Friday, December 08, 2006
more of Heschel
I cannot remember when I've been so eager to get back to a lecture. Monday will be the second of three lectures at Temple Israel by John C. Merkle. One of Herschel's best known books is God in Search of Man. Isn't it hard to believe sometimes that God could really be reaching out to me? -- wanting to speak to me? Here are just a few sentences from the book:
Resistance to the idea of biblical revelation comes from a popular conception. Of one thing we seem to be sure: God dwells at an absolute distance from humanity, abiding in deep silence. Is it meaningful, then, to speak of communication between God and human beings?
There is such a distance between the sun and a flower. Can a flower, worlds away from the source of energy, attain a perception of its origin? Can a drop of water ever soar to behold, even for a moment, the stream's distant source? In prophecy it is as if the sun communed with the flower, as if the source sent out a current to reach a drop.
If there are moments in which genius speaks for all people, why should we deny that there are moments in which a voice speaks for God? that the source of goodness communicates its way to the human mind?
True, it seems incredible that we should hold in our gaze words containing a breath of God. What we forget is that at this moment we breathe what God is creating, that right in front of us we behold works that reflect God's infinite wisdom, God's infinite goodness.
Resistance to the idea of biblical revelation comes from a popular conception. Of one thing we seem to be sure: God dwells at an absolute distance from humanity, abiding in deep silence. Is it meaningful, then, to speak of communication between God and human beings?
There is such a distance between the sun and a flower. Can a flower, worlds away from the source of energy, attain a perception of its origin? Can a drop of water ever soar to behold, even for a moment, the stream's distant source? In prophecy it is as if the sun communed with the flower, as if the source sent out a current to reach a drop.
If there are moments in which genius speaks for all people, why should we deny that there are moments in which a voice speaks for God? that the source of goodness communicates its way to the human mind?
True, it seems incredible that we should hold in our gaze words containing a breath of God. What we forget is that at this moment we breathe what God is creating, that right in front of us we behold works that reflect God's infinite wisdom, God's infinite goodness.
