Abraham Joshua Heschel

Sacred Aging

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“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” Heschel

Rabbi Heschel ‘s speech to the White House Conference on Aging was entitled, “To Grow in Wisdom”. His words, “Just to be is a blessing^. Just to live is holy”, were intended to serve as an antidote to the idolatry of youth and the “twin phenomena of our civilization, contempt for the old end the traumatic fear of getting old.”

Heschel wrote: “Old age is a major challenge to the inner life; it takes both wisdom end strength not to succumb to it. According to all the standards we employ socially, as well as privately, the aged person is condemned as inferior. ^in terms of manpower he is s liability, p burden, s drain on our resources. Conditioned to operate as s machine for making and spending money, with all other relationships dependent upon its efficiency, the moment the machine is out of order and beyond repair, one begins to feel like a ghost without a sense of reality. The aged may be described as a person who does not dream any more, devoid of ambition, and living in fear of losing his status. Regarding himself as a person who has outlived his usefulness, he feels as if he had to apologize for being alive.” (Growing in Wisdom)

“Old age has the vicious tendency of depriving a person of the present. The aged thinks of himself as belonging to the past. But it is precisely the openness to the present that he must strive for. The marvel is discovered in celebration… all it takes to sanctify time is God, a soul and a moment.” (Heschel’s speech to the White House Conference on Aging)

How poignant are Abraham Heschel’s words:  ”The goal is not to keep the old man busy, but to remind him that every moment is an opportunity for greatness.” He continued, “Inner purification is at least important as hobbies and recreation. The elimination of resentments, of residues of bitterness, of jealousies and wrangling, is certainly a goal for which one must strive.” And, “Only a few people realize that it is in the days of our youth that we must prepare for old age.”

Heschel wrote, “The tragedy is that old age comes upon us as a shock for which we are unprepared. If life is defined exclusively in terms of functions and activities, is it still worth living when these functions and activities are sharply curtailed?” Of course, there is the related question of the worth of “life defined exclusively in terms of functions end activities.”

The Spiritually Dull

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Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel painfully describes the typical worship experience* “Our services are conducted with pomp end precision* The rendition of the liturgy is smooth* Everything is presents decorum, voice, ceremony. But one thing is missing LIFE. One knows in advance what will ensue. There will be no surprise, no adventure of the soul…Nothing unpredictable must happen to the person who prays. He will attain no insight into the words he reads. He will attain no now perspectives for the life he lives” (1)

Rabbi Heschel continues, “what was will be, and there is nothing new in the synagogue!” (2) How true are these words despite the countless hours spent in evolving “creative” or “original” services. Service innovators have tried creative writing, jazz music, rock music, acid rock music? dance, drama., multi-media, film, camp settings, retreats, and a wide variety of other creative tactics, including resorting to traditional prayer.

The failure of these techniques to be truly satisfying and therefore reused is understood by one reform rabbi who succinctly presents the underlying problem of all these creative attempts? “Our hang-up is that an experimental service can only touch the symptoms, but not the cause of our trouble.”’

By breaking into and disturbing the dulling routine of formal worship, these creative efforts provide momentary relief to the problem Heschel so acutely describes “people who are otherwise sensitive, vibrant, arresting, sit there aloof, listless, lazy. Those who are spiritually dull cannot praise the Lord.” (3)

The symptoms, however, are of the utmost importance to us. Indeed, at the present moment these data of our own experience are more useful to us than even thousands of pages written about what Jewish Prayer “should be” according to the texts. To start with what prayer or worship should be rather than to start with our own. experience? would’ be like a physician who refused to see his patients because they were sick, exhorting them meanwhile that they should feel better.

Using this medical-scientific approach, we must begin with the symptoms, probe deeper into the underlying causes, and then treat the disease. In allowing ourselves to get involved with such a task, we take on the responsibility of openness to recognizing and correcting whatever errors we might make* while searching for the underlying causes, we must be open to the validity of the symptoms and continue to treat them, for until we can eliminate the pain, we might certainly minimize it! Even the most superficial of the creative efforts confirm the experience of most worshippers, namely that something is not as it should be. To stop the creative efforts would be to deny the experience so many of us have, and it is the phenomena of the denial of experience – which seems the very basis of our problem.

Rabbi Heschel’s apt paraphrase of the psalms verse “the dead cannot praise the Lord1 “Those who are spiritually dull cannot praise the Lord” presents us immediately with two concepts , that must concern us, spiritual dullness, and praise of the Lord. -It is the contention of this writer that the spiritual dullness is the symptom of the problems involved in the whole matter of Praising the Lord. Indeed, in our contemporary world, the imperative of our traditional call to worship, “Praise Ye the Lord to whom All Praise is Due”, might well be seen as a prescription error.

The Purpose of Prayer – to Shock

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Abraham Heschel wrote, “We have lost our ability to be shocked…the human soul is too limited to experience dismay in proportion to what happened at Auschwitz, in Hiroshima….” (”0n Prayer”, reprinted in Petuchowski, Understanding Jewish Prayer)

It is the purpose of prayer to shock the human soul into the awareness of the meaning of his or her existence…”Prayer should be an act of catharsis, of purgation of emotions as well as a process of self-clarification, of examining priorities, of elucidating responsibility ….”

“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”

Prayer is not automatic, instant – the worshipper cannot be simply plugged in or “turned on.” Heschel writes, “Prayer will not come about by default. It requires education, training, reflection, contemplation. It is not enough to join others; it is necessary to build a sanctuary within, brick by brick, instances of, meditation, moments of devotion,” (op cit.)

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