ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL
from Thunder In the Soul: To Be Known by God

Reverence is one of man’s answers to the presence of the mystery. This is why, in contradistinction to other emotions, it does not rush to be spoken. When we stand in awe, our lips do not demand speech; we know that if we spoke, we would deprave ourselves. In such moments talk is an abomination. All we want is to pause, to be still, that the moment may last. It is like listening to great music; how it reaps the yield from the fertile soil of stillness; we are swept by it without being able to appraise it.”

from Plough Daily Dig

Source: The meaning of the things we revere is beyond the grasp of our understanding.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 – 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored several widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was a leader in the civil rights movement. –Debora Buerk, Editor