Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays

by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Book Overview

This first collection of Heschel's essays - compiled, edited and with an introduction by his daughter Susannah Heschel, is a stunning reminder of the virtuosity of one of the most well respected minds in Judaic studies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374524955
• ISBN13: 9780374524951
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Awesome Heschel

Although I have read many of Heschel's books, this one is the most precise and compact collection of his thoughts and wisdom.

There is no limit to this man's understanding.

I knew Heschel's spiritual power. But, these essays demonstrate his understanding of the world and its need for grand thinking and courage that only a few like Heschel are have been able to muster. This man is a treasure. He just may be what God wants of us.

A Vital Work

This collection of essays is a bold and intimate portrait of Heschel's Judaism and what it means to us as American Jews.

An Excellent Work!

A warm yet intellectual compilation of that great thinker. To the Heschel Scholar, it once again proves the undeniable fact, that though he was liberal in his political views, his views on Judaism were deeply rooted in his pious Chassidic ancestry. This book like Heschel's classic "The Earth Is The Lord's" makes you wonder if Heschel - though a faculty member at JTS, is to be considered a "Conservative Jew"? or perhaps it is time to acknowledge that he may have been an Orthodox one after all. All in all a wonderful, warm book for all people of all persuasions.

This book fills out the human side of Heschel's thought

This is a wonderful book of short essays, speeches, articles and other writings that helps to fill out the more human, more real-world perspective of the man and his approach to Jewish living. You will not find the theological depth of his writing here, but you will find in these words his response to the world as it happened around him. Whether he is dealing with strictly Jewish issues or interfaith or racial or the Vietnam war, he carries his consistent approach that the world must be faced constantly as God's challenge to us and our opportunity to find God. These essays are approachable and direct. While they do not serve as an introduction to Heschel's core thought, they bring the man himself into relief and let those of us who know him only through his writing to glimpse the real Heschel at work and in life.