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The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man by Susannah Heschel, Abraham Joshua Heschel
5.0
challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Been slowly rereading The Sabbath the last few months. Naturally, I’ve been struggling with faith, since my father passed away unexpectedly almost two years ago far before it was time for him to go and after losing my grandmother, his mother, who passed away in March after a long and rich life. I hoped to find inspiration in Abraham Joshua Heschel’s writing. 

While I truthfully probably only understood half of what Heschel writes in The Sabbath, he writes beautifully and inspires me to think critically of my own life and faith. I find he addresses many of the tensions of Judaism that I am curious about and struggle with - such as the desire to live a pious life vs to live a life of action. He even touches on Zionism and seems to be neutral on the subject. What would he think about the Israel of today? Since man makes the sacred, are the actions of Netanyahu and his ilk the actions of the sacred? 

Regardless, Heschel’s writing is beautiful, as I said. I particularly enjoy the introduction of my edition which is written by his daughter, the equally inspirational and thoughtful Susannah Heschel (of the orange on the Seder plate fame). 

I’ve always returned to The Sabbath, nearly 10 years after reading it for the first time in a class. Perhaps that this the gift Heschel has given us. If Judaism is a religion of time, as he writes, then it is thoroughly appropriate to appreciate his writing on the sacred many times in my life.