The Thought of A. J. Heschel as Reflected in Rosenzweig and Levinas’s Concept of the Absolute Otherness of the Divine

Consider Maimonides` turning our attention to Onkeles’s Aramaic translation of the Bible - how when he translates the perceiving of the Divinity vis-à-vis phenomena of nature he translates simply chaza – he sees. While when the Divine perception is vis-à-vis a situation of justice/injustice he translates ‘it was revealed before It – the Divine’! In other words the Divine does not Itself know of these – justice injustice. Concerning them it is the human being who must recognize them inspired by the Only Totally Unique Difference of the Divine.

So that really it is we who must act on God’s behalf. This is the key idea-experience of Franz Rosenzweig and likewise of Emmanuel Levinas.

As Exodus 33 testifies we cannot really know the Absolute Otherness of the Divine – cannot indeed `see Its face and live` – but only catch glimpses of Its Back as it were. And then take with us this encounter and turn ourselves toward our fellow creature others – especially of those in need. Heschel took-up this mission.

The way Rosenzweig ex-presses it is that we encounter something of the Creator but we can’t really return that in direct relationship back to It. Rather we take that encounter and turn toward our fellow creatures with our response.

So with revelation. Heschel emphasizes the conscious role the Rabbis took upon themselves that they were not at all passive vessels receiving the revelations of the Divine in some sort of uninvolved way.

Heschel himself highlighted his religious response-ability by joining with the Reverend Martin Luther King`s struggle on behalf of equal dignity for all Americans- and likewise by his being one of the leaders of the struggle then on behalf of Soviet Jewry.

Brief passages from Midrash Rabba, Talmud, Hasidoot, Virginia Woolf & Dan Pagis would be part of the textile of this lecture.