Jewish Religious Philosophy

A Continuation

Schedule

Tuesdays … 12:15 PM

2 November … Abraham Heschel (1907 – 1972)

9 November … Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677)

23 November … Moses Mendelsshon (1729 – 1786)

Abraham Heschel

The Prophets

Abraham Heschel(1907 - 1972)

Philosopher, Theologian

Abraham Heschel• Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American

theologian, educator, and philosopher who sought to build a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of ancient Jewish tradition.Born … Warsaw, Poland 1907PhD Philosophy … University of Berlin 1933Professor … University of Frankfurt 1937Institute of Judaistic Studies … Warsaw 1938Institute for Jewish Learning … London 1939Hebrew Union College … Cincinnati 1940Jewish Theological Seminary … New York 1945Died … New York 1972

Major Writings

• Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion 1951• The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man 1951• Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism 1954• God in Search of Man 1955• The Prophets 1962 • Who Is Man? 1965• The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence 1966

In addition to his scholarly and philosophical writings, Heschelauthored several works on Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

A God of Pathos

• According to Heschel, the individual learns about God not by reason and intellect, but through experience, divine revelation, and sacred deeds, all of which enable the individual to form a relationship -a "leap of action" rather than of faith - with God.

• Heschel’s understanding of God is based on a "theology of pathos," in which God is a god of pathos …“revealed in a personal and intimate relation to the world ... He [God] is also moved and affected by what happens in the worldand reacts accordingly.”

God is affected by the world.

A God of Pathos

• The presence of God speaks through the manifestations of history.

• Pathos is not an attribute of God … but a situation in history ... transitory.

Pathos … to suffer … as a passive victim.Experience evoking pity or compassion.

To Heschel … demonstrating emotion.

An Emotional God ?• From earliest times, the philosopher felt that God could not be

affected by emotion.

• Philo, (1st cent Jewish philosopher), as an example, thought that God could not be affected by anything outside of himself … God had no emotions. But … the Hebrew scriptures are filled with the emotions of God … jealousy … wrath … anger … love … compassion …

• Is God’s emotion in scripture simply a human invention … an anthropomorphism?

• Does emotion imply “change” (before I was angry … now I’m not). And if God is emotional what does this say about his impassibility … immutability?

• Pathos denotes a change in the inner life of a being.

The Question of Emotion

• In the scripture … God cares.

• Is God’s caring rational … or emotional?

• Reason … capacity for objectivity … in impersonal terms.

• Emotion … “is pure receptivity, an impression involving neither cognition nor representation of the object …”

• Is there reason in the emotional life?

The Prophets(1962)

“What drove me to study the prophets? In the academic environment in which I spent my student years philosophy had become an isolated, self-subsisting, self-indulgent entity … encouraging suspicion instead of love

of wisdom.”

Why the Prophets ?

• Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of great orations … and great mansions of the mind … the prophet takes us to the slums. He speaks endlessly about widows and orphans … the corruptions of governments and judges … to the affairs of the market place.

• The things that horrified the prophets over 2700 years ago are now daily occurrences … around the corner … and all over the world.

The prophets speak to today.

The Prophets • “Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as

hysteria. We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely grow indignant or overly excited.To the prophets even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions.”

• The prophet has a “sensitivity” to the presence of God in the world … not an impersonal knowledge. The prophet has “insight” into God … not a union with God.

• The prophet is not a mystic.

How does the prophet speak for God ?

Which God ?• How can God who we associate with absolute majesty …

unmitigated grandeur … with omnipotence and perfection …be affected by his creatures ?– God as … First Cause … Unmoved Mover … The Good

… Source of Being.

• If God is a Being of absolute self-sufficiency, than the entire world outside of Him can in no way be relevant to Him. Did God lack something … before creation ?

• To Deists of modern times … God’s transcendence implies His complete detachment and apartness from the world.

Heschel’s Response

…to the philosophical argument

Heschel’s ResponseOntology … the study of “being.”

• In Greek philosophy … “being” itself is the ultimate.

• In Jewish and Christian thought … the “source of being” is the ultimate.

• “Biblical ontology does not separate being from doing. What is, acts.

The God of Israel is a God who acts, a God of mighty deeds. The Bible does not say how he is, but how he acts.

It speaks of His acts of pathos and of his acts in history; it is not as “true being” that God is conceived, but as semper agens [always effective].

Here the basic category is action rather than immobility. Movement, creation of nature, acts within history rather than absolute transcendence and detachment from the events of history, are theattributes of the Supreme Being.”

Heschel’s Argument… based on

Hebrew Scriptures

Heschel’s Response

• “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth …”(Gen 1:1)

• The essential message here is not that the “world” had a cause but that the world is not the ultimate. Before there was a world … being … as we know it … there was God.Therefore, God is not “a being” as we understand being … but before being … the ultimate cause of being … One who transcends being.

• This is not philosophy … it transcends philosophy.

Heschel’s Response

• We are not concerned with “what created the universe” … but “WHO created the universe.” Then we can ask why … and move on from there.

• Our earthly life and being is finite … in the end … God will transcend his creation. To share in his life means responding to him in this life.

• We cannot fail to be concerned about the issue.

Heschel’s Argument

• If God is a Being of absolute self-sufficiency, than the entire world outside of Him can in no way be relevant to Him.

• But … Biblical religion begins with God addressing mankind …with his entering into covenant with his creatures. God is in need of man. A Supreme Being, apathetic and indifferent to man, may denote an idea, but not the living God of Israel.

• A God of passionate concern … not contemplative survey.

The God of the Prophets

• “An idea or a theory of God can easily become a substitute for God, impressive to the mind when God as a living reality is absent from the soul.”

• The prophets had no theory of God … what they had was an understanding.

• God reacts to the world intimately and subjectively.

• The Prophets speak of a God not of infinite wisdom … infinite power … but … of infinite concern.

The God of the Prophets

• God’s pathos adds a new dimension to humankind’s existence … whatever man does affects not only his own life … but also God’s existence insofar as it is directed toward mankind.

• The biblical ideal is not to present God as an abstraction … an idea … but the fullness of the divine Being; the certainty that the Creator is also the Redeemer, that the Lord is the Lord of history.

The God of the Prophets• If God is truly “Wholly Other” … a strange … weird … uncanny

Being … shrouded in darkness … then perhaps religion has to be cultic and unique in order to be authentic … but …– A response of mankind to the unknown.

• If God is involved … is near … and concerned … than perhaps religion is meant to be a response to God’s concerns.– Directed by God.

• If the prophets felt that God were only “Wholly Other” … than they would not have openly attacked the sacred ... which the people claimed to revere.

• For the prophets, justice was the supreme manifestation of God. Justice will decide our success in accomplishing His grand design.

Searching For GodA Babylonian prayer …

• I myself was thinking only of prayer and supplications: supplication was my concern, sacrifice my rule; the day of worship of the gods was my delight, the day of my goddesses’ procession was my profit and my wealth …

• Who has learnt to understand the will of the gods in heaven, the god’s plan, full of wisdom, who can comprehend it? When have stupid mortals ever understood the ways of the gods?

But maybe … “stupid mortals” … can understand what God wants from his creatures !

Heschel’s Argument… based on

Hebrew ScripturesHosea

The Emotional GodFrom Hosea:The people have sinned against their God … idolatry … and God is angry.

• Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. … I saw your ancestors. But they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved. (Hosea 7:10)

• Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal; there I came to hate them.Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more … (Hosea 9:15)

• I will pour out my wrath like water. (Hosea 5:10)

The Emotional GodFrom Hosea:But God still loves his people … from long ago …

• When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

• The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba’als, and offering incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.

I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. (Hosea 11:1-5)

The Emotional GodFrom Hosea:• “… they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find him; he has

withdrawn from them.” (Hosea 5:6)

• “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress they seek me …” (Hosea 5:15)

• “How can I give you up, O E'phraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! …

• My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy E'phraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.” (Hosea 11:8-9)

In this moment of anger, God does not intend to execute his wrath upon the people … but intends that his wrath should be annulled by the repentance and love of his people.

The God Of The Prophets Cares

“To the prophets, sin is not an ultimate, irreducible or independent condition, but rather a disturbance in the relationship between God and man … a condition that can be surmounted by man’s return and God’s forgiveness.

“The disparity between God and the world is overcome in God, not man.”

“A purely ethical monotheism in which God, the guardian of the moral order, keeps the world subject to the law, would restrict the scope of God …”

The IssueThe God of the philosophers …the God who is almighty … omniscient … omnipresent … impassible and immutable …

seems to be in contradiction to the emotional God of the Prophets.

Does God feel angst for his people ?

Yet again we face the dichotomy of the transcendent and the immanent in God …Wholly Other … intimately personal.

Are the views of the religious philosophers (theologians) … and the views of the prophets concerning God’s relationship with his people compatible ??

Heschel’s Argument… based on

Hebrew ScripturesIsaiah

God’s Response

• God speaks.

“I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged! Why do you seek further beatings? (Isaiah 1:2-5)

• The people of God have been chastised before … but they don’t act as if they understand the lesson.

No Ritual Without Justice• God’s anger grows …

“Hear the word of the Lord …What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices …I have had enough of burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.”(Isaiah 1:10-14)

• God no longer wants the sacrifices … festivals … and rituals that he previously demanded … Why ??

No Ritual Without Justice• Religious ritual … symbolism … can become an end in itself when

God as a living reality is absent from the soul.

No sacrifice … no burnt offerings … but what about the Law?

From Genesis …– Then Noah built an altar to the LORD … and offered burnt

offerings on the altar. And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor … (Gen 8:20-21)

– Why the difference … Noah’s heart was pure …

Intent of the heart is critical

It’s Your Choice• God’s threat …

“When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for thewidow. (Isaiah 1:15-16)

“If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:19)

• The choice is yours.

Chastisement“How the faithful city has become a whore!She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her - but now murderers!Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts.They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them.” (Isaiah 1:21)

• Jerusalem has fallen away.

“Therefore says the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel:Ah, I will pour out my wrath … I will turn my hand against you …Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together …” (Isaiah 1:24-25)

• God’s wrath is coming … but there is still a chance …

God’s Wrath“Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass

sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them; the mountains quaked, and their corpses were like refuse in the streets.

For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.” (Isaiah 5:24-25)

• Divine justice ?

To What End?

“The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless:‘Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting flames?’” (Isaiah 33:14)

• The people know that the punishment is justified … that it is severe … and that it cannot be endured … but even with this realization …mankind does not repent … does not return to the Lord.

• God wants to be as one with his people but his people don’t seem to care.

• Can mankind properly respond ??

God’s ResponseIn this piece (Isaiah 1) … God …

• Condemns ritualistic practices …

• Says he will not hear his people when they call upon him …

• Calls for repentance …

• Promises a righteous kingdom …

• Threatens destruction on the people who have “forgotten him.”

God is emotional … with sorrow in his anger. It is an anger based in love.

MicahMicah … like Amos, Hosea and Isaiah before him is tormented by what will happen to his people … but knows that God’s anger is justified.

“Among the great insights Micah has bequeathed to us is how to accept and to bear the anger of God. The strength of acceptancecomes from the awareness that we have sinned against Him and from the certainty that anger does not mean God’s abandonment of man forever.

His anger passes, His faithfulness goes on forever. There is compassion in His anger; when we fall, we rise.”

Rational Anger“We are moved by a soft religiosity and would like to think that God is lovely, tender, and familiar, as if faith were a source of comfort, but not readiness for martyrdom.”

“Those of us to whom the crimes of the world are mere incidents, and the agony of the poor is one of the many facts oflife, may be inclined to describe the God of the prophets as stern, arbitrary, inscrutable, even unaccountable.But the thought of God and indifference to other people’s suffering are mutually exclusive.”

“Since justice is His nature, love, which would disregard the evil deeds of man, would contradict His nature.”

The Evil of Indifference

• “There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous.

• When the legitimate rights of the poor are violated … this is a form of cruelty.

END

Heschel’s Argument… based on

Hebrew ScripturesAmos

The Prophet Amos

• When the prophet Amos appeared in the Kingdom of Israel (8th cent BCE) there was pride … splendor in the land …elegance in the cities … and might in the palaces.

• The rich had summer and winter homes. They planted vineyards and had sumptuous feasts.

• But … at the same time there was no justice in the land. The poor were afflicted … exploited … and even sold into slavery.

A People Without Compassion“I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals –they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken inpledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.” (Amos 2:6-8)

The people had no loyalty to God … and no pity for their fellow man.

Ritual Sacrifice“Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them;and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like anever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:22-24)

Things had gotten so bad in the Kingdom of Israel during this time of prosperity that God makes it clear that he doesn’t even want the sacrifices … that His own law demands (in the Torah).

Prayers and supplications are good and acceptable … only if the heart is pure … and the intention is righteous.

Amos’ MessageThere is a living God who cares … passionately (pathos). Justice

is more than an idea. The covenant is more than a contract … a legal document of obligations … it is a guarantee of mutual concern.

God is pained when he sees the people he loves abuse one another.

God simply wants justice …

Amos’ MessageGod threatens punishment … but … Heschel believes that it is only a

threat … why ??

The long tale of infliction sets forth clearly the futility of chastisement.

The soul seems incapable of remorse. However, if hunger, drought, blight, locust, pestilence, slaying of sons, and destruction of cities have had no effect, what should the next action be?

Total destruction … annihilation?

No … Another more bitter punishment would contradict the essence …and love of God.