The goal of all efforts is to bring about the restitution of the unity of God and the world. The restoration of that unity is a constant process and its accomplishment will be the essence of Messianic redemption.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Man Is Not Alone
Topic: Society & Civil Religion
“The goal of all efforts is to bring about the restitution of the unity of God and the world. The restoration of that unity is a constant process and its accomplishment will be the essence of Messianic redemption.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Wikipedia
Born: January 11, 1907, Warsaw, Poland
Died: December 23, 1972, New York City, NY
Durst, Mose. Unification Culture and the Twenty-First Century. HSA-UWC, 1991, p. 5 [Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (1951)].
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone
From the Jewish perspective, the just and loving God enters into a covenant with His people, in which they are required to live according to His law, with justice, righteousness, and holiness. The Old Testament depicts and explains how man is to remain holy, treat others mercifully, and walk humbly with God. Rabbi Heschel explains how “The self, the fellow-man, and the dimension of the holy are the three dimensions of a mature human concern.” Although Heschel underlines “three” dimensions, he is quite clear that “All of our life hangs by a thread–the faithfulness of man to the concern of God.”
Then the central question of culture for the truly religious person is: What is the concern of God? For the Jew, God’s concern is how people behave in the world toward Him, toward others, and toward themselves. The Messianic ideal of Judaism is an ideal to be realized in the world…. The transformation of culture, Heschel and other rabbis would explain, must begin from within the individual and then develop outward. Thus, the spiritual force moves the material forms of culture.
–Mose Durst, Ph. D. [Unification Culture and the 21st Century,1991].