Heschel, Abraham Joshua

Heschel, Abraham Joshua

HESCHEL, ABRAHAM JOSHUA (1907–1972), was a Jewish scholar and philosopher of religion. Born and raised in Warsaw, Heschel received his training in the methods of modern scientific research in Berlin, and wrote most of his mature works in the United States. Heschel was born into an intensely traditional Hasidic milieu: He was descended on his father's side from Dov Ber of Mezhirich, successor of the BeSHT (acronym of the Baʿal Shem Ṭov, Yisraʾel ben Eliʿezer), founder of the Hasidic movement that flourished among eastern European Jews in the eighteenth century; Avraham Yehoshuʿa Heschel, known as "the Apter rebe"; and Yisraʾel of Rizhyn. On his mother's side, he was descended from Levi Yitsḥaq of Berdichev and Pinḥas of Korets.

As a youth, Heschel received traditional training in Talmud and rabbinic lore, in which he excelled, and immersed himself in the world of Jewish mysticism, the literature of Qabbalah. Having decided to acquire a modern Western education, he enrolled in a secular Yiddish Realgymnasium in Vilna (now Vilnius), and in 1927 he moved to Berlin, where he attended the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and the University of Berlin. His doctoral dissertation (1933), dealing with the phenomenon of prophetic consciousness, was published in 1936 (Die Prophetie).

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