetic religion may be defined, not as what man does with his ultimate concern, but rather what man does with God's concern.'

I came away understanding how the Prophets were advancing the education of man and woman to abandon idols and worshiping these graven images. Instead they were telling men to believe in themselves by controlling their emotions and anger by seeking out a larger spiritual presence in the Supreme Being and the precepts they say were created from high above.

The Western World is indeed indebted to Jewish thought, philosophy and attitudes towards social justice. It is time others who wish us harm understand the Jewish Culture is as much as a keystone to Western Civilization as Islam is to the Middle East and Buddhists are to the Orient. Respecting such concepts with tolerance is the work of G-d whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.

One of my favorites Prophets is Elijah. Few knew he was on the brink of suicide suffering from a great depression until he heard words from somewhere telling him he is needed for a greater purpose in life. Even more fascinating was his first reaction. As in most Prophets, he tried to reject his calling; he did not want to listen to the voice. Let alone take up the burden to speak out for social causes that needed changed. Yet, his will was bended by a more powerful force and he ended up saving many from atrocities, curing others, challenging authority that was abusing the people and teaching the world how to treat one another. What I cannot deny is that something changed this man to change us and that is recorded in history!

Whether you are atheist, religious skeptic or outright spiteful towards religion, you will learn about the Prophets who have spoken to G-d. Their lives were real and existed telling us interesting stories whether you are a believer or Non-believer.

I highly recommend this exquisite book of history. I will leave it to you to choose to believe what you wish and desire as always. As for me, I am one day more educated by reading this book and that suits me just fine today.

Central to Judaism are Torah and Talmud--which offer democratic learning systems open to all willing to avail themselves. Heschel uses the great Yiddish writer Mendele Moher Sefarim's description of a typical Eastern European Jewish town--"where Torah was studied from time immemorial; where practically all the inhabitants are scholars, where the Synagogue or the House of Study is full of people of all classes busily engaged in studies, townfolk as well as young men from afar...where at dusk, between twilight and evening prayers, artisans and other simple folk gather around the tables to listen to a discourse on the great books of Torah, to interpretations of Scripture, to readings from theological, homiletical or ethical writings...., where on the Sabbath and the holidays, near the Holy Ark, at the reading stand, sermons are spoken that kindle the hearts of the Jewish people for the Divine Presence, sermons seasoned with parables and aphorisms of the sages, in a voice and a tone that heartens one's soul, that melts all limbs, that penetrates the whole being." Study included all: Indeed, a book preserved at New York's Yivo Institute bears the stamp of the Berditshev Society of Wood Choppers for the Study of Mishnah, the earliest part of Talmud.

A Christian scholar who visited Warsaw during World War I saw many parked coaches with no drivers in sight. In his country, he wrote, "I would have known where to look for them. A young Jewish boy showed me the way: in a courtyard, on the second floor, was the shtible of Jewish drivers. It consisted of two rooms: one filled with Talmud volumes, the other a room for prayer. All the drivers were involved in fervent study and religious discussion.... It was then that I... became convinced that all the professions, the bakers, the shoemakers, etc., have their own shtible in the Jewish district; and every free moment which can be taken off from work is given to the study of Torah. And when they get together in intimate groups, one urges the other, 'Sog mir a shtickle Torah--Tell me a little Torah."

European Jews studied in their own language--Yiddish--born of what Heschel calls "a will to make intelligible, to explain and simplify the tremendous complexities of the sacred literature. Thus there arose, as though spontaneously, a mother tongue, a direct expression of feeling, a mode of speech without ceremony or artifice, a language that speaks itself without taking devious paths, a tongue that has maternal intimacy and warmth. In this language, you say 'beauty' and mean 'spirituality;' you say 'kindness' and mean 'holiness.' Few languages can be spoken so simply and directly; there are but few languages which lend themselves with such difficulty to falseness. No wonder Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav would sometimes choose Yiddish to pour out his heart to God."

Heschel's words could easily define the Jewish faith itself. The world he describes was lost in the Holocaust, but the faith was not. This book rekindles it. Alyssa A. Lappen

Not just about Hasidism, this thin but profound volume, written in such beautifully poetic prose, covers the different types of Eastern European Jews in a way that informs and inspires at the same time. Rabbi Heschel explain so clearly how Jewish spirituality is expressd, not in visible cathedrals, art, or monuments, but in timeless words and values as they are expressed in community through both worship and daily life.

Originally written in 1949, it appears that the author, himself a Holocaust survivor, intended this book to be a memorial to a lost world. Yet 50 years later, the book is as fresh and inspiring as the day it was written. The physical Jewish world he describes may no longer be there in Eastern Europe, but the inner world of religious Jews continues to grow and flourish so that I, as a Hasid in the 90's, can read this book and say, "Yes, this describes my inner life, too!" .

Perhaps, as Heschel himself suggests, this Eastern European "golden age" of Jewish spirituality (his words) can now be fully appreciated by the world. An excellent, EXCELLENT, book! Double 5-stars!

An example: "Life passes on in proximity to the sacred, and it is this proximity that endows existence with ultimate significance. In our relation to the immediate we touch upon the most distant. Even the satisfaction of physical needs can be a sacred act. Perhaps the essential message of Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite."

This perception of the infinite in the finite is what is called "sacramental imagination" in the Christian tradition ... which is to say while Heschel is fully within the Judaic tradition, one need not be of his tradition to learn from him.

Add this to your must read list.

In this now-classic book, first published in 1951, Heschel shows how the Sabbath is a "palace in time," a carefully structured retreat from the hustle and bustle of the marketplace. The laws of the Sabbath are the spiritual architecture with which the "palace in time" is built. Once you understand the blueprint for that palace, then all of the restrictions and to-do things on the Sabbath make sense.

Heschel was the first Jewish theologian (as far as I know) to explain how traditional Jews live more in sacred time than in sacred space. While other religions have devoted their energy to building physical temples and cathedrals in sacred places, Jews have erected sanctuaries in the form of sacred days. Time, like physical space, has a varied texture to it. Just as there are differences between mountains and oceans, so, too, are there are there differences between the Sabbath and the ordinary days of the week. The Sabbath is more than just a secular "day off." It's a specific creation made by God in the very dawn of Creation. The Sabbath is as real as the physical things we see and touch everyday in the natural world. But in order to experience the specialness of the Sabbath, one must step inside the structure of its special rules and observances -- to enter the "palace in time."

This book is beautifully-written in poetic prose that will inspire both Jews and non-Jews. It goes in and out of print with various publsihers, so, if it is not available on Amazon right now, track down a used copy or borrow it from the library. You will be very glad you did! s

As I've grown older, I've been less able to stomach theology because of its over- emphasis on and substandard usage of metaphysics. A.J. Heschel's style of theology avoids such errors; thus, I can read him in order to ponder my life's meaning instead of my logic's implication.

The book is a collection of essays, not a few of which found their greatest impact in the late 50's and early 60's. Still, some of his observations on race and nationalism are such that they bear directly on us today. His sort of outside-America view of our problems allows us to see ourselves from a new perspective. This method of seeing a culture from a new (and unexamined) perspective works with individuals as well: this is who you think you are; this is how others have outlined you, but here is what's really at issue.

The great thing about Heschel is that he can usually sniff out the most subtle but important issues in both national cultures and individual lifestyles. He is theologian qua psychologist and theologian qua sociologist. Yet I'm satisfied when he exercises either of these roles. I think you will be as well.

The book is not a heavy hitter. (He has other ones, however, which are as deep as one might want about the meaning of life in a world in which God exists and subtly interacts with humanity.) But it touches on many of the themes most important to Heschel personally. If you've never read any of Heschel, and you want a good sampler of what guided his thinking, this is a fine book with which to start. There's discussion on Maimonides, the founding of the modern nation of Israel, and humanity's position in a God-designed Cosmos. The book is a quick read, and broken into manageable, one-sitting chapters, so it would be easy to read nightly for a month or so, with profit to the soul, or at least to the brain.