a. j. heschel’s rabbinic theology as a response to the holocaust

A. J. Heschel’s Rabbinic Theology as a Response to the Holocaust

Eisen, Robert, 1960-

Modern Judaism, Volume 23, Number 3, October 2003, pp. 211-225 (Article)

Published by Oxford University Press

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Robert Eisen

A. J. HESCHEL’S RABBINIC THEOLOGY ASA RESPONSE TO THE HOLOCAUST

Until recently, scholars have assumed that A. J. Heschel did not grapple

seriously with the Holocaust, and for many that assessment has been

indicative of a critical weakness in his thought.1 Yet of late this view

has begun to change. Edward Kaplan has argued that Heschel formu-

lated at least an outline of a theological position on the Holocaust that

can be discerned if one reads his writings carefully. Morris Faierstein

has shown that Heschel addresses the Holocaust in his Yiddish works,

writings that are generally overlooked by scholars evaluating Heschel’s

views on the Holocaust.2 No one claims that Heschel formulated a com-

prehensive theology of the Holocaust of the kind that we find in writers

such as Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, and Eliezer Berkovits.

Nonetheless, there is enough material to refute the view that Heschel

simply turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.

In this article, I would like to extend the claims of Kaplan and

Faierstein by arguing that the Holocaust informs Heschel’s analysis of

rabbinic theology in his two-volume work Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-

Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot (The Torah from Heaven in the Mirror of the

Generations).3 The thesis of this work is that early rabbinic theology is

defined by two schools of thought, that of R. Ishmael and that of

R. Akiva. It is generally assumed that, as the title suggests, the main

focus of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot is revela-

tion and that Heschel’s goal is to show that rabbinic views are by no

means uniform on this important issue, for here too R. Ishmael and

R. Akiva have widely different positions. I have no desire to challenge

this reading. However, to my knowledge, what has not been com-

mented on is that Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot

is dedicated to Heschel’s relatives who perished in the Holocaust.

Moreover, the dedication is followed by a suggestive midrashic source

from Tanhuma that reads as follows:

“The Rock!—His deeds are perfect, / Yea, all His ways are just” (Deut. 32:4):

If another person had said this, they would have derided him saying: How

does this one know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He? However, Moses

our rabbi—of whom it is said, “He made His ways known to Moses, / His

deeds to the children of Israel” (Ps. 103:7)—he is fit to proclaim, “The Rock!—

His deeds are perfect, / Yea, all His ways are just.”4

DOI: 10.1093/mj/kjg018

Modern Judaism 23(3), Oxford University Press 2003; all rights reserved.

212 Robert Eisen

This source, which emphasizes God’s justice, is clearly tied to the

book’s dedication. Heschel appears to be telling us that, even in the

face of the Holocaust, this principle must be supported.

The question here is whether the opening dedication and accom-

panying midrashic citation have any connection to the theology of the

rabbis, which Heschel goes on to explicate in the body of Torah Min

ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot. My thesis is that it does. I will

attempt to show that a significant portion of the first volume of Torah

Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, which deals with the issue

of divine justice and human suffering, is an attempt on Heschel’s part

to grapple with the Holocaust and that the dedication and midrashic

citation tie in directly with that section of the work.5

I would like to begin by summarizing in greater detail what others

have said about Heschel’s theological views on the Holocaust. Kaplan

provides the most comprehensive treatment of this issue in his recent

book, Holiness in Words: Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Poetics of Piety, in a

chapter entitled “Confronting the Holocaust: God in Exile.”6 Kaplan

opens his discussion with the admission that in most of his writings

Heschel does not deliberately focus on the Holocaust. Nonetheless,

Kaplan claims that Heschel struggled with the Holocaust from the

1940s onward and that this struggle is evident with a careful exami-

nation of his works. Kaplan goes on to show that the first phase of

Heschel’s attempt to grapple with the Holocaust is in the realm of activ-

ism. In the 1940s, Heschel tried to draw the attention of American

Jewish leaders to the plight of European Jews and was bitterly disap-

pointed to find that, despite his best efforts, interest in this cause was

lacking. More relevant for our concerns is the fact that in the same

period Heschel began to formulate a theological response to the Holo-

caust. In a number of places in his writings in the 1940s and 1950s,

Heschel intimates that responsibility for the Holocaust lies with human

beings, not with God. According to Heschel, Western civilization had

become increasingly callous in its treatment of human beings, it had

lost its direction morally and spiritually, and the Holocaust was an inev-

itable outcome of this process of deterioration.7

Kaplan argues that these reflections are crystallized in Heschel’s

Man Is Not Alone, in a chapter entitled “The Hiding of God.”8 Although

this chapter deals with the problem of evil in general, Heschel’s con-

cern for the Holocaust lies just beneath the surface of his remarks here.

In the opening paragraphs of the chapter, Heschel raises the question

of God’s whereabouts in an era of so much suffering:

For us, contemporaries and survivors of history’s most terrible horrors, it is

impossible to meditate about the compassion of God without asking: where is

God?

A. J. Heschel’s Response to the Holocaust 213

Emblazoned over the gates of the world in which we live is the escutcheon

of the demons. The mark of Cain on the face of man has come to overshadow

the likeness of God. There has never been so much distress, agony, and terror.

It is often sinful for the sun to shine. At no time has the earth been so soaked

with blood. Fellow-men have turned out to be evil spirits, monstrous and

weird. Does not history look like a stage for the dance of might and evil—with

man’s wits too feeble to separate the two and God neither directing the play

or indifferent to it?9

Heschel answers this challenge with the claim that the real culprit

is man, not God: “The major folly of this view seems to lie in its shifting

responsibility for man’s plight from man to God, in accusing the Invisi-

ble though iniquity is ours. Rather than admit our own guilt, we seek,

like Adam, to shift the blame upon someone else. For generations we

have been investing life with ugliness and now we wonder why we do

not succeed.”10 Later on, the same view is stated even more forcefully:

“Man was the first to hide himself from God after having eaten of the

forbidden fruit, and is still hiding. The will of God is to be here, mani-

fest and near; but when the doors of his world are slammed on Him,

His truth betrayed, His will defied, He withdraws, leaving man to him-

self. God did not depart of His own volition; He was expelled. God is

in exile.”11 Thus, not only are human beings responsible for the troubles

the world has experienced; they have, by their actions, forced God into

exile.12

With the theological problem of the Holocaust defined, Kaplan

goes on to show that Heschel’s response to that problem is grounded

in the basic principles of his theology. Throughout his writings,

Heschel critiques the notion ubiquitous in Western culture that man

is the subject and God is the object and that our religious quest consists

in our search for Him. It is this ego-centered way of thinking that

Heschel feels is the root cause of human evil in the modern period.

For Heschel, the truth is precisely the reverse. We must think of God

as the subject and humans as the object and that it is God who is in

search of us. We must recenter subjectivity on God in order to see

ourselves as the objects of God’s concern. God’s inner life is defined

by His pathos, in that He is emotionally involved with human beings.

Once we see things from this perspective, we will be inspired to live up

to God’s expectations and cultivate holiness in our day-to-day lives. Our

response to the Holocaust must therefore be to encourage God to

come out of exile and allow Him to enter our lives once again as the

God who seeks our companionship.13

Heschel’s response to the Holocaust is alluded to in the critical

chapter on the hiding of God in Man Is Not Alone. After discussing

God’s exile in the face of human evil, Heschel proposes the following

solution: “Our task is to open our souls to Him, to let Him again enter

214 Robert Eisen

our deeds. We have been taught that grammar of contact with God;

we have been taught by the Baal Shem that His remoteness is an illu-

sion capable of being dispelled by our faith. There are many doors

though which we have to pass in order to enter the palace, and none

of them is locked.”14 Heschel is well aware of the difficulty of maintain-

ing faith in God in the face of evil. Nonetheless, he stands firm in his

belief that such faith is still possible:

There are times when defeat is all we face, when horror is all that faith must

bear. And yet, in spite of anguish, in spite of terror, we are never overcome

with ultimate dismay. “Even that it would please God to destroy me; that He

would let loose His hand and cut me off, then should I yet have comfort, yea,

I would exult even in my pain; let Him not spare me, for I have not denied

the words of the holy One” (Job 6:9–10). Wells gush forth in the deserts of

despair. This is the guidance of faith: “Lie in the dust and gorge on faith.”15

Support for Kaplan’s understanding of Heschel’s response to the

Holocaust can be found in Heschel’s work The Prophets. This work is

dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, and there is undoubtedly

theological significance to this dedication. It is in The Prophets that

Heschel lays out his notion of divine pathos in greatest detail, and it

would seem that, by dedicating this work to the victims of the Holo-

caust, Heschel is telling us that the best way to combat the evil of the

Holocaust is to open ourselves up to the God of pathos who is in search

of us.16

In a recent article, Faierstein complements Kaplan’s discussion.

Faierstein argues that Heschel did not produce a comprehensive theol-

ogy of the Holocaust because he, like other traditional Jewish thinkers

who had come from Europe before the war, was deeply shaken by the

failure of Western civilization in which he had put his hope. In this

respect, Heschel was similar to thinkers such as Joseph B. Soloveitchik

and Alexander Altmann, who were of a provenance similar to that of

Heschel and whose theological writings also do not engage the Holo-

caust.17 Faierstein also reminds us that it is unfair to fault Heschel for

not producing a Holocaust theology because in the period in which he

was writing his theology, no one had; Holocaust theology came into

vogue only in the late 1960s toward the end of Heschel’s life.18 But

Faierstein goes on to show that if Heschel did not produce a compre-

hensive Holocaust theology in his English writings, he had a great deal

to say about it in his Yiddish works. It is in Yiddish that Heschel pro-

duced elegies and eulogies in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

This form of literature was chosen by Heschel for expressing his feel-

ings about the Holocaust because in the 1940s and 1950s there was a

growing body of Yiddish Holocaust literature in the form of elegies

and eulogies produced by American survivors of that catastrophe, and

Heschel saw himself as part of this group.19


Against this background, let us now proceed to Torah Min ha-Sha-

mayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot to see if it may enlighten us about

Heschel’s thinking on the Holocaust. I will begin by reviewing the cen-

tral thesis of this work. As mentioned above, there are, according

to Heschel, two schools of thought, that of R. Ishmael and that of

R. Akiva, that stand at the center of rabbinic theology. Ishmael’s ap-

proach toward theological matters is broadly rationalistic and is charac-

terized by sobriety, restraint, and modesty. Underlying this way of

thinking is the belief that there is a great gulf between human beings

and God that cannot be easily overcome because the limitations of

the human mind do not allow it to probe matters beyond this world.

Akiva’s approach is at the opposite pole from that of Ishmael, in that

it places confidence in human intuition to gain insight where human

reason cannot. This way of thinking is defined by imagination, passion,

and boldness of spirit. The premise here is that God is close at hand

and, thus, human beings can indeed penetrate the mysteries of the

divine realm and have an intimate relationship with Him. In short,

whereas Ishmael’s rationalism constrains him to adopt a cautious ap-

proach toward religious experience and recognize human limitations

in understanding and experiencing the divine, Akiva’s intuitive ap-

proach is one of unbridled passion that soars toward the heavens with

the confidence that one can become intimate with the divine.20

For Heschel, the significance of these schools is far-reaching. First,

they are key for understanding all of rabbinic theology. Heschel holds

that most aggadic statements in rabbinic literature reflecting on theo-

logical concerns can be classified as belonging to one of the two

schools.21 The schools of Ishmael and Akiva are therefore the two focal

points for organizing the entirety of early rabbinic thought.22 Heschel

goes even further with the claim that the entire history of Jewish

thought is defined by the two schools. He tells us that the approaches

of Akiva and Ishmael have roots in Jewish traditions that predate the

rabbis—though Heschel never elaborates on this claim.23 He also argues

that the two schools have defined the direction of Jewish thought for

the rest of its history.24 Thus, the bifurcation of Jewish thought into

philosophical and mystical schools in the medieval period can be traced

respectively to Ishmael and Akiva. Heschel notes, however, that it is

Akiva’s school that has become dominant in later Judaism while that

of Ishmael has receded in importance.25

What is important for our concerns is Heschel’s understanding of

the differences between Ishmael and Akiva with respect to the question

of evil and suffering, an issue that is examined in sections 5 through 7

in the first volume of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-

Dorot.26 Section 5 is given the general title “The Doctrine of the Shekhi-

nah,” but its primary focus is on a disagreement between Ishmael and

216 Robert Eisen

Akiva regarding the effect that human suffering has on God. Heschel

opens this discussion with the claim that one of the principles of Jewish

faith is that God is merciful and therefore participates in the suffering

of the Jewish people. According to Heschel, this idea is the doctrine of

divine pathos that, as he claims throughout his writings, originates with

the biblical prophets.27

Heschel goes on to argue that R. Akiva gives an important new

twist to this conception by claiming that God Himself actually suffers

with the Jewish people during times of persecution. Although the

prophets believed that God was emotionally involved in Israel’s tribula-

tions, it was an involvement that still assumed a certain distance be-

tween God and His people, in that God is the observer who sympa-

thizes with their struggles. For Akiva, God becomes emotionally

involved in the suffering of Israel in a far more personal and intimate

way, in that suffering affects His very essence. It is as if God Himself is

wounded by the troubles experienced by His people. In Akiva’s view,

God therefore does not weep for the Jewish people but with them. Con-

sequently, Akiva believed that God’s salvation of Israel is not just for

Israel’s sake but for His own. This explains Akiva’s opinion that the

messianic redemption will come even if the Jews are not worthy. God,

after all, has Himself to save, not just His people. Akiva’s thinking here

follows naturally from his overall approach, which narrows the gap be-

tween God and human beings. Because God is close to Israel, He Him-

self will experience its pain as if it were His own.28

Heschel argues that Ishmael was unable to accept Akiva’s approach

because his rationalism forced him to interpret biblical anthropomor-

phisms nonliterally in order to preserve God’s dignity as a Deity exalted

above human beings. The notion that God suffers with the Jewish peo-

ple or is somehow in need of their help is therefore unthinkable to

him. Thus, when God desires to save Israel from her suffering, it is out

of loyalty to the covenant that He has with His people, not because of

some personal need on God’s part. It is a matter of will, not emotion.29

The distinction between Akiva and Ishmael is encapsulated in the

following passage:

In the study hall of R. Akiva, they grasped the connection between the Holy

One, blessed be He, and Israel as spiritual participation; as if to say, He is tied

to Israel with the bonds of love, participates in her pain, and is redeemed with

her salvation. This connection is one of those things that is concealed. In con-

trast to this, other sages understood this connection as a moral imperative; as if

to say, He is constrained by His word and the oath which He made with the

forefathers and that He is faithful to the covenant which He made with them.

This connection is one of will and is from without. The first viewpoint empha-

sizes divine pathos, a connection in terms of event; the second viewpoint em-

phasizes the covenant, a connection in terms of that which is fixed [keva’]. The

former is something in the soul, the latter something in the will. The former


sees a connection to Israel as she is, the latter sees a connection to Israel by

virtue of the merit of the forefathers.30

In a subsequent passage, Heschel grapples with an obvious theolog-

ical difficulty in Akiva’s position: “Does this teaching not diminish the

image [of God] and place limits on the belief in the Creator being all

powerful? Even worse: does this not mean that the God of Israel, who

gives strength and fortitude to the people, needs Israel to give Him

strength?”31 If God is personally affected by Jewish suffering, if He is a

Being who is empowered and weakened by human action, then it

would seem that the doctrine of divine omnipotence has been critically

and unacceptably compromised.

Heschel’s response is that one must be aware of the time in which

Akiva lived:

One cannot understand this teaching with the equanimity of spirit of a person

standing outside peering in. . . . The sages of that generation saw what others

did not see: the destruction of Jerusalem, the humiliation of the community

of Israel, the desecration of God’s name before the nations of the world. [It

was] an era in which there was anger and sorrow, in which there were evil

thoughts, and [in which] the pillars of heaven were collapsing. A people which

was shattered by the nations of the world was liable to shatter the [following]

principle: He is certainly merciful and gracious, He is certainly great and

mighty. If there is mercy, there can be no might; if there is might, there can

be no mercy! Can one really say that the Holy One, blessed be He, feels mercy

but does not act upon it?32

Akiva’s view emerged in an era of catastrophe—in obvious refer-

ence to the Roman persecutions in the wake of the destruction of the

Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba revolt. Under such horrific cir-

cumstances, it was difficult to accept the notion that God was at once

omnipotent and merciful. Akiva’s decision was therefore to favor one

quality over the other: “R. Akiva and his camp believe [as follows]:

better to reduce one’s faith in His might than to defile [our] trust in

His mercy.”33 Divine mercy was to be upheld at the expense of divine

omnipotence.

The two positions that Akiva and Ishmael have on God’s reaction

to human suffering impact on their respective understandings of hu-

man suffering itself, an issue dealt with in section 6 of the first volume

of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot.34 Akiva, with his

optimistic spirituality, has a highly positive view of suffering because it

allows human beings to participate in divine suffering and thus draw

close to God. It is this conception that explains the enigmatic rabbinic

doctrine of “sufferings of love” ( yirsurin shel ahavah), which Heschel

attributes to the school of Akiva. Suffering is an expression of divine

love because it elevates and uplifts individuals in allowing them to par-

ticipate in the suffering of God and to become intimate with Him. It

218 Robert Eisen

is not that Akiva denies that suffering can be expiation for sin. In some

instances, it functions precisely in this role. It is just that suffering can-

not always be explained in this manner, and in such cases it must serve

a more spiritual function.35 Ishmael, who finds the notion of divine

suffering unacceptable, rejects Akiva’s position on human suffering.

For him, suffering is for the purpose of expiating sin and nothing

more.36

The approaches of Akiva and Ishmael lead to two different views

on divine justice. From what I have said thus far, it is no surprise that

Akiva staunchly believes in God’s justice. Once again, Akiva’s stance

reflects a positive and optimistic spirituality. Thus, it is Akiva who is

the source of the rabbinic dictum that if the righteous suffer, then it is

because God is punishing them for the small number of sins they have

committed in this world in order to reward them without reserve in

the afterlife; conversely, if the wicked are allowed to prosper, then it is

in order to reward them for their few good deeds in this world and to

punish them mercilessly in the afterlife. Ishmael’s sober rationalism

once again makes him much less sanguine than Akiva. In his opinion,

the righteous and the wicked should get their just desserts in this

world, and if this is not the case, then one need not vindicate God. It

is therefore the school of Ishmael that is responsible for rabbinic

sources that protest Israel’s suffering and God’s apparent absence in

times of need.37

A number of other disagreements between Ishmael and Akiva fall

into place from their respective positions. Because Akiva places great

emphasis on achieving love of God, it is no surprise that he embraces

martyrdom. There is, after all, no stronger statement of one’s love for

God than being willing to give one’s life for Him. It is for this reason

that Akiva insisted on teaching Torah despite Roman decrees forbid-

ding it and was willing to die as a result—even though the imperative

for Torah study is not one of the commandments for which one is

normally required to be martyred. Ishmael’s sobriety opposes such ex-

tremism and places strict limits on martyrdom.38

What, then, do we learn from all this regarding Heschel’s views on

the Holocaust? A great deal, I would argue. There is good reason to

believe that Heschel saw in R. Akiva a precedent for his own thinking

on the Holocaust. To summarize Heschel’s construction, Akiva lived in

a time of unprecedented catastrophe for the Jewish people, and he

grappled with that challenge by formulating a theology that accentu-

ates the idea of divine pathos and brings new meaning to it. Akiva’s

contribution to this notion is that God is not only concerned with the

welfare of the Jewish people but actually suffers with them. Yet Akiva

never gave up believing in God’s justice. He maintained an optimistic

spirituality and a stubborn faith in God’s goodness despite the persecu-


tions he witnessed and experienced. If we now refer back to Heschel’s

Holocaust theology discussed earlier, then it becomes evident that in

most respects Heschel follows precisely in Akiva’s footsteps. Heschel

also grappled with unprecedented catastrophe in his own time, and

like Akiva he developed a theology centered on the notion of divine

pathos as the appropriate response to it. Heschel also adopts Akiva’s

innovation that God personally suffers alongside the Jewish people in

their time of need; as we have seen, Heschel believed that the modern-

day evil epitomized by the Holocaust had forced God into exile and

hiding. At the same time, Heschel follows Akiva in insisting that God

is just and that all responsibility for evil resides with human beings. He

too expresses an optimistic faith that rises defiantly above despair.39

One might also speculate further by saying that Akiva provides

Heschel not just with a theological model for dealing with the Holo-

caust but also with a model as to how one should act in the face of

such evil. Although, to my knowledge, Heschel at no point addresses

the issue of martyrdom in his reflections on the Holocaust, one senses

that he admires Akiva’s boldness and defiance in the face of persecu-

tion and his willingness to be martyred. Note especially the following

passage:

The love of God burned in the heart of R. Akiva like a blazing fire. With this

glowing passion, he longed all his life to be a martyr. As he died with passion,

so he lived with passion.

The Children of Israel in that generation were “persecuted and oppressed,

despised, harassed, and overcome with afflictions.” “It is for your sake that we

are slain all day long, / that we are regarded as sheep for the slaughter” (Ps.

44:23). Nonetheless, they did not object to the suffering and were not disloyal

to the covenant of God.40

Here Akiva’s willingness to die is seen by Heschel as paradigmatic

of the stubbornness of the Jewish people as a whole in maintaining

their covenant with God in the face of the persecution.

Most important, we can now answer the original question posed at

the beginning of this analysis, which is whether the opening dedication

and midrashic citation at the beginning of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-

Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot are of any significance to the content of the

work. The answer would seem to be in the affirmative. A significant

portion of the first volume of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah

shel ha-Dorot spells out the differences between the schools of Ishmael

and Akiva on evil and suffering, and as I have shown, Heschel appears

to identify with Akiva’s viewpoint as the best response to the Holo-

caust. Heschel’s dedication of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah

shel ha-Dorot to his relatives who perished in the death camps therefore

foreshadows that discussion.

Perhaps even more significant is the midrashic passage from Tan-

huma that follows Heschel’s dedication and was cited above:

220 Robert Eisen

“The Rock!—His deeds are perfect, / Yea, all His ways are just” (Deut. 32:4):

If another person had said it, they would have derided him saying: How does

this one know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He? However, Moses our

rabbi—of whom it is said, “He made His ways known to Moses, / His deeds to

the children of Israel” (Ps. 103:7)—he is fit to proclaim, “The Rock!—His deeds

are perfect, / Yea, all His ways are just.”41

This passage fits perfectly with Akiva’s position in its unqualified

support for the notion of divine justice. In fact, a similar rabbinic source

is explicitly cited by Heschel when he discusses Akiva’s position on

divine justice later on in Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-

Dorot:

“The Rock!—His deeds are perfect” (Deut. 32:4): His actions in regard to all

creatures of the world are perfect; there can be no complaint whatsoever about

His works. None can look at himself and say, “Why should the generation of

the flood have been swept away by water? Why should the people of the Tower

(of Babel) have been scattered from one end of the earth to the other? Why

should the people of Sodom have been swept away by fire and brimstone?

Why should Aaron have assumed the priesthood? Why should David have as-

sumed the kingship? Why have Korah and his followers been swallowed up by

the earth?” Therefore the verse goes on to say, “For all His ways are just.”42

Thus, by adjoining the Tanhuma text to the opening dedication in

Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Heschel is signal-

ing to us that he supports Akiva’s position on divine justice delineated

later on in the body of the work and that he believes in that position

as the appropriate response to the murder of his relatives in the death

camps. We thus have confirmation that Heschel saw in Akiva the model

for grappling with the Holocaust. One might also add that Akiva’s posi-

tion is significant for Heschel in memorializing his relatives because

Akiva himself was martyred. Akiva would be an effective spokesman

for the notion of divine justice in a way that Heschel himself could not

be, seeing as he escaped persecution by leaving Nazi Germany before

the war.

I would like to reiterate that I am not challenging the view that

the central focus of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-

Dorot is revelation. However, it would appear that the issue of evil and

Heschel’s own struggles with the Holocaust are important here as well,

in particular in the first volume. His discussion of evil and suffering

is clearly meant to explain the opening dedication and accompanying

midrashic citation.

I would like to conclude with one final observation. One wonders

whether it is coincidental that the first volume of Torah Min ha-Sha-

mayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot was published in 1962—the same

year that The Prophets was published—and that both works are dedi-

cated to victims of the Holocaust. The Prophets is dedicated to all victims


of the Holocaust, while Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-

Dorot is dedicated specifically to Heschel’s relatives.

Perhaps Heschel intended that these works serve a complementary

function. The Prophets is Heschel’s attempt to deal with the Holocaust

as a universal problem for all humanity. Given the revered status of

the biblical prophets among Jews and Christians alike, these figures

were the perfect focus for this purpose. Moreover, Heschel saw in the

prophets a message that he believed is the only effective answer to the

Holocaust, which is that God is defined by His capacity for pathos, He

is emotionally involved with human beings, and He desires that we

live lives of holiness. The first volume of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-

Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot grapples with the Holocaust as well—but this

time as a problem specifically for the Jewish people and Jewish history.

For this purpose, Heschel looked to R. Akiva as the figure who, he

believed, offers the appropriate theological response to Jewish persecu-

tion. It is a solution based on the biblical prophets and their notion of

divine pathos, but it carries those ideas significantly further in response

to the specific historical context. That Heschel’s focus here is the Holo-

caust as a Jewish problem explains why he dedicates this work to his

own relatives who died in the death camps rather than to the victims

of the Holocaust in general. Here he was moved by the more personal

and Jewish dimension of the issue.43

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

NOTES

1. This has already been noted in Morris M. Faierstein, “Heschel and the

Holocaust,” Modern Judaism, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1999), p. 255. See also the sources

cited in Faierstein, “Heschel and the Holocaust,” p. 261n1.

2. Edward M. Kaplan, Holiness in Words: Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Poetics of

Piety (Albany, 1996); Faierstein, “Heschel and the Holocaust,” pp. 255–275.

See also Zachary Braiterman, (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in

Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (Princeton, 1998), pp. 67–71.

3. A. J. Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, 2

Vols. (London, 1962–1965). (On the English title page, this work is titled Theol-

ogy of Ancient Judaism.)

4. Tanhuma, Yitro, chap. 7. All translations from Hebrew texts are mine

unless otherwise specified.

5. Discussion of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot is con-

spicuously absent in most studies on Heschel. Notable exceptions include Ar-

nold Eisen, “Re-reading Heschel on the Commandments,” Modern Judaism,

Vol. 9, No. 1 (1989), pp. 11–16; and Lawrence Perlman, Abraham Heschel’s Ideas

of Revelation (Atlanta, 1989), pp. 119–133.

222 Robert Eisen

6. Kaplan, Holiness in Words, pp. 115–133.

7. Ibid., pp. 115–123.

8. A. J. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (New York,

1951), pp. 150–158.

9. Ibid., p. 151.

10. Ibid., p. 151.

11. Ibid., p. 153.

12. Kaplan, Holiness in Words, pp. 123–126.

13. Ibid., pp. 126–127.

14. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 154; Kaplan, Holiness in Words, p. 127.

15. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, pp. 154–155.

16. That connection is, in fact, strongly implied in the introduction to The

Prophets, where Heschel tells us that he was driven to study these figures be-

cause of the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of Western intellectual culture,

which he holds responsible for the troubled times in which he lives: “In the

academic environment in which I spent my student years, philosophy had be-

come an isolated, self-subsisting, self-indulgent entity, a Ding an sich, encourag-

ing suspicion instead of love of wisdom. The answers offered were unrelated

to the problems, indifferent to the travail of a person who became aware of

man’s suspended sensitivity in the face of stupendous challenge, indifferent to

a situation in which good and evil became irrelevant, in which man became

increasingly callous to catastrophe and ready to suspend the principle of truth.

I was slowly led to the realization that some of the terms, motivations, and

concerns which dominate our thinking may prove destructive of the roots of

human responsibility and treasonable to the ultimate ground of human solidar-

ity. The challenge we are all exposed to, and the dreadful shame that shatters

our capacity for inner peace, defy the ways and patterns of our thinking. One

is forced to admit that some of the causes and motives of our thinking have

led our existence astray, that speculative prosperity is no answer to spiritual

bankruptcy. It was the realization that the right coins were not available in the

common currency that drove me to study the thought of the prophets” (The

Prophets [New York, 1962], Vol. 1, pp. xiv–xv). Heschel is speaking here about

the motivations that caused him to study the prophets before World War II

and hence before the Holocaust. As is well known, Heschel wrote his disserta-

tion on the prophets while studying at the University of Berlin; it was later

published in German in 1936, and the English edition of The Prophets is an

expansion of the German version. Yet Heschel’s views on the prophets were

formulated in Europe in the shadow of the rise of Nazism, and therefore when

Heschel tells us here that he was inspired to study the prophets because of the

moral and spiritual bankruptcy of his intellectual environment, one can assume

that the Holocaust, which is most emblematic of that failure, is not far from

his thinking. And because the essential message of the prophets is the idea of

divine pathos, that conception, as Kaplan surmises, clearly stands at the center

of Heschel’s response to the Holocaust.

One question that Kaplan does not take up is where Heschel’s reflections

on the Holocaust fit in with those of other post-Holocaust thinkers. My sense

is that in many respects he is closest to Eliezer Berkovits, who in Faith after

the Holocaust (New York, 1973) also emphasizes human responsibility in the


Holocaust. However, Heschel goes even further than Berkovits in placing the

responsibility for the Holocaust on human beings. Berkovits argues that

the Holocaust can be explained as an example of hester panim in which God

withdraws His presence from the world in order to provide human beings with

the opportunity to exercise free will for good or for evil. Heschel’s view is that

God did not voluntarily withdraw here; He was forcibly exiled.

17. Faierstein, “Heschel and the Holocaust,” pp. 255–275.

18. Ibid., p. 257.

19. Ibid., pp. 258–260.

20. Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1,

pp. xli–lvi. The major differences between R. Akiva and R. Ishmael are encap-

sulated in the following passage: “In the teaching of R. Ishmael are rationality

and lucidity. His greatness is in polite plain-sense exposition [be-pashtanut]

which is welcoming to all; his language is gentle and kind for [all] creatures.

In the teaching of R. Akiva are exaltation and prophetic vision [hazon]; his

language is a ladder standing on the ground with its head reaching the heav-

ens. Here there is clarity; there, depth. Here there is abstention from the won-

drous; there, thirst to grasp the concealed and the wondrous” (Heschel, Torah

Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1, p. xlviii).

21. This is the case even in instances when such aggadic statements are

attributed to rabbis who have no direct connection to Akiva or Ishmael. On

many occasions, Heschel also argues that aggadic statements can be under-

stood as attempting to combine the two approaches.


p. xli.

23. Ibid., p. xli.

24. Ibid., p. ix.

25. Ibid., pp. lvii–lix. Heschel’s observation is here is somewhat perplexing.

The notion that Akiva’s view became dominant may be true for the Middle

Ages, but it is not necessarily true for the modern period. Since the middle of

the nineteenth century, Jews have widely embraced a number of rationalistic

approaches to Judaism, ranging from that of classical Reform Judaism, with its

marriage of Kantianism and Judaism, to the academic study of Judaism that

has come to dominate the universities.


pp. 65–133.

27. As noted above, divine pathos refers to the notion that God’s inner emo-

tional life is defined by care and concern for human events. This idea is dealt

with extensively in Heschel’s The Prophets.


pp. 65–68. It is not entirely clear how in Heschel’s thinking Akiva’s view ad-

vances beyond that of the biblical prophets. There are places in Heschel’s study

of the prophets in which he seems to impute a position to them similar to that

of Akiva. See, for example, Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 1, pp. 109–110, 151.

According to Heschel, Akiva’s approach is responsible for other motifs in

aggadic sources that play on the notion that God is personally affected by hu-

man events. The notion found in some texts that the shekhinah is in exile with

the Jewish people comes out of Akiva’s way of thinking. The same goes for the

224 Robert Eisen

notion that the actions of the righteous have a salutary effect on God while

those of the wicked weaken Him. See Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-As-

peklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1, pp. 68–75.


p. 73.

30. Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, p. 81.

Event here refers to occurrences that are inherently unpredictable, dynamic,

and spontaneous. A similar statement can be found in Vol. 1, pp. xliv–xlv.

31. Ibid., p. 83.

32. Ibid., p. 83.

33. Ibid., p. 83.

34. Ibid., pp. 93–111.

35. Ibid., pp. lxv, 84, 93–96, 98.

36. Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, pp. lxv,

100, 104. Heschel is again troubled by theological difficulties in Akiva’s ap-

proach. Does the doctrine of “sufferings of love” not turn everything on its

head? Does it not suggest that evil is good? This would be true, Heschel tells

us, if “sufferings of love” were ends in themselves. This, however, is not the

case. “Sufferings of love” allow us to express our love for God in its truest

sense because that love requires that we look at God’s world in as favorable a

light as possible—even the evil within it. “Sufferings of love” therefore serve an

end that is indeed good and are thus themselves good. See Heschel, Torah Min

ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1, p. 98.


pp. lxv, 100–101. The positions of Akiva and Ishmael are also laid out in

Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1, sec. 10,

pp. 172–176.


pp. xliii, 111–116. The two approaches of Akiva and Ishmael also lead to differ-

ent stances on eschatology. Akiva’s longing to be intimate with God results in

looking forward to the afterlife and in dwelling on expectation of the messianic

era, which is seen as close at hand. Ishmael’s rationalism causes him to empha-

size the value of life in this world, to warn people from indulging in specula-

tions about the messianic world, and to encourage them to wait patiently for

its arrival. See Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot,

Vol. 1, pp. xliii–xlv.

39. See also where Heschel (Man Is Not Alone, pp. 286–287) describes how

the pious man faces conflict and despair with calm faith—a viewpoint again in

the spirit of Akiva’s thinking.


p. 161, quoting b. Yevamot 47a. See also Heschel, Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-

Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot, Vol. 1, p. 116.

41. Tanhuma, Yitro, chap. 7.

42. Sifre Deuteronomy 307. The translation is adapted from that of Reuven

Hammer, Sifre Deuteronomy (New Haven, 1984), p. 311.

43. What requires further examination is the relationship between the two

volumes of Torah Min ha-Shamayim be-Aspeklariyah shel ha-Dorot. That relation-

ship is not entirely clear. The first volume, published in 1962, lays out the


differences between Ishmael and Akiva on a wide range of issues, prominent

among which is the question of suffering. The second volume focuses almost

exclusively on the differences between the two with respect to revelation. The

second volume also has its own introduction and its own midrashic inscription

that relates directly to the theme of revelation. Thus, the second volume, while

expanding on themes already introduced in the first volume, has its own iden-

tity in some respects. Yet only a detailed examination of the two volumes will

determine their exact relationship. Also enigmatic is a midrashic citation from

Sifra be-Hukotay 8 that appears on the last page of the second volume. It seems

to be related to the theme of revelation, but it is not cited in full. The last

line, which alludes to the messianic era, is omitted. One wonders whether this

omission was accidental or deliberate on Heschel’s part and, if deliberate, what

its significance is.

a. j. heschel’s rabbinic theology as a response to the holocaust

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