Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a Polish-born American theologian, educator, and philosopher who sought to build a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of ancient Jewish tradition. Among other posts, he held the chair of professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York City.

With his birth in Warsaw, Poland, in 1907, Abraham Joshua Heschel entered a family that counted back seven generations of Hasidic rabbis. His father was Rabbi Moshe Mordecai, and his ancestors helped to found the Polish Hasidic movement, a Jewish sect of mystics, in the eighteenth century. Both his father and his mother, Reisel Perlow Heschel, instilled in him a love of learning as he grew up in the orthodox ghetto of Warsaw. As a young man, he wrote poetry, and his collection of Yiddish verse was published years later (1933) in his home city.

Student and Teacher...