Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Abraham Joshua HeschelRead
In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
Interpretation
Anger can cloud our judgment and shift our focus from seeking truth to defending our own ego.
This quote suggests that when we engage in a controversy and allow ourselves to feel anger, we lose sight of the objective truth. Instead of remaining open-minded and seeking understanding, we become defensive and focus on our personal stake in the matter, which hinders genuine discussion and resolution. Heschel invites us to recognize the importance of emotional control in our pursuit of truth.
In practice
In a debate about climate change, itβs important to focus on facts rather than getting angry at opposing views.
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls.
Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
We worship God through our questions.
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
Whatever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves... how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.
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